CONCEPTION OF SCIENTIFIC METHODOLOGY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE: A CRITIQUE OF THE COMTEAN AND DURKHEIMIAN POSITIVISM

Abstract

This paper conducts a philosophical examination of the claims of the unity of method between science and social science. It challenges the defence of what is held by some scholars as ‘unified science’ view and the extension of the method of natural science to social science. The claim, basically, is that the logical properties of an adequate explanation are the same throughout science, and by extension, applicable also to social science. In response, the paper examines the natures of the Comtean and Durkheimian scientific sociology which have had most profound influence on the methodology of social sciences. Comte expounds a system of the sciences, showing their theoretical interconnections and proceeds to add to the already existing sciences, a new science of sociology. This was based on his assumption that the methods of natural sciences can be extended to moral, social, political and religious problems. Comte believes that positivism would place philosophy and the social ‘sciences’ on the same intellectual foundation on which the sciences rested. Durkheim, on his part, goes a step further by refining the concept of positivism originally laid down by Comte, promoting what could be considered as a form of epistemological realism, as well as the use of hypotheticodeductive model in social science. However, the task of philosophy in relation to natural sciences is to clear up conceptual ambiguities and lay down standards of intelligibility, scientific status and validity. In this paper, we argue that these standard which are universalizable should equally apply to social science. We posit that if social scientific explanations are to count as “scientific†at all, they must conform to the standards already established in the natural sciences.