BUSHRA RIAZ MPHIL (11) 2014 - 2016

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PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

CHAPTER # 1 - CONCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE

Main Theme:

This chapter seeks to identity the major differences between natural & social sciences which could be

either classified into Matter of Degree or Matter of Kind where matter of degree signifies the level of

complexity a human being encompasses in comparison to electrons/amoebas and matter of kind depicts

the qualitative and quantitative nature differentiating social phenomenon and mass. It presents

different views including Logical Positivism, Semantic & Kuhn’s view to define theory itself then it tries

to capture the reality by taking social sciences as pre-paradigmatic and puts forward queries like may be

social sciences are relatively newer or lacks sustained effort which did not enabled them to gain

paradigmatic status. Finally the chapter delineates Taylor’s contribution of Correlator’s (weak sense of

embodiment - physical biological world) and Interpreter’s approach (strong sense of embodiment - not

only physical/biological characteristics but also interpretations & cultural/historical background).

Issues / Insights:

Are social sciences fundamentally the same as natural sciences?

Does social sciences ought to be like natural sciences?

Are paradigms appropriate ways to conceive the scientific activity?

Conclusion:

In view of the above discussion, since social sciences are diametrically opposed to natural sciences in

terms of both matter of degree and kind, it’s practically impossible to study them in comparison to each

other rather they stand at two extremes of the pole.

Vocabulary

Ontology: study of existence, defines properties, features and other fundamental features of the world

Epistemology: study of knowing, how we could know

Positivism: dealing with only objective, verifiable facts

Efficient Causation: defines cause and effect relationship between variables