Ishan BhatnagarAIR 5 · CSE 2025 · 217 wordsTheir whole copy
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Methodological debate between positivism and interpretivism emerges from - (i) their view of sociology, (ii) orientation on subject matter, which informs (iii) methods used by different schools.
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(i) view of sociology
• Positivists view sociology as a science. Thus, to Comte, sociology was the queen science which would arrive at generalizable laws of society through empirical observation.
• Interpretivists, on the other hand, contest this view. They argue that humans possess consciousness, and thus are fundamentally distinct from natural phenomena (Dilthey).
(ii) orientation towards subject matter
• Positivists → sociology as study of social facts (Durkheim), which are: (i) external to individual, (ii) generalized, (iii) constraining, (iv) observable
• Interpretivists → sociology as study of social action (weber) which involves looking at meanings and motives attached by various social actors to their actions -
(iii) Differential methods
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| Positivism | Interpretivism | |
|---|---|---|
| Nature | Quantitative methods | Qualitative methods |
| Focus | Observable, external, verifiable phenomena | Internal meanings, motives |
| Chief methods | - Census |
- Survey
- Close ended questionnaire
- Statistical analysis
- Structured interviews | - Unstructured interview
- Projective techniques
- Focus group discussions
- Textual Analysis
- Verstehen | | Strengths | - Stronger reliability
- replicability of findings | Stronger validity - better measure of pheno menon |