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Insocial science,antipositivism (alsointerpretivism,negativism[citation needed] orantinaturalism) is a theoretical stance which proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with themethods of investigation utilized within thenatural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a differentepistemology. Fundamental to that antipositivist epistemology is the belief that the concepts and language researchers use in their research shape their perceptions of the social world they are investigating and seeking to define.[1]
Interpretivism (anti-positivism) developed among researchers dissatisfied withpost-positivism, the theories of which they considered too general and ill-suited to reflect the nuance and variability found in human interaction. Because the values and beliefs of researchers cannot fully be removed from their inquiry, interpretivists believe researchon human beingsby human beings cannot yield objective results. Thus, rather than seeking an objective perspective, interpretivists look for meaning in the subjective experiences of individuals engaging in social interaction. Many interpretivist researchers immerse themselves in the social context they are studying, seeking to understand and formulate theories about a community or group of individuals by observing them from the inside. Interpretivism is an inductive practice influenced by philosophical frameworks such ashermeneutics,phenomenology, andsymbolic interactionism.[2] Interpretive methods are used in many fields of the social sciences, includinghuman geography,sociology,political science,cultural anthropology, among others.
Beginning withGiambattista Vico, in the early eighteenth century, and later withMontesquieu, the study of natural history and human history were separate fields of intellectual enquiry. Natural history is not under human control, whereas human history is a human creation. As such, antipositivism is informed by anepistemological distinction between the natural world and the social realm. The natural world can only be understood by its external characteristics, whereas the social realm can be understood externally and internally, and thus can be known.[3]
In the early nineteenth century, intellectuals, led by theHegelians, questioned the prospect of empirical social analysis.[clarification needed][citation needed]Karl Marx died before the establishment of formal social science, but nonetheless rejected thesociological positivism ofAuguste Comte—despite his attempt to establish ahistorical materialist science of society.[4]
The enhanced positivism ofÉmile Durkheim served as foundation of modern academicsociology andsocial research, yet retained many mechanical elements of its predecessor.[clarification needed]Hermeneuticians such asWilhelm Dilthey theorized in detail on the distinction between natural and social science ('Geisteswissenschaft'), whilstneo-Kantian philosophers such asHeinrich Rickert maintained that the social realm, with its abstract meanings and symbolisms, is inconsistent with scientific methods of analysis.Edmund Husserl, meanwhile, negated positivism through the rubric ofphenomenology.[5]
At the turn of the twentieth century, the first wave of German sociologists formally introducedverstehende (interpretive) sociological antipositivism, proposing research should concentrate on human culturalnorms,values,symbols, and social processes viewed from a resolutelysubjective perspective.[6][clarification needed] As an antipositivist, however, one seeks relationships that are not as "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable"[7][failed verification] as those pursued by natural scientists.
The interaction between theory (or constructedconcepts) and data is always fundamental insocial science and this subjection distinguishes it from physical science.[according to whom?] Durkheim himself noted the importance of constructing concepts in the abstract (e.g. "collective consciousness" and "social anomie") in order to form workable categories for experimentation.[clarification needed] Both Weber andGeorg Simmel pioneered theverstehen (or 'interpretative') approach toward social science; a systematic process in which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous people, on their own terms and from their own point of view.[6]
[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpretthe meaning of social action and thereby give acausal explanation of the way in which theaction proceeds and theeffects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is meant the human behaviour when and to the extent the agent or agents see it assubjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a) the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the 'meaning' thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of action, such as sociology and history, and any kind ofa priori discipline, such as jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.
Through the work ofSimmel in particular, sociology acquired a possible character beyond positivist data-collection or grand, deterministic systems of structural law. Relatively isolated from the sociological academy throughout his lifetime, Simmel presented idiosyncratic analyses of modernity more reminiscent of thephenomenological andexistential writers than of Comte orDurkheim, paying particular concern to the forms of, and possibilities for, social individuality.[9] His sociology engaged in aneo-Kantian critique of the limits of human perception.[10]
Antipositivism thus holds there is no methodological unity of the sciences: the three goals of positivism –description, control, and prediction – are incomplete, since they lack anyunderstanding.[citation needed] Science aims at understanding causality so control can be exerted. If this succeeded in sociology, those with knowledge would be able to control the ignorant and this could lead tosocial engineering.[according to whom?]
This perspective has led to controversy over how one can draw the line betweensubjective andobjective research, much less draw an artificial line between environment and human organization (seeenvironmental sociology), and influenced the study ofhermeneutics. The base concepts of antipositivism have expanded beyond the scope ofsocial science, in fact,phenomenology has the same basic principles at its core. Simply put, positivists see sociology as a science, while anti-positivists do not.[11]
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The antipositivist tradition continued in the establishment ofcritical theory, particularly the work associated with theFrankfurt School of social research. Antipositivism would be further facilitated by rejections of 'scientism'; or scienceas ideology.Jürgen Habermas argues, in hisOn the Logic of the Social Sciences (1967), that
the positivist thesis of unified science, which assimilates all the sciences to a natural-scientific model, fails because of the intimate relationship between the social sciences and history, and the fact that they are based on a situation-specific understanding of meaning that can be explicated onlyhermeneutically ... access to a symbolically prestructured reality cannot be gained by observation alone.[12]
The sociologistZygmunt Bauman argued that
our innate tendency to express moral concern and identify with the Other's wants is stifled in modernity by positivistic science and dogmatic bureaucracy. If the Other does not 'fit in' to modernity's approved classifications, it is liable to be extinguished.[13]
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