Antipositivism

Positivists theory began to be criticized when Hegelians in the early 19th century started to analyze and question the prospects of empirical studies to social issues. Karl Marx too was not in favor of Cometaean sociological positivism and rejected it whole heartedly. Besides, Durkheim, and Wilhelm Dilthey made a clear distinction between natural and social sciences. Further, in the beginning of the 20^th century a group of German sociologists like Wilhelm Diltheyand, Heinrich Rickert began to criticize the positivism theory of social science. Further, they introduced this concept of antipostivism that rejected Cometean sociological positivism and thereby disapproved of empiricism and scientific methods in the social theory and practice. They differentiated between the world of natural science and social science which had no similarity at all. They believed that research in sociology should focus on human culture .values and social symbols that are more subjective in nature. This concept was further taken up by Max Weber who coined the term antiipostivism and developed what is termed a humanistic sociology. According to this theory, sociology should aim to understand casual relationships of human beings, their actions and their cultural values. The basic criticism of the antipositivists was on the methodology used by the supporters of positivism. They felt that the same tool to study natural science cannot be used to study social sciences like sociology which deals with values and social issues. They also felt that the goals of the positivists namely description, control, and prediction are incomplete and lack proper understanding of the social situations. Other sociological approaches like interpretative sociology, critical sociology rejected the views of positivism as sociology involves the understanding of human behavior in a social context.