POLS 384 Study Guide - Final Guide: Empiricism, Individualism, Governmentality

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Political Studies
• Course: POLS 384
• Professor: Jessica Moreilli

Document Summary

Three pillars: scientific methods applied to study of social life (i. e. testing of hypotheses derived from pre-existing theories) (naturalism, knowledge only generated through observation (empiricism, facts and values are distinct, possible to acquire value-neutral, objective knowledge. Four tenets: naturalism: no differences between social and natural sciences, should study them in the same way, empiricism: view that knowledge of the world is limited to things that can be observed. Concepts, questions, data derived from experience: search for laws: law is a statement of a relationship (a leads to b), accepted as having been universally verified by observation, fact-value distinction. There are lots of things that exist that we can"t see, it doesn"t mean that its not there, just means that we don"t know much about it. It is possible to arrive at factual, reliable, and objective answers to questions about the social world by employing the methods used in the natural sciences.