Debates regarding the impossibility of being value free in social sciences

Year 2017, , 77 - 84, 03.01.2017

Ahmet Alp

https://doi.org/10.24289/ijsser.283589

Abstract

The aim of this study is to discuss about the impossibility of being value-free in social sciences that have developed theoretically and methodologically since the 19^th century. Social sciences emerged in the Enlightenment period that has led to many social changes and transformations in western societies. Social sciences which are younger than natural sciences relatively have been influenced by natural sciences crucially in terms of methodology. Moreover, it could be seen that social sciences still have intensive debates regarding theory and methodology because of being new sciences. They developed under the influence of positivist philosophy which accepted the knowledge and methodology of natural sciences in the 19^th century. Therefore, social sciences have been affected by the approaches of being value-free. In the 20^th century, when it is looked at the social sciences’ theories that were affected by the interpretive approach, which was supported by M. Weber, asserted that the researcher who studies a society is the object of the society at the same time, and therefore, the researcher cannot be value free while he/she studies on the society. Ernst Nagel (1979), Gresham Riley (1974), N. Robin (1968) etc. social scientists carried out some studies regarding values judgments in social sciences

Classical and contemporary sociological theoreticians have argued intensively regarding being value or value free of social sciences’ methodology. Furthermore, this study is a critique of positivism in respect of its methodological approach that supports to be value-free in social researches. Thus, it is aimed to contribute new aspects to literature for understanding and producing solutions for the problems of societies.

Key Words; Social Sciences, Value, Value-free, Positivism, methodology,

References

• Bailey, Kenneth, D. 1994. Methods of Social Research, Fourth Edition, USA The Free Press.
• Becker, Howard. 1950. Through Values to Social Interpretation, Essays on Social Contexts, Action, Types, and Prospects, Durham, Duke University Press, p:6.
• Bryman, Alan. 2004. Social Research Methods, 2nd ed., Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Elwel, Frank. 1996. “Verstehen: The Sociology of Max Weber”, (http://www.faculty.rsu.edu/users/f/felwell/www/Theorists/Weber/Whome2.htm).
• Filmer, P., Jenks, C., Seale, C., and Walsh, D. 1998. “Developments in Social Theory, ed. Clive Seale, Researching Society and Culture, London, Sage Publications, 23-37.
• Gouldner, Alvin, W. 1962. “The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology “, Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Winter, 1962), pp. 199-213.
• Jones, Pip. 1993. Studying Society: Sociological Theories and Research Practices, Fulham, Collins Educational press.
• Hessler, Richard, M. 1992. Social Research Methods, the USA, West Publishing Company.
• Hughes, John. 1987. the Philosophy of Social Research, Singapore, Longman Singapore PublishersLtd.
• Kızılçelik, Sezgin. 2004. Sosyal Bilimleri Yeniden Yapılandırmak, Ankara, Anı Yayıncılık.
• Livesey, Chris. 2006. Sociological Methods: the Relationships between Positivism, Interpretivism and Sociological Research Methods, (http://www.sociology.org.uk/revgrm5).
• Neuman, W. Lawrence. 2014. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 7th edition, USA, Pearson Education Limited.
• May Tim. 1993. Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process, Philadelphia, Open University Press, Buckingham.
• Nagel, Ernst. 1979. the Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation, USA, Hackett Publishing Company.
• Riley, Gresham. 1974. Values, Objectivity, and the Social Sciences, (ed.), Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
• Ritzer, George. 1996. Sociological Theory, Fourth Edition, Singapore
• McGraw Hill Companies, INC.
• Shutz, A. 1962. Collected Papers I: the Problems of Social Reality, the Hague: Martinus Nijhof Press.
• William, A. Gorton, the Philosophy of Social Science: “Interpretivism and the Meaningfulness of the Social World”, Chicago, (http://www.iep.utm.edu/soc-sci/) (accessed November 15, 2011).
• Williams, R., M. 1968. Values: the Concept of Values, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol., 16.