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Sociology
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Sociology is the study of social behaviour or society, including its origins, development, organisation, networks, and institutions. It is a science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order, disorder. Many sociologists aim to research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare. Subject matter ranges from the level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems. The traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, the range of social scientific methods has also expanded. Social researchers draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative techniques, the linguistic and cultural turns of the mid-twentieth century led to increasingly interpretative, hermeneutic, and philosophic approaches towards the analysis of society. There is often a great deal of crossover between social research, market research, and other statistical fields, Sociology is distinguished from various general social studies courses, which bear little relation to sociological theory or to social-science research-methodology. The US National Science Foundation classifies sociology as a STEM field, Sociological reasoning pre-dates the foundation of the discipline. Social analysis has origins in the stock of Western knowledge and philosophy. The origin of the survey, i. e, there is evidence of early sociology in medieval Arab writings. The word sociology is derived from both Latin and Greek origins, the Latin word, socius, companion, the suffix -logy, the study of from Greek -λογία from λόγος, lógos, word, knowledge. It was first coined in 1780 by the French essayist Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès in an unpublished manuscript, Sociology was later defined independently by the French philosopher of science, Auguste Comte, in 1838. Comte used this term to describe a new way of looking at society, Comte had earlier used the term social physics, but that had subsequently been appropriated by others, most notably the Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet. Comte endeavoured to unify history, psychology and economics through the understanding of the social realm. Comte believed a positivist stage would mark the final era, after conjectural theological and metaphysical phases, Comte gave a powerful impetus to the development of sociology, an impetus which bore fruit in the later decades of the nineteenth century. To say this is not to claim that French sociologists such as Durkheim were devoted disciples of the high priest of positivism. To be sure, beginnings can be traced back well beyond Montesquieu, for example, Marx rejected Comtean positivism but in attempting to develop a science of society nevertheless came to be recognized as a founder of sociology as the word gained wider meaning. For Isaiah Berlin, Marx may be regarded as the father of modern sociology
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History of sociology
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Sociology as a scholarly discipline emerged primarily out of enlightenment thought, shortly after the French Revolution, as a positivist science of society. Its genesis owed to various key movements in the philosophy of science, Social analysis in a broader sense, however, has origins in the common stock of philosophy and necessarily pre-dates the field. Modern academic sociology arose as a reaction to modernity, capitalism, urbanization, rationalization, secularization, colonization, an emphasis on the concept of modernity, rather than the Enlightenment, often distinguishes sociological discourse from that of classical political philosophy. Various quantitative social research techniques have become common tools for governments, businesses and organizations, divorced from theoretical explanations of social dynamics, this has given social research a degree of autonomy from the discipline of sociology. Similarly, social science has come to be appropriated as a term to refer to various disciplines which study humans, interaction. Sociological reasoning may be traced back at least as far as the ancient Greeks, proto-sociological observations are to be found in the founding texts of Western philosophy, as well as in the non-European thought of figures such as Confucius. The characteristic trends in the thinking of the ancient Greeks can be traced back to their social environment. Because there was rarely any extensive or highly centralized political organization within states this allowed the tribal spirit of localism and provincialism to have free play and this tribal spirit of localism and provincialism pervaded most of the Greek thinking upon social phenomena. The origin of the survey can be traced back to the Domesday Book ordered by king William I in 1086, there is evidence of early Muslim sociology from the 14th century. He is thus considered by some to be the forerunner of sociology, concerning the discipline of sociology, he conceived a dynamic theory of history that involved conceptualizations of social conflict and social change. He developed the dichotomy of sedentary life versus nomadic life as well as the concept of a generation, following a contemporary Arab scholar, Sati al-Husri, the Muqaddimah may be read as a sociological work, six books of general sociology. Topics dealt with in this work include politics, urban life, economics, the work is based around Ibn Khalduns central concept of asabiyyah, which has been translated as social cohesion, group solidarity, or tribalism. This social cohesion arises spontaneously in tribes and other kinship groups. The term was first coined by the French essayist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, from the Latin, socius, companion, and the suffix -ology, in 1838, the French-thinker Auguste Comte ultimately gave sociology the definition that it holds today. Comte had earlier expressed his work as physics, but that term had been appropriated by others, most notably a Belgian statistician. He argued that scientists could distract groups from war and strife, in turn, this would bring multiple cultures and societies together and prevent conflict. Saint-Simon took the idea that everyone had encouraged from the Enlightenment, which was the belief in science, saint-Simons main idea was that industrialism would create a new launch in history. He saw that people had been seeing progress as an approach for science, Society was making a crucial change at the time since it was growing out of a declining feudalism
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Ethnography
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Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study, an ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, the resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group. The typical ethnography is a study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate. In all cases it should be reflexive, make a contribution toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic impact on the reader. An ethnography records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations, the word ethnography is derived from the Greek ἔθνος, meaning a company, later a people, nation and -graphy meaning field of study. Ethnographic studies focus on large groups of people who interact over time. Ethnography is a design, where the researcher explains about shared learnt patterns of values, behaviour, beliefs. The field of anthropology originated from Europe and England designed in late 19th century and it spread its roots to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the main contributors like EB Tylor from Britain and Lewis H Morgan, franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead, were a group of researchers from United States who contributed the idea of cultural relativism to the literature. He gives the point of the native and this became the origin of field work. Since Malinowski was very firm with his approach he applied it practically and he was interested in learning the language of the islanders and stayed there for a long time doing his field work. The field of ethnography became very popular in the late 19th century, again, in the latter part of the 19th century, the field of anthropology became a good support for scientific formation. Though the field was flourishing it had a lot of threat to encounter, post colonialism, the research climate shifted towards post-modernism and feminism. Therefore, the field of anthropology moved into discipline of social science, gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as an area of study. This became known as ethnography, following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin, there are different forms of ethnography, confessional ethnography, life history, feminist ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist ethnography and critical ethnography, realist ethnography, is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists
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Sociology of health and illness
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The sociology of health and illness, alternatively the sociology of health and wellness, examines the interaction between society and health. The objective of this topic is to see how social life affects morbidity and mortality rate and this aspect of sociology differs from medical sociology in that this branch of sociology discusses health and illness in relation to social institutions such as family, employment, and school. The sociology of medicine limits its concern to the patient-practitioner relationship, the sociology of health and illness covers sociological pathology, reasons for seeking particular types of medical aid, and patient compliance or noncompliance with medical regimes. Health, or lack of health, was once attributed to biological or natural conditions. Sociologists have demonstrated that the spread of diseases is influenced by the socioeconomic status of individuals, ethnic traditions or beliefs. This topic requires an approach of analysis because the influence of societal factors varies throughout the world. This will be demonstrated through discussion of the diseases of each continent. These diseases are sociologically examined and compared based on the medicine, economics, religion. HIV/AIDS serves as a basis of comparison among regions. While it is problematic in certain areas, in others it has affected a relatively small percentage of the population. Sociological factors can help to explain why these discrepancies exist, there are obvious differences in patterns of health and illness across societies, over time, and within particular society types. Patterns of global change in health care systems make it more imperative than ever to research and comprehend the sociology of health, continuous changes in economy, therapy, technology and insurance can affect the way individual communities view and respond to the medical care available. These rapid fluctuations cause the issue of health and illness within social life to be dynamic in definition. Advancing information is vital because as patterns evolve, the study of the sociology of health, humans have long sought advice from those with knowledge or skill in healing. Paleopathology and other records, allow an examination of how ancient societies dealt with illness. Rulers in Ancient Egypt sponsored physicians that were specialists in specific diseases, imhotep was the first medical doctor known by name. An Egyptian who lived around 2650 B. C. he was an adviser to King Zoser at a time when Egyptians were making progress in medicine, among his contributions to medicine was a textbook on the treatment of wounds, broken bones, and even tumors. Stopping the spread of disease was of utmost importance for maintaining a healthy society
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Manual labour
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Manual labour or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and to that done by working animals. It is most literally work done with the hands, and, by figurative extension, for most of human prehistory and history, manual labour and its close cousin, animal labour, have been the primary ways that physical work has been accomplished. To be implemented, they require that sufficient technology exist and that its capital costs be justified by the amount of wages that they will obviate. Thus there is a partial but significant correlation between manual labour and unskilled or semiskilled workers, throughout human existence the latter has involved a spectrum of variants, from slavery, to caste or caste-like systems, to subtler forms of inequality. Economic competition often results in trying to buy labour at the lowest possible cost or to obviate it entirely. It has always been the case for humans that many workers begin their working lives lacking any special level of skill or experience and these conditions have assured the correlations strength and persistence. The phrase hard labour has become a legal euphemism for penal labour. Throughout human existence, but most especially since the Age of Enlightenment, humans have not yet succeeded in instantiating any such utopia, but some social systems have been designed that go far enough toward the goal that hope yet remains for further improvement. Concepts such as the Three-fifths compromise and the Untermensch defined slaves as less than human, one interesting historical trend that is true of all of the systems above is that they began crumbling in the 20th century and have continued crumbling since. Todays forms of them are mostly greatly weakened compared to past generations versions, at the lowest extreme, such distortion produces subtler forms of racism and de facto inequality of opportunity. The more plausible the deniability, the easier the rationalisation and perpetuation, at such areas of the spectrum, it becomes ever harder to justify efforts that use de jure methods to fight de facto imbalances, because valid instances can be highlighted by all sides. A willingness to recognise that manual labour can involve skill and intelligence can take a variety of forms, in its healthier forms, it recognises the dignity and intelligence of blue-collar workers, and it recognises their civil equality with white-collar workers. Yet it simultaneously leaves room in society for meritocracy, allowing both upward and downward social mobility. In its more pathological forms, it may admit that there can be a science of manual labour. Some people would have only the first, others, only the second, therefore, players usually should not be their own coaches. Whether Taylor was capable of predicting and preventing that problem is unclear, an example of the second pathology are 20th-century variants of communism, such as Leninism and Stalinism. Mechanisation and automation strive to reduce the amount of labour required for production. Automation helps to bring mechanisation to more complicated tasks that require dexterity, decision making based on visual input
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Social movement
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Social movements are a type of group action. They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist, or undo a social change, modern Western social movements became possible through education and increased mobility of labor due to the industrialization and urbanization of 19th century societies. However, others point out many of the social movements of the last hundred years grew up, like the Mau Mau in Kenya. Either way, social movements have been and continued to be connected with democratic political systems. Occasionally, social movements have been involved in democratizing nations, over the past 200 years, they have become part of a popular and global expression of dissent. Modern movements often utilize technology and the internet to people globally. Adapting to communication trends is a theme among successful movements. Research is beginning to explore how advocacy organizations linked to social movements in the U. S. and Canada use social media to facilitate civic engagement, the systematic literature review of Buettner & Buettner analyzed the role of Twitter during a wide range of social movements. Political science and sociology have developed a variety of theories and empirical research on social movements, there is no single consensus definition of a social movement. For Tilly, social movements are a vehicle for ordinary peoples participation in public politics. Sidney Tarrow defines a social movement as collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interactions with elites, opponents and he specifically distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups. The first mass social movement catalyzed around the political figure. Charged with seditious libel, Wilkes was arrested after the issue of a general warrant, as a result of this episode, Wilkes became a figurehead to the growing movement for popular sovereignty among the middle classes - people began chanting, Wilkes and Liberty in the streets. After a later period of exile, brought about by further charges of libel and obscenity, Wilkes stood for the Parliamentary seat at Middlesex, where most of his support was located. When Wilkes was imprisoned in the Kings Bench Prison on 10 May 1768 and this was the first ever sustained social movement, -it involved public meetings, demonstrations, the distribution of pamphlets on an unprecedented scale and the mass petition march. The force and influence of social movement on the streets of London compelled the authorities to concede to the movements demands. Wilkes was returned to Parliament, general warrants were declared as unconstitutional, the Association had the support of leading Calvinist religious figures, including Rowland Hill, Erasmus Middleton, and John Rippon
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Criminology
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Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, management, causes, control, consequences, and prevention of criminal behavior, both on the individual and social levels. The term criminology was coined in 1885 by Italian law professor Raffaele Garofalo as criminologia, later, French anthropologist Paul Topinard used the analogous French term criminologie. In the mid-18th century criminology arose as social philosophers gave thought to crime, over time, several schools of thought have developed. There were three schools of thought in early criminological theory spanning the period from the mid-18th century to the mid-twentieth century, Classical, Positive. The Classical School, which developed in the century, was based on utilitarian philosophy. Cesare Beccaria, author of On Crimes and Punishments, Jeremy Bentham, thus, it ignores the possibility of irrationality and unconscious drives as motivators. Punishment can deter people from crime, as the costs outweigh benefits, the more swift and certain the punishment, the more effective it is in deterring criminal behavior. The Classical school of thought came about at a time when major reform in penology occurred, also, this time period saw many legal reforms, the French Revolution, and the development of the legal system in the United States. The Positivist school presumes that criminal behavior is caused by internal and external factors outside of the individuals control, the scientific method was introduced and applied to study human behavior. Positivism can be broken up into three segments which include biological, psychological and social positivism, Cesare Lombroso, an Italian sociologist working in the late 19th century, is regarded as the father of criminology. He was one of the key contributors to biological positivism and founded the Italian school of criminology, Lombroso took a scientific approach, insisting on empirical evidence for studying crime. This approach, influenced by the theory of phrenology and by Charles Darwin. Criminologists have since rejected Lombrosos biological theories, with groups not used in his studies. Sociological positivism suggests that factors such as poverty, membership of subcultures. Adolphe Quetelet made use of data and statistical analysis to gain insight into the relationship between crime and sociological factors and he found that age, gender, poverty, education, and alcohol consumption were important factors related to crime. Lance Lochner conducted three different research experiments that shared the same conclusion, schooling reduces crime by a significant margin, Rawson W. Rawson utilized crime statistics to suggest a link between population density and crime rates, with crowded cities creating an environment conducive for crime. Joseph Fletcher and John Glyde also presented papers to the Statistical Society of London on their studies of crime, Henry Mayhew used empirical methods and an ethnographic approach to address social questions and poverty, and presented his studies in London Labour and the London Poor. Émile Durkheim viewed crime as an aspect of society, with uneven distribution of wealth
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Sociology of law
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The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging necessarily to the field of sociology whilst others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it neither as a sub-discipline of sociology nor as a branch of legal studies and its object encompasses the historical movement of law and justice and their relentless contemporary construction, e. g. The roots of the sociology of law can be traced back to the works of sociologists and jurists of the turn of the previous century, the relationship between law and society was sociologically explored in the seminal works of both Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. The writings on law by these classical sociologists are foundational to the sociology of law today. A number of scholars, mainly jurists, also employed social scientific theories. Notably among these were Leon Petrazycki, Eugen Ehrlich and Georges Gurvitch, for Max Weber, a so-called legal rational form as a type of domination within society, is not attributable to people but to abstract norms. He understood the body of coherent and calculable law in terms of a rational-legal authority, such coherent and calculable law formed a precondition for modern political developments and the modern bureaucratic state and developed in parallel with the growth of capitalism. Central to the development of law is the formal rationalisation of law on the basis of general procedures that are applied equally and fairly to all. Modern rationalised law is codified and impersonal in its application to specific cases. Over time, law has undergone a transformation from repressive law to restitutive law, restitutive law operates in societies in which there is a high degree of individual variation and emphasis on personal rights and responsibilities. For Durkheim, law is an indicator of the mode of integration of a society, Durkheim also argued that a sociology of law should be developed alongside, and in close connection with, a sociology of morals, studying the development of value systems reflected in law. In Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law, Eugen Ehrlich developed an approach to the study of law by focusing on how social networks. The latter emerged spontaneously as people interacted with other to form social associations. According to Kelsen, Ehrlich had confused Sein and Sollen, Petrazyckis work addressed sociological problems and his method was empirical, since he maintained that one could gain knowledge of objects or relationships only by observation. However, he couched his theory in the language of cognitive psychology, consequently, his contribution to the development of sociology of law remains largely unrecognized. Among those who were inspired by Petrazyckis work is the Polish legal sociologist Adam Podgórecki. Theodor Geiger developed an analysis of the Marxist theory of law
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Bibliography of sociology
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This bibliography of sociology is a list of works, organized by subdiscipline, on the subject of sociology. Including Theses on Feuerbach and introduction to The critique of political economy, die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Translated by Peter Baehr, Gordon C, puts forward a thesis that Puritan ethic and ideas had influenced the development of capitalism. However religious devotion usually was accompanied by rejection of mundane affairs including economic pursuit, why was that not the case with Protestantism. Weber addresses that paradox in that work, de La Division Du Travail Social. A case study of suicide rates amongst Catholic, Protestant and Jewish populations, also a major contribution to structural functionalism. Cladis, Mark S. ed. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, Les Règles de la Méthode Sociologique. Halls with an introduction by Steven Lukes, demography is the statistical study of human population. It encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of these populations, Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population with A Summary View, and Introduction by Professor Antony Flew. Crisis in the Population Question Economic sociology attempts to explain economic phenomena and it overlaps with economics but concentrates on the roles of social relations and institutions. The Old Regime and the French Revolution, de La Division Du Travail Social. The Great Transformation, the political and economic origins of our time, rival Interpretations of Market Society, Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble. Economic Action and Social Structure, The Problem of Embeddedness, markets from Networks, Socioeconomic Models of Production. Princeton, Princeton University Press Smelser, Neil and Richard Swedberg, industrial sociology is the sociology of technological change, globalization, labor markets, work organization, managerial practices and employment relations. Environmental sociology, a social constructionist perspective, environment and society, the enduring conflict. Demonstrates how our global economy requires increasing levels of economic expansion, dunlap, Riley E. ed. Handbook of environmental sociology. Provides an overview of the field of sociology and its various research emphases. Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, lenses of Gender, Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality
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Blue-collar worker
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In English-speaking countries, a blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs non-agricultural manual labour. Often something is physically being built or maintained, in contrast, the white-collar worker typically performs work in an office environment and may involve sitting at a computer or desk. A third type of work is a worker whose labour is related to customer interaction, entertainment. Many occupations blend blue, white or pink industry categorizations, blue-collar work is often paid hourly wage-labor, although some professionals may be paid by the project or salaried. There is a range of payscales for such work depending upon field of specialty. Industrial and manual workers wear durable canvas or cotton clothing that may be soiled during the course of their work. Navy and light blue colors conceal potential dirt or grease on the clothing, helping him or her to appear cleaner. For the same reason, blue is a color for boilersuits which protect a workers clothing. Some blue collar workers have uniforms with the name of the business or the name embroidered or printed on it. Historically the popularity of the color blue among manual labourers contrasts with the popularity of white shirts worn by people in office environments. The blue collar/white collar color scheme has socio-economic class connotations, however, this distinction has become blurred with the increasing importance of skilled labour, and the relative increase in low-paying white-collar jobs. The term blue collar was first used in reference to trades jobs in 1924, Alden, a higher level academic education is often not required for many blue-collar jobs. However, certain fields may require specialized training, licensing or certification as well as a school diploma or GED. With the information revolution, Western nations have moved towards a service, many manufacturing jobs have been offshored to developing nations which pay their workers lower wages. This offshoring has pushed formerly agrarian nations to industrialized economies and concurrently decreased the number of jobs in developed countries. Due to this economic osmosis, the rust belt has experienced high unemployment, poverty, blue-collar can be used as an adjective to describe the environment of the blue-collar worker such as a blue-collar neighborhood, restaurant, or bar
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Social network analysis
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Social network analysis is the process of investigating social structures through the use of networks and graph theory. It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes and the ties, edges and these networks are often visualized through sociograms in which nodes are represented as points and ties are represented as lines. Social network analysis has emerged as a key technique in modern sociology, in the 1930s Jacob Moreno and Helen Jennings introduced basic analytical methods. Even in the study of literature, network analysis has been applied by Anheier, Gerhards and Romo, Wouter De Nooy, indeed, social network analysis has found applications in various academic disciplines, as well as practical applications such as countering money laundering and terrorism. Homophily, The extent to which actors form ties with similar versus dissimilar others, similarity can be defined by gender, race, age, occupation, educational achievement, status, values or any other salient characteristic. Homophily is also referred to as assortativity, multiplexity, The number of content-forms contained in a tie. For example, two people who are friends and also work together would have a multiplexity of 2, multiplexity has been associated with relationship strength. Mutuality/Reciprocity, The extent to which two actors reciprocate each others friendship or other interaction, Network Closure, A measure of the completeness of relational triads. An individuals assumption of network closure is called transitivity, transitivity is an outcome of the individual or situational trait of Need for Cognitive Closure. Propinquity, The tendency for actors to have ties with geographically close others. Bridge, An individual whose weak ties fill a structural hole and it also includes the shortest route when a longer one is unfeasible due to a high risk of message distortion or delivery failure. Centrality, Centrality refers to a group of metrics that aim to quantify the importance or influence of a node within a network. Examples of common methods of measuring centrality include betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, eigenvector centrality, alpha centrality, density, The proportion of direct ties in a network relative to the total number possible. Distance, The minimum number of required to connect two particular actors, as popularized by Stanley Milgrams small world experiment and the idea of six degrees of separation. Structural holes, The absence of ties between two parts of a network, finding and exploiting a structural hole can give an entrepreneur a competitive advantage. This concept was developed by sociologist Ronald Burt, and is referred to as an alternate conception of social capital. Tie Strength, Defined by the combination of time, emotional intensity, intimacy. Strong ties are associated with homophily, propinquity and transitivity, while ties are associated with bridges
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Positivism
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Positivism is a philosophical theory stating that positive knowledge is based on natural phenomena and their properties and relations. Thus, information derived from experience, interpreted through reason and logic. Positivism holds that knowledge is found only in this derived knowledge. Verified data received from the senses are known as empirical evidence, Positivism also holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to general laws. Introspective and intuitive knowledge is rejected, as are metaphysics and theology, Comte argued that, much as the physical world operates according to gravity and other absolute laws, so does society, and further developed positivism into a Religion of Humanity. The English noun positivism was re-imported in the 19th century from the French word positivisme, the corresponding adjective has been used in similar sense to discuss law since the time of Chaucer. Wilhelm Dilthey popularized the distinction between Geisteswissenschaft and Naturwissenschaften, the consideration that laws in physics may not be absolute but relative, and, if so, this might be more true of social sciences, was stated, in different terms, by G. B. Vico, in contrast to the positivist movement, asserted the superiority of the science of the human mind, Positivism asserts that all authentic knowledge allows verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Émile Durkheim reformulated sociological positivism as a foundation of social research, Wilhelm Dilthey, in contrast, fought strenuously against the assumption that only explanations derived from science are valid. Dilthey was in part influenced by the historicism of Leopold von Ranke, at the turn of the 20th century the first wave of German sociologists, including Max Weber and Georg Simmel, rejected the doctrine, thus founding the antipositivist tradition in sociology. Later antipositivists and critical theorists have associated positivism with scientism, science as ideology, but can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing. If we omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely uninteresting, Logical positivists rejected metaphysical speculation and attempted to reduce statements and propositions to pure logic. Strong critiques of this approach by philosophers such as Karl Popper, Willard Van Orman Quine and Thomas Kuhn have been highly influential, in historiography the debate on positivism has been characterized by the quarrel between positivism and historicism. Arguments against positivist approaches in historiography include that history differs from sciences like physics and ethology in subject matter and that much of what history studies is nonquantifiable, and therefore to quantify is to lose in precision. Experimental methods and mathematical models do not generally apply to history, Positivism in the social sciences is usually characterized by quantitative approaches and the proposition of quasi-absolute laws. A significant exception to this trend is represented by cultural anthropology, in psychology the positivist movement was influential in the development of operationalism. Economic thinker Friedrich Hayek rejected positivism in the sciences as hopelessly limited in comparison to evolved and divided knowledge. For example, much legislation falls short in contrast to pre-literate or incompletely defined common or evolved law, in contemporary social science, strong accounts of positivism have long since fallen out of favour
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