As sociologists our main goal is to understand social situations and look for repeating patterns in society. Sociologists are engaged in rigorous scientific endeavour which requires objectivity and detachment. The main focus of sociology is the group and not the individual. Sociologists attempt to understand the forces that mold individuals, shape their behaviour and thus determine social events. Through a variety of experiences we develop a set of ideas about the world and how it operates.
Theories in Natural science are constructed to explain, predict, and master phenomena. They must be empirically testable or lead to retro dictions that are testable. This is extensively know as the scientific method. The scientific method is one reason is that we put our confidence in scientists. To yield and to develop their theories and conclusions.
Giddens (2009 p.6) defined sociology as ‘‘the scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies and the human world as such’’. He argued further about sociology by suggesting that, ‘‘it is a dazzling and compelling enterprise, as its subject matter is our own behaviour as social beings’’. Hence, it is opined that sociology is an academic tool that broadly looks at human organisms’ lives in order to explain why they act the way they do. Black (1979 p.18) defines common sense as ‘‘the style of discourse by which people understand reality in everyday life”. Sociology is in one way or another related to science and common sense but it is also in many ways distinct from the two.
and of how these identities can be bias on scientific facts. Martin also talks about the effects of science on society. The author introduces Foucault's influence, that science is implicated in how institutions govern individuals and populations. Another focal point of this chapter is how scientific findings are reviewed by their peers to certify knowledge. Martin also explains how knowledge is social and material.
Positivists believe that sociology should base its logic and methods on the natural sciences such as chemistry, biology and physics. They argue that just as there are natural laws governing the behaviour of chemicals, elements, gravity, animals etc so there are social laws governing the behaviour of people. They suggest that these laws originate in the social structure of societies, i.e. the way they are organised. Generally people are the puppets of society and the social forces that underpin it.
Social psychology has in roots in the beginning of the 20th century in America. On the whole it was a positivist approach, using experimental methods to conduct its research – laboratory experiments which were thoroughly objective, it wanted to find the link of cause and effect in individual’s behaviour. It wanted to determine the laws of human nature and prove them using empirical techniques. After World War II the influx of research in social psychology increased, with the emergence of academics such as Asch and Milgram, who were interested the issues of conformity and obedience, partially
Functioning is all a part of life but, can it work in a sociologist standpoint? According to the You May Ask Yourself by Dalton Conley its possible. Throughout Colney’s works in chapter one he explains three major theories. Including the Functionalist theory, conflict theory, and Symbolic Interaction. In the position as a student of sociology, I believe the Functionalist theory best describes society.
Particularly striking in this conception is the notion of inventory, which suggests multiple ontologies and the need to collate. The assumptions about the nature of the world in sociology can be classified into two broad orientations, realism and social constructivism. Realism posits the existence of an objective reality independent of human thoughts and beliefs. Contrary to this position, social constructionism is of the view that reality is not independent of human thoughts and beliefs; rather, it is socially constructed (Oxford dictionary of sociology, 552-553, 609). Berger and Luckmann (1967:15-22) argue that social relativity is inherent in reality and knowledge, hence, its collection is defined by social contexts imperative for sociological analysis.
On the other hand, interpretivists study sociology by putting themselves in the shoes of whom they are studying as this created verstehern. Interpretivists collect qualitative data as part of their studies. The sociologists Comte started the argument by explaining that sociology should use the same approach to research as the natural sciences. Comte went on to explain how data should be collected through the inductive method which is where you examine data and then create a theory. The main argument starts with Durkheim who explains that sociology can be a science.
The sociological theory upholds that, people are not instinctively good or bad, happy or depressed, and intelligent or ignorant, but are rather shaped into their own individuality over time by the interactions, connections and relations that one endures along with the situations and circumstances which are undergone throughout a lifetime. First off what is sociology? Well it is the study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society, or to put it more simply it is the scientific study of social structure. With that is where the understanding of the sociological perspective comes into play. There are two major aspects in regards to the sociological perspective, the first being interaction between social structure and an individual and the idea of two levels of analysis.