Puru DubeyAIR 86 · CSE 2025 · 304 wordsTheir whole copy
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The concepts of fact, value & objectivity are deeply embedded in sociology's attempt to provide an understanding of social reality.
Body · points and prose
FACT, VALUE & OBJECTIVITY
Facts refer to the ontological aspects of reality. For example, Arunta tribes practices totemism is a fact.
Values on the other hand are subjective notions of relative importance of things. Ex: whether Arunta tribes are primitive is a statement of value and not fact.
Objectivity in social research refers to the ability of the researcher to keep the research free from subjective biases and predisposition. It is an attempt to separate fact from values.
Ex: Durkheim wanted to create an objective sociology by use of statistics, correlational analysis and comparative study.
VALUE-FREE SOCIOLOGY DEBATE
Whether sociology can be value free or not is a deeply contested debate in sociology.
VALUE-FREE SOCIOLOGY
Positivists like Emile Durkheim saw social reality as objective thing out there which could be studied by multivariate analysis of statistics. In his study of suicide, Durkheim gave a general law of social suicide rate without attending to values.
However, this remains contested.
VALUES DO CREEP IN
Max Weber informs us how values decide the selection of topics by researchers. Ex: his choice of Protestant ethics is based on his own mother.
Further, social actors are themselves thinking beings who imbue meanings and motives to social action. Ex: Protestants worked hard because they believed in doctrine of predestination.
Even in later stages, values do creep in. MN Srinivas' brahminical background is seen as the reason he is unable to see caste violence in village studies (by Dalit scholars).
VALUE-FREE SOCIOLOGY NOT DESIRABLE
Close · a summary
Scholars of post-modernist tradition say that separation of fact and value reflects power-structures and hence must be discarded.
Thus, while sociology began to be a value-free science, it remains a contested task.