Is Sociology a Science

936 Words4 Pages
princes town west secondary school | Sociology | Is sociology a Science? | | Kerdyja Narcis | 10/1/2012 | | Kerdyja Narcis Form 6 L Sociology Sociology cannot be a science because its subjective matter is too varied , abstract and difficult to measure Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Support your response by referring to the characteristics of the discipline of sociology as well as the nature of social behaviour. In response to the question stated above, I disagree with it. In order to, successfully debate the point, we must first define the key concepts. Science according to Tischler 2002 can be defined as a “body of systematically arranged knowledge that shows the operation of genera laws. Science is made up of four components, which are empirical, theoretical, cumulative and objective. The empirical aspect deals with measurable phenomena, the theoretical aspect seeks to uncover casual relationships between phenomena, the cumulative aspect builds up knowledge, moving towards greater understanding of the world, and the objective aspect concerns itself with the objective discovery of the truth. Personal attitudes and bias have no place in science. Many of the initiators of sociology are convinced that it is conceivable to create a science of society based on the same principles and methods as the natural scientists. This attempt to apply natural science approaches to sociology is called positivism. Positivists, such as August Comte and Karl Popper believe that the same techniques and processes used by scientists can be applied to social sciences. They believe that social facts and the behaviour of humans like the behaviour of matter can be objectively observed, expressed as a quantity and measured. These measurements are vital to explain human behaviour. Positivists also believe that based on objective measurements,
Open Document