sociological notes

1. WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
LECTURE 1

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Common sense versus sociological knowledge.
• Ontology and epistemology.
• Rationality and objectivity.
• Epistemological traditions in the social sciences.
• Introduction to sociological research methods and theory.

3. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘COMMON
SENSE’ AND SOCIOLOGY

4. ‘COMMON SENSE’
• Based on personal, first-hand experiences.
• Unsystematic.
• Based on personal authority.
• And secondary sources such as tradition, the media, books, the
internet and friends.
• Much of what we know about the world around us is based on
common sense.

5. SCIENTIFIC OR SOCIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
• Based on the collective, validated experiences of the
scientific/sociological community rather than individual
observations and experiences.
• The outcome of systematic inquiry.
• Rejects personal authority, based on demonstrative evidence.
• Is critical of claims and puts them to the test.

6. COMMON SENSE VERSUS SOCIOLOGICAL
KNOWLEDGE ON GENDER
COMMON SENSE
• Women are naturally caring
and nurturing because of their
ability to conceive and have
children.
• Caring satisfies women's
maternal instincts.
SOCIOLOGICAL SENSE
• The role of women in society
is socially constructed.
• Women are socially
constructed to be nurturing
and caring.

7. Common
sense
Sociological
knowledge

8. EPISTEMOLOGY
• Epistemology, the study of the nature, origin, and limits of
human knowledge. The term is derived from the Greek
epistēmē (“knowledge”) and logos (“reason”), and accordingly
the field is sometimes referred to as the theory of knowledge.
• Epistemology is concerned with the following questions: What
are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What
are its sources? What is its structure, and what are its limits?

9. ONTOLOGY
• Definition of ontology
• 1: a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and
relations of being 2: a particular theory about the nature of
being or the kinds of things that have existence

10. WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Topics in ontology include:
• What does it mean to be a
"thing"?
• How do things persist over
time?
• How do things change over
time?
Topics in epistemology
include:
• What does it mean to know
something?
• What does it mean to mean
something?
• Do we actually really know
anything at all for certain?

11. • The two are intimately related. Any statement of ontology (e.g.
"Bees are a kind of insect") is intended to be a statement of
"truth", and epistemology is trying to figure out what it means
to be "true". But the notion of "truth" is inherently grounded in
our idea that there's some kind of world out there for which the
distinction between "truth" and "not-truth" is relevant.
• Ontology, and metaphysics, help us to understand what there
is, and what it is like. Epistemology helps us to understand how
we know this is true.

12. RATIONALITY, OBJECTIVITY AND
KNOWLEDGE
• Scientific knowledge is based on these foundations.
• Rationality – ‘A scientific belief is held to be rational when a
community of rational and expert agents (such as the scientific
community) have submitted such a belief to joint scrutiny and
accepted it as the most plausible claim, given the available
evidence’ (Babbie & Mouton 2009: 11).
• Rationality is therefore socially constructed

13. Evaluation
of claims by
scientific
community
Findings
and validity
Objective
methods

14. OBJECTIVITY
• The use of clear and transparent research methods.
• Research where margins of error are reduced as much as
possible.

15. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF
SOCIOLOGICAL
KNOWLEDGE?

16. TRADITIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCES -
POSITIVISM
The core assumptions of positivism include:
• that social science is identical in its logic to natural science;
• that science involves the search for general laws about
empirical phenomena;
• and that discovery and explanation depend upon a rigorous
empirical scrutiny of the phenomena under question.
Positivism is doubtful about the role of theory, preferring instead
to make do with empirical observations, classes of empirical
phenomena, and generalizations across classes of phenomena.
Finally, positivism is dubious about the reality of causal

17. AUGUSTE COMTE :
THREE STAGES OF
KNOWLEDGE
Theological
Metaphysical
Scientific

19. DURKHEIM AND SOCIAL FACTS

20. PHENOMENOLOGY/INTERPRETIVIST
TRADITION
• Humans are not primarily biological organisms but are
conscious beings who make meaning of the world around
them.
• The meanings that people give to the world around them have
to be taken into our sociological explanations.
• This means we should collect data not only on observable
phenomenon but of non-observable phenomenon too.
• Objectivity as inter-subjectivity
• Emphasis on understanding rather than causal explanation.
• Inclusion of qualitative methods.

21. CRITICAL TRADITION

22. STANDPOINT EPISTEMOLOGY: CRITICAL
FEMINISM
• Sociological theory has largely been based on (dead, white) men.
• The social identities of who produces theory and research is not
irrelevant but imbedded in their perspectives.
• Science can have emancipatory purposes.
• Methodologies need to be sensitised to the needs of women and
others.

23. MODERNISM & POST-MODERNISM
MODERNISM
• Grand narratives.
• Legitimation of positivism
• Universal laws
POST-MODERNISM
• Grand narratives exclude
other forms of knowledge by
de-legitimising them.
• Value-free sociology is
impossible.
• Social reality and therefore
social science is socially
constructed.

24. IS THE EPISTEMOLOGY AND ONTOLOGY OF
SOCIOLOGY FATALLY FLAWED?
• https://cdn.theguardian.tv/mainwebsite/2017/01/17/170117
KehindeIMO2_desk.mp4

25. DECOLONISING THEORY AND METHOD
• Connell (2007) Southern Theory.
• Burawoy (2013) ‘travelling theory’.
• Bhambra (2014) ‘connected sociologies’ .

26. IS IT TIME TO DO RESEARCH DIFFERENTLY?