soc defs fall 2006
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- fact
-
any event in space and time
any non-random sequence of events
any attribte, quality or property of a thing
any relation between a thing and another thing
any condition - scientific fact
-
one or more events, processes, realtions or conditions that are consistent with a scientific law, explanation or empirical generalization
determined by proper scientific procedure - explanation
-
a casual account of how a given event came about or comes about reccurently under specifiable conditions
a statement of causal relations between 2 or more events or facts - scientific theory
-
related statements that explain a pattern or sequence of facts
theories strive for abstraction, generalizability and conditionality - realist theory
- a troup of related statements that explain facts by hypothesizing the existence of hidden structres or processes (which produce facts worthy of explanation)
- positivist theory
-
its indifferent to hidden structures and mechanism; any variables will do
it's concerned with prediction - critical theory
-
rejects "the separation of fact and value
it studies the world dispassionately
very critical/definitive
but is very black and white (no grey area) - interpretive theory
- rejects explanation and prediction in favor of understanding the symbolic meaning that people ascribe to their own and others conduct
- realism
- view that the universe is mind-independent so humans have to adjust their conceptions to the facts of the universe
- materialism
-
all mental phenomena emerge from physical structures and processes
associated with atomism (the quest for smallest units of matter that in lawful combinations produce the perceptible and knowledgable world) - idealism
- view that our knowledge of the unoverse is ineluctably mind-dependent
- positivism
- auguste comte: only rigorous methods of scientific procedure can produce valid knowledge
- historicism
- an adequate understanding of any socio-cultural phenomenon requires us to examine it as a unique outcome of innumerable influences
- empiricism
- all valid knowledge is derived inductively from experience
- rationalism
- some general truths are knowable "a priori" by intrinsic self-evidence or intelligibility
- holism
-
true architecture of reality consists of interdependent and encompassing structures or systems organized into levels
"whole is greater than the sums of its parts" - reductionism
- structures and systems must be analytically decomposed into their elemental, irreducible parts, which are the true building blocks of reality