Critique of Positivism: II Social Action

Abstract

The dominant methodological orientation of nineteenth-century sociology was positivism: society was defined in holistic, organicist terms as a system determined by the existence of specific laws which worked to promote change and cohesion through different stages of evolution. It was assumed that a fundamental continuity subsisted between the realms of nature and society. The methods appropriate to the study of the natural sciences were thus appropriate to the study of human society and culture.