From Empiricism to Normative Science

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  • Seiyama Kazuo
    Graduate School of Humanity and Sociology University of Tokyo

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Other Title
  • 経験主義から規範科学へ
  • 経験主義から規範科学へ--数理社会学はなんの役に立つか
  • ケイケン シュギ カラ キハン カガク エ スウリ シャカイガク ワ ナンノ ヤク ニ タツ カ
  • 数理社会学はなんの役に立つか
  • What is Mathematical Sociology for?

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Still, mathematical modelings do not play in sociology so large parts as in economics. We may find a reason for this in the nature of social world which is the object of sociology. As Parsons once argued, a social order is not merely a factual order, but also a normative order. However, the reason he suggested is wrong. The exact reason is that a social world is a meaning-world which is normatively and transcendentally ordered by ideal meanings. Inquiries on meaning-worlds should be “interpretation” rather than empirical investigations, and there is the well-known problem of objectivity for interpretation. Because of this problem, interpretation cannot have the property “true” as in empirical sciences. It can only provide, if successful, a new meaning-world which would overwrite and replace the one that is the object of inquiry. This amounts to providing a new conception of order. In this sense, sociology is a normative science, and the major role of mathematical modellings should be normative rather than empirical.

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