Method
Antipositivism
Overview
In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance which proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology. Fundamental to that antipositivist epistemology is the belief that the concepts and language researchers use in their research shape their perceptions of the social world they are investigating and seeking to define.
Interpretivism (anti-positivism) developed among researchers dissatisfied with post-positivism, the theories of which they considered too general and ill-suited to reflect the nuance and variability found in human interaction. Because the values and beliefs of researchers cannot fully be removed from their inquiry, interpretivists believe research on human beings by human beings cannot yield objective results. Thus, rather than seeking an objective perspective, interpretivists look for meaning in the subjective experiences of individuals engaging in social interaction. Many interpretivist researchers immerse themselves in the social context they are studying, seeking to understand and formulate theories about a community or group of individuals by observing them from the inside. Interpretivism is an inductive practice influenced by philosophical frameworks such as hermeneutics, phenomenology, and symbolic interactionism. Interpretive methods are used in many fields of the social sciences, including human geography, sociology, political science, cultural anthropology, among others.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The thing to be proved is invariably implied in the assumption he starts from, and the speciousness of his proofs is only due to his prolix and apagogic mode of procedure. Yet it was, and still is, a great achievement for the Critical philosophy, when it exhibited these antinomies: for in this way it gave some expression (at first certainly subjective and unexplained) to the actual unity of those categories which…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Antipositivism is; the author is tied to Antipositivism in the knowledge graph.
This preparatory treatment consists in finding general propositions which express concisely what is common to large classes of observed facts; and these are called the empirical laws of the phenomena. We have, therefore, to inquire, whether any similar preparatory process can be performed on the facts of the social science; whether there are any empirical laws in history or statistics.
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Antipositivism is.
Religious, charitable, literary, and all other societies, beginning with ends and methods roughly sketched out and easily modifiable, show us how, by the accumulation of rules and precedents, the purposes become more distinct and the modes of action more restricted; until at last death often results from a fixity which admits of no adaptation to new conditions. Should it be objected that among civilized nations…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
The author is tied to Antipositivism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Antipositivism
Related ideas
- Georg Simmel
- Neo-Kantianism
- Heinrich Rickert
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Auguste Comte
- Verstehen
- Jürgen Habermas
- Giambattista Vico
- Karl Marx
- Scientism
- Sociology
- Frankfurt School
- Political science
- Social science
- Scientific method
- Positivism
- Symbolic interactionism
- Social research
- Émile Durkheim
- Natural science
- Value (ethics)
- Critical theory
- Subject and object (philosophy)
- Cultural anthropology
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of social science.