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Positivism Theory In Social Science

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The beginning of knowledge comes from metaphysics, theological and positivism. And these put much on a critical stance in the discourse of method. Little (2011), explains that method is a prescriptive body of doctrines to guide inquiry. The ideal of understanding social world underlies in whether to embrace and use principles and guiding procedures of the natural world where positivism dominates in the epistemological consideration. Atkinson & Hammersley (2007) explain that this method has a considerable influence onto social scientist, in promoting the status of survey research and the quantitative analysis Positivism refers to an epistemological position which calls for the application of the methods of natural sciences to the study of …show more content…

According to Crowther and Lancaster (2008), as a general rule, positivist studies normally adopt deductive approach). Positivism relies on scientific evidence drawn from experiments and quantified facts which target to reflect the dynamics and picture of the social world. Positivism holds the principles of both inductive and deductive which mean that the latter tests hypotheses and the former gathers knowledge that is reached through gathering of evidence. It relies on scientific facts drawn from experimentation and facts that can be quantified and gives meaning to the dynamics in the social world. It holds the principle of both deductive and inductive which implies that the latter tested hypotheses and the former collects knowledge which is arrived by collecting facts. Further, positivism underpins the central principle of value laden free which is objective. Bryman (2002) explains that positivism postulates objectivism. Despite being objective, positivist is being barraged with criticism as the social world cannot be fully understood following the mechanistic laws of natural sciences. Social life and its dynamics are different in comparison to study chemistry, physics and so …show more content…

The social world as a domain of phenomena is fundamentally divergent from the natural world, in respect of its degree of law governedness (Little 1993). Marxist method asserts that the social world is not ordered. Therefore, natural law is normally governed by a certain causation and its effects are not adequate enough to explain how the composed is the social world. Little (2011)elucidated that Marxist’s view on social inquiry is underpinned in a summation of many cross-cutting and different and processes, institutions and structures driven by the meaningful actions of persons, within given material and cultural institutions that bear contingent and sometimes accidental relations to each other. Marxists think that methods try to focus on the world

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