Sociological Imagination and Investigation Lecture 2: What can we know and how do we know it? The philosophical presuppositions of sociological thinking

ASSESSMENT AND DEADLINES Feb 3 rd – Assessed essay deadline from term one - details from Term one homepage March 6 th – Class observation exercise deadline April 28 th – Assessed essay deadline for term 2 – details in course outline.

In this lecture we will… Introduce some philosophical assumptions that underpin sociological research  ‘Objectivity’ and ‘Subjectivity’  Ontology  Epistemology Introduce some key perspectives in social research  Positivism, realism, interpretevism, post- modernism, feminism

The philosophical presuppositions of sociological thinking In social science, we are researching not inert objects but human agents. The crucial difference between the social and the natural sciences – ‘we’ are both the researchers and the researched – ‘the double hermenutic’ (Giddens) Questions of objectivity and subjectivity are of crucial importance

Objectivity and subjectivity Subjectivity – an inner world of perspectives and meanings Objectivity – an external world outside of human values/experiences. Objectivity and subjectivity inevitably mixed in social sciences. Is this a bad thing? ‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it’ (Marx)

What can we know and how do we know it? Ontology refers to theories concerning what ‘exists’ to be known. Epistemology is used to refer to theories about the ways in which we perceive and know our social world.

Perspectives on social research Positivism ‘Positivism’ has become a catch-all for approaches to social science that model themselves directly on the principles of the natural sciences. The researcher is seen as standing outside of the research and responsible for manipulating the environment in order to test, confirm or refute the impact of this manipulation. The result is the production of ‘laws of human behaviour’ that can be extended to the population in general (e.g media violence and effects). Positivism thus explains human behaviour in terms of cause and effect.

Perspectives on social research Empiricism Empiricist approaches hold that generalisations about behaviour can be generated from ‘facts’ (themselves derived from the collection of data). The difference between positivism and empiricism is in the degree to which theory drives the research. Empiricism is not guided by hypotheses but tends towards the position that ‘the facts speak for themselves’ (e,g, crime rates, opinion polls)

Perspectives on social research Realism Realism holds that the knowledge people have of their social world affects their behaviour The social world does not simply ‘exist’ independently of this knowledge people’s knowledge is partial and incomplete Marx or Freud; There are underlying social structures which can’t be accessed through observation alone Paull Willis Learning to Labour: How working class kids get working class jobs Realism differs from positivism in that it does not assume that we can ‘know’ the world out there independently of the ways in which we describe it.

Perspectives on social research Interpretivism Interpretivism suggests that we can only know with certainty how people name and interpret the world. This implies that we can only know the social world we study via the meanings attached to it by human subjects. A common anthropological approach, e.g Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande, Evans-Pritchard. ‘It (belief in witchcraft) is not an external structure in which he is enclosed. It is the texture of his thought and he cannot think his thought is wrong.’ (1937: 195) Meanings are different and changing. We cannot hold on to the idea of a stable external social ‘reality’.

Perspectives on social research Postmodernism Contemporary postmodernist perspectives share much in common with the principles of ‘relativism’. ‘Relativism’ rejects the idea that there are universal standards against which science can be measured in order to validate its own standards. The notion of ‘science’ or ‘objectivity’ is a product of its historical and cultural context Systems of knowledge can only be as valid as one another

Perspectives on social research Feminism Feminist researchers have developed a distinctive critical epistemology which includes the following key principles: Women’s contributions to the social world have been marginalised historically and this is reflected in research practice. Scientific norms perpetuate the myth of the superiority of men over women through assumptions about ‘innate human nature’ which legitimate and naturalise the social construction of (unequal) gender roles. Gender has been underestimated in explanations of social phenomena. The principle of objectivity should be rejected because it rests on a false separation of researcher from research subjects itself rooted in the false binary of ‘reason’ and ‘emotion’.

Conclusions In sociology the object of research is human agents who are self-aware and name, interpret and articulate their own behaviour. Social scientists do not agree on the best way to generate knowledge because they answer differently basic questions of ontology (what exists to be known) and epistemology (how we know it). Different broad ‘perspectives’, with different ontologies and epistemologies, include: positivism, empiricism, realism, interpretevism, relativism and feminism.