Difference Between Positivist, Interpretive and Critical Social Science

Since its founding as a discipline in the 19 th century by the French philosopher Augusto
Comte, the study of social science has developed different ways. Positivist social science,
interpretive social science, and critical social science each come with their own unique
understandings, observation and measurement standards, and each theory explain human
behaviour with this context. Each approach uses for social science, but positivist social
science was deeply rooted, and other theories was creating by positivist theory with
expanding and inflexible standards of positivist theory.
1) Positivist Social Science:
Positivism is a system of determining the validity of knowledge as it is derived from
empirical evidence. Positivism widely refers to natural science, and for this reason positivist
approach was assumed science by researchers. Positivist social science is cooperated with
many other social theories, like a structural-functional, exchange-theory, and rational choice
theory frameworks. Also PSS researchers prefer exact quantitative data, and mostly use
survey, experiment, and statistic. They examine and test hypotheses by carefully analyzing
with numbers.
Positivist social science organized methods for combining deductive logic with exact
empirical observations of individual behaviour, and predict general patterns of human
behaviour. Also, the ultimate purpose of research is to obtain scientific explanation to
discover, and document universal causal law of human behaviour. Some versions of PSS
assume that humans cannot know everything, and only Gods have this amount of knowledge.
God gives to humans the capacity for learn much knowledge, and people only discover as
much as they can.
Positivist assumption holds that reality exists ‘out there’, and it is waited to discover by
people. If we assume that world is chaotic and do not have any regularity, logic and prediction
would be impossible. And science lets humans discover knowledge and law of nature. On the
other hand, social reality is stable and our knowledge about reality is additive. The core
regularity in social reality does not change, and laws hold in the future.
PSS assumes that humans are self-interested and rational mammals. A cause would have
the same effect over everyone. PSS researchers learn more things about reality with observing
people behaviour. Also PSS researcher emphasizes role of the determinism in the human
behaviour, and affect of external factors over the human actions. PSS has technocratic
perspectives to the application of knowledge, and explaining the facts. And PSS researcher
uses an instrumental orientation to understand people ability to control events in the world
around them.
2) Interpretive Social Science:

Interpretive social science was largely developed by German socialist Max Weber, and
German Philosopher William Dilthey. Weber sought to establish an alternative to positivist
social science, and that would more focus on understanding subjective experience, as opposed
to rigid facts or observation. The goal of interpretive social science is understand the meaning
behind actions in a social context, and unique point of view. German philosopher Dilthey
assumes that the purpose of social science is learning to everyday life. Also, Weber says
social science should study social actions with a purpose of explain human life.

Interpretive social science is related to explication. It emphasizes conducting a very

close, detailed reading of text to acquire a profound, deep understanding. And each reader
brings her or his explanations and subjective experiences to the text. ISS also concern how
people interact and get each other. ISS is the systematic analysis of socially meaningful action
through the direct detailed observation of people action, and maintain their daily life. The
purpose of ISS researcher is to develop an understanding of social life, and discover new
explanation about people’s behaviour in natural settings. They assume that all of the human
behaviour has to include a purpose, and this purpose must related with be social. Because, ISS
sees human social life as an accomplishment.

As I mentioned before, PSS researcher says, social life is ‘out there’ and waiting to be
discovered. On the contrary, ISS researcher adopts a more nominalist ontology. According to
ISS view, it exits as people experience it and assign to it. So, ISS researcher finds an answer
of these important questions for them: What do people believe to be true? How do they define
what they are doing? On this view, ISS researcher want to discover what actions mean to the
people who engage in them.

Additionally, PSS says common sense as being inferior to science. On the contrary, ISS
holds that ordinary people use common sense to guide them in daily life. ISS says common
sense and positivist’s law are alternative ways to interpret the world; they are distinct meaning
system. So, ISS researchers see both scientific laws and common sense as a being important
in their own domains. According to interpretive researcher Alfred Schultz, which he calls
natural attitude, ‘It is the assumption that the world existed before you arrived and it will
continue to exist after you depart.’ He defined continuity of the world and social life, process
of reproducing a sense of reality based on social interactions.

Other differences between PSS and ISS is about ways of the explanation is true or false.
PSS logically deduces from theory, collects data, and analyses facts in ways that allows
replication. On the contrary, for ISS, the theory is true if it makes sense to those being studied,
and if it allows others to enters the reality of those being studied. PSS gives a importance to
observable, precise and independent of theory and values. Also, ISS sees the features of
specific context and meanings as essential to understand social meaning. Unlike PSS, ISS
researchers rarely ask survey question, or claim to obtain something meaningful to the
question. ISS scientist wants to learn how the world works so they can acquire an in depth
understanding of other people, and better acknowledge shared humanity. In this context, some
PSS scientist accepts the interpretive approach as being useful in exploratory research.

3) Critical Social Science:

Critical social science aims to take a neutral approach to social study in an effort to
uncover truths that may have fallen through the cracks. The concept of the critical theory was
developed by the Frankfurt School drew upon both the social sciences and the humanities in
order to reflect upon conclusions made regarding society and culture. CSS criticized positivist
science as being narrow, anti-democratic, and non-humanist in its use of reason. Also, ISS
criticized PSS for failing to deal with the meanings of real people, and their capacity to feel
and think, for ignoring social context, and for being anti-humanist, and CSS researcher agrees
this criticized about PSS. On the contrary, CSS also criticized ISS assumption. Because ISS
focuses on to much localized, micro level and short term settings while ignoring the broader
and long-term structural conditions. To CSS, ISS is amoral and passive. Also, according to
CSS, the goal of research is to empower.

On the other hand, ISS mostly focus on the human conduct, and what we take to be
reality from our subjective experiences, cultural beliefs, and social interactions. On contrast,
CSS adopts a critical realist ontology that views reality as being composed of multiple layers;
the empirical, the real and the actual. CSS assumes, we can observe the empirical reality using
our senses, and we can directly observe structures at the real level. But our observations and
personal experiences with the empirical reality are not pure, neutral and unmediated. CSS
states that our experiences of empirical reality are always theory or concept dependent. CSS
recognizes that people are rational decision makers who are shaped by social and creative
beings who constant meaning and social structures.

Conclusion

Social science requires a deep understanding of positivist, interpretive, and critical social
science theory from a historical and practical perspective, as well as an understanding of their
similarities and differences. Social scientist, who agrees positivist view, may find that their
own unique social perspectives, value systems have a significant bearing on their claims, even
when backed up scientific observations. Interpretive social scientist seeks to correct this
conflict of interest by basic human nature, and they used inductive methods to explain social
facts and observations. Critical social scientist rejected PSS and ISS view for being detached,
and concerned with studying the world instead of acting on it. CSS holds that knowledge is
power.