Examples of Positivist sociology in the following topics:
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- One of the most influential early figures in sociology was Auguste Comte who proposed a positivist sociology with a scientific base.
- Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology.
- Comte's final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development.
- Instead, today, Comte is remembered for imparting to sociology a positivist orientation and a demand for scientific rigor.
- Today, sociologists following Comte's positivist orientation employ a variety of scientific research methods.
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- Early sociological studies considered the field of sociology to be similar to the natural sciences, like physics or biology.
- This also resulted in sociology being recognized as an empirical science.
- As a result, an additional goal was proposed for sociology.
- The contrast between positivist sociology and the verstehen approach has been reformulated in modern sociology as a distinction between quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, respectively.
- Qualitative sociology generally opts for depth over breadth.
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- Weber departed from positivist sociology, instead emphasizing Verstehen, or understanding, as the goal of sociology.
- Max Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself.
- In 1919, he established a sociology department at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
- As opposed to positivists like Comte and Durkheim, Weber was a key proponent of methodological antipositivism.
- In the end, the study of the sociology of religion, according to Weber, focused on one distinguishing fact about Western culture, the decline of beliefs in magic.
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- Sociology embodies several tensions, such as those between quantitative and qualitative methods, between positivist and interpretive orientations, and between objective and critical approaches.
- Positivist sociology (also known as empiricist) attempts to predict outcomes based on observed variables.
- Interpretive sociology attempts to understand a culture or phenomenon on its own terms.
- Early sociological studies considered the field to be analogous to the natural sciences, like physics or biology.
- The positivist approach to social science seeks to explain and predict social phenomena, often employing a quantitative approach.
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- Like the distinction drawn between positivist sociology and Verstehen sociology, there is - as noted above in the elaboration of general scientific methods - often a distinction drawn between two types of sociological investigation: quantitative and qualitative.
- Quantitative methods of sociological research approach social phenomena from the perspective that they can be measured and/or quantified.
- Qualitative methods of sociological research tend to approach social phenomena from the Verstehen perspective.
- Qualitatively oriented sociologists tend to employ different methods of data collection and analysis, including: participant observation, interviews, focus groups, content analysis, visual sociology, and historical comparison.
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- Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline.
- Comte's final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development.
- In the United States, the first Sociology course was taught at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1890 under the title Elements of Sociology (the oldest continuing sociology course in America).
- While arriving at a verstehen-like understanding of a culture employs systematic methodologies like the positivistic approach of predicting human behavior, it is often a more subjective process.
- The contrast between positivist sociology and the verstehen approach has been reformulated in modern sociology as a distinction between quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, respectively.
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- Lester Ward, the first president of the American Sociological Association, is generally thought of as the founder of American sociological study.
- He served as the first president of the American Sociological Society, which was founded in 1905 (and which later changed its name to its current form, the American Sociological Association), and was appointed Chair of Sociology at Brown University in 1906.
- Like Comte and the positivist founders of sociology, Ward embraced the scientific ethos.
- As he put it in the preface to Dynamic Sociology:
- Though devoted to developing sociology as a rigorous science, he also believed sociology had unique potential as a tool to better society.
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- During the late 19th and early 20th century time period, the positivist school also emerged in sociological thought.
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- Herbert Spencer created what he called "sociology," a synthetic philosophy that tried to find a set of rules explaining social behavior.
- Though Auguste Comte coined the term "sociology," the first book with the term sociology in its title was written in the mid-19th century by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer.
- This assumption led Spencer, like Comte, to adopt positivism as an approach to sociological investigation; the scientific method was best suited to uncover the laws he believed explained social life.
- Though Spencer is rightly credited with making a significant contribution to early sociology, his attempt to introduce evolutionary ideas into the realm of social science was ultimately unsuccessful.
- Critics of Spencer's positivist synthetic philosophy argued that the social sciences were essentially different from the natural sciences and that the methods of the natural sciences—the search for universal laws was inappropriate for the study of human society.
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- Further, Durkheim placed himself in the positivist tradition, meaning that he thought of his study of society as dispassionate and scientific.