This chapter discusses the differences between natural and social sciences. It presents views such as logical positivism, Kuhn's paradigm theory, and Taylor's correlator and interpreter approaches. The key differences discussed are matters of degree, relating to complexity of human behavior compared to physical objects, and matters of kind, regarding qualitative and quantitative nature. While social sciences may be less developed than natural sciences, the conclusion is that they are fundamentally different and cannot be directly compared due to opposing ontological and epistemological perspectives.

1. BUSHRA RIAZ
MPHIL (11)
2014 - 2016
1
PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
CHAPTER # 1 - CONCEPTIONS OF SCIENCE
Main Theme:
This chapter seeks to identity the major differences between natural & social sciences which could be
either classified into Matter of Degree or Matter of Kind where matter of degree signifies the level of
complexity a human being encompasses in comparison to electrons/amoebas and matter of kind depicts
the qualitative and quantitative nature differentiating social phenomenon and mass. It presents
different views including Logical Positivism, Semantic & Kuhn’s view to define theory itself then it tries
to capture the reality by taking social sciences as pre-paradigmatic and puts forward queries like may be
social sciences are relatively newer or lacks sustained effort which did not enabled them to gain
paradigmatic status. Finally the chapter delineates Taylor’s contribution of Correlator’s (weak sense of
embodiment - physical biological world) and Interpreter’s approach (strong sense of embodiment - not
only physical/biological characteristics but also interpretations & cultural/historical background).
Issues / Insights:
Are social sciences fundamentally the same as natural sciences?
Does social sciences ought to be like natural sciences?
Are paradigms appropriate ways to conceive the scientific activity?
Conclusion:
In view of the above discussion, since social sciences are diametrically opposed to natural sciences in
terms of both matter of degree and kind, it’s practically impossible to study them in comparison to each
other rather they stand at two extremes of the pole.
Vocabulary
Ontology: study of existence, defines properties, features and other fundamental features of the world
Epistemology: study of knowing, how we could know
Positivism: dealing with only objective, verifiable facts
Efficient Causation: defines cause and effect relationship between variables