Science and Sociology: Predictive Power is the Name of the Game

2018

The main thesis of the book is in its title: for sociology to become scientific it has to make predictions. Predictions refer to assertions about yet unexamined facts, be those in the past, present or future. The authors, distinguished sociologists, are not naïve. They are painfully aware of the many difficulties and complexities of their chosen path and try to address many of them. (Curiously, they completely ignore similar arguments made by economists including Milton Friedman's famous 1953 essay on the methodology of positive economics.) Along the way they pick fights with an impressively varied set of schools of thought: interpretative sociology, postmodern sociology, Marxist sociology, historical sociology, ethnography, quantitative sociology based on multivariate statistical analysis and functionalism to name a few. Karl Marx,

The social sciences, as empirical sciences of society, have largely failed. They haven't oped anything vaguely resembling a predictive science of society, or effective solutions to pressing social and economic problems.' Discuss POLI 70771 UID: 8112474 Word Count: 3602 'The social sciences, as empirical sciences of society, have largely failed. They haven't developed anything vaguely resembling a predictive science of society, or effective solutions to pressing social and economic problems.' Discuss Relations background, this essay will use IR typology; therefore, throughout this essay, I will be using the term 'problem solving theories' to describe the empirical sciences, and 'Critical theories' to identify the postpositivist approach. The first section will look at defining the term 'empirical sciences.' Within this section, the term: 'problem solving

LOJ Medical Sciences, 2018

The aim of science is to promote the Good society. This is-since the time of Enlightenment-the meaning of science Kant [1]. At that time science was understood as inherently progressive: contributing to a better, good society Hampson. This progressiveness characterized also sociology a hundred years later when it was established as a science of the society Durkheim [2]. Though now objectivity also was stressed, causing a contradiction between what is-i.e., the objectivity of science-and what ought to be-politics, i.e., the concerns for ideologues. Weber [3]. Thus, it seemed impossible to promote the Good society in the name of science. Understanding and Thinking Sociology is the science of society, but what is society? Is it an object Durkheim [4] A very old notion of society is that it is togetherness Gadamer? How can we come to an answer to the question of what the society is? First, we must make society into a problem. A precondition for answering the question is that society can be something different from the given society that we live in and how this is conceived Kant [1]. The idea that things can be different makes critical thinking possible Kant [1,5]. Critical thinking by necessity starts with the notion that there is a difference between that what "is given" and that what can be. In general, we just repeat that which we have been taught but in order to think-e.g., about society-we must discover the difference between that which "is": the "given" and that which "can be". One may say that thinking starts with this difference and is spontaneously, by nature is critical 1. Is or Ought One might believe that this is obvious to everyone interested in science and social science but on the contrary: it is not so. In "society" and science, society is presented upside down Marx [6]. In science a since then long-lasting distinction was made at the beginning of the 20 th century between that which "is" and that which "ought" to be. Max Weber, an early German sociologist said that science deals with "is" while "ought" to belong to ideology and politics. Weber [7]. For our purpose, elaborating on the meaning of sociology as a science of society it is useful to refer to Wilhelm Dilthey [8], a German contemporary of Weber who made a distinction between "science" and "the human science". He declared "nature we explain,

International Sociology, 2014

Reviews: Sociology of other sciences 119 knowledge. Scientific knowledge and the associated proprietary technologies have become the source of power over nature. However, in reality, power over nature has been translated into power over people. It is this domination of expert knowledge and its nexus with political power that makes mockery of liberty in any substantial sense. (Mallick, 2009: 53) One must address the questions: Who will determine the shape of the future? How will it be done? A more inclusive and democratic process is required, one in which experts and citizens, bureaucrats and politicians, business leaders and activists come together in new configurations. It is desirable that interdisciplinary and interinstitutional research initiatives should start by identifying the real world problems and various facets of the problem. The disciplines that can contribute to map different dimensions of the problem should collaborate to identify shared perspectives and suggest deliverable solutions, and therein lies the significance of the incisively written New Frontiers in Science and Technology Studies.

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2019

This paper addresses a key moment in the development of sociology when its status as a science was criticised from within by ethnomethodologists (Harvey Sacks and Harold Garfinkel), post-Althusserian Marxists (Barry Hindess) and Michel Foucault. These criticisms seemed to come from different sides, but they converged in arguing their positions from the point of view of a proper conception of science through which mainstream sociology was found wanting. Neither secured its own position and each had a similar legacy of a form of interpretivism hostile both to scientific sociology and its critical project. The paper situates this moment and its legacy where both correspondence and coherence criteria for sociological knowledge claims come to be undermined.