Logical Positivism : An Evaluation in Social Sci-

enceSwati Vaidya

TP NO. 27

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PositivismPositivism is a philosophy of social science that emphasises the scientific credentials of social enquiry, laying particular emphasis upon the primacy of observation and value freedom.

3 Versions of Positivism 1. Comte2. Durkheim3. Logical Positivism

Key Features of Positivism

1. Primacy of Observation

2. The role of theory, causality, laws

3. Value Freedom

Logical Positivism 1

Sometimes called Logical Empiricism is a rig-orous philosophy of science that advocated a scientific practice based on observation.

Main thinkers of Logical Positivism from Vi-enna Circle are

Rudolh Carnap, Maurice SchlickCarl HempelA J Ayer also contributed later.

Logical Positivism 2

Principles of Positivism had contributed to scientific culture that influenced the social sciences, which in turn gained legitimacy from their scientific credentials.

Positivism in Sciences lasted till 1960's after the critique by Bertrand Russell, Karl Pop-per and Thomas Kuhn.

Logical Positivism 3

Positivism lasted little longer in Social Sci-ences, though was heavily criticised in the 1960's and 1970's.

Much of this criticism was more generally pro-humanist and anti-scientific.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 1. Science

There is an inherent understanding that there are no principle differences in the logic or methodology of natural or social sciences.

I.e., methodological model for the social sci-ence was taken from natural science.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science

2. Observation Observational evidence is paramount in posi-tivism.David Hume gave primacy to the sense data in knowing the world.

Data can be obtained from actual observation with the senses or from survey.

Theories or any knowledge claim about the so-cial world, must be varified by the data.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science

3. Epistemology

Theory of knowledge, wrt. Methods, Va-lidity and ScopeDistinction between justified belief and opinion.

According to positivists our knowledge must always be grounded in observables, claims about unobservables are not scien-tific.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 4 Theory - a

Positivists do not reject theory, but hypothesis must be deducted from theory. i.e., theories must predict particular things and explain those pre-dicts.

Hypothetico-deductive model is the most sophisti-cated form of this line of thought.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 4 Theory - b

Process of Deduction:

Theory --> Hypothesis --> Observa-tion --> New Theory

This sequence is interlinked and any re-search process may begin at any of these points.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 5 Causality and Probability - a

David Hume held that when one observable event follows another, we are not entitled to deduce from that, that the first caused the second.

Causal reasoning in social sciences is mainly the probabilistic association of measured variables.

In the practice of positivism in social sciences, probabilistic casual inferences has been the norm.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 6 Laws - a

The goal of science, social science being part of it,

is to produce factual and axiomatic statements about the world that will be generalisable.

In social world generalisation is subject to culture or time.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 6 Law - b

Positivistic approach aims to produce law-like statements, such as those pro-duced in natural sciences.

Given the complications of any social reality, these laws are often made using assumptions, which though are law, are not exact like natural sciences.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 7 Value Freedom - a

According to positivists, facts and values must be separated and that values have no place in science, because values cannot be deduced from facts.

Investigation of social practices may have a moral or political dimension yet, social sci-ences are to restrict themselves to descrip-tion or explanation of social practices.

Key Features of Logical Positivism in Social Science 7 Value Freedom - b

Positivism implies that social science re-search is not to rule on the correctness or ethicality of the social practices being re-searched.

Positivism therefore, is contrary to what Karl Marx said, "The philosophers have merely described the world in various ways. The point however, is to change it."

Critique of Logical Positivism 1

Critiques of positivism were scholars who were mainly critiques of

science in social science, or they subscribed to a humanist of view.

There is a disagreement with the value neu-trality implied by positivism in social re-search among the critiques of positivism.

Critique of Logical Positivism 2

1. The way we operationalise the social vari-ables of our study will at least partially af-fect the results of our study.2. Observations cannot be seperated from value. What we decide to observe or mea-sure depends on prior committment.3. Values, committements which influence our observations, are not necessarily politi-cal, they can be sometimes, long-held con-ventions.

Contemporary Approaches in Social Sciences 1

1. In recent times a few social scien-tists rigidly adhere to all principles of positivism.2. Positivism today is a more sophisti-cated and permissive philosophy of science.3. Very few social scientists today agree that values don't enter social sci-ences.

Contemporary Approaches in Social Sciences 2

4. Causal analysis is theoretically driven, in versions of hypothetico-de-ductive model. 5. Realism, has developed in the other direction, though it has its roots in posi-tivism as philosophy of science.

Critique of Logical Positivism in Economics 1

1. Austrian Economists2. Mark Balugh - Development Economics3. Amartya Sen4. Development of Indices of Human Devel-opment which include Security - and by that they dont mean just the defence expenditure. Human security as felt by people during their day to day lives.

Critique of Logical Positivism in Economics 2

5. Inclusion of the environmental dimension in economics, emphasising Sustainability, which can not be obsereved, can only be es-timated, by making a prior chioce that re-source use shall be scrutinised in the context that if the resources shall be available for fu-ture generations or not.

6. Evelopment of Economics of Happiness.

Contents

Summing up

Thank You.