1.  Positivism: Scientific

2.  Methaphysics: Beyond Reality

3.  Theological: Relgious 

Phylosophical pistion that the only meanginful inferences are ones that can be verified through experiences or direct measurements

What can be observed as opposed to hand me down tales and traditions 

Critical Investigation

Search for Rational for something

A reasoned and systematic desire to search deeper into root cause of issue

Influence by others: Friends, family, teahcers, books, personal experience

Common Sense

Authority  and Traditions

Authority of the past, the wya things have always been

EX: Drinking a shot of whisky will cure kidney disease 

Tradition and Authority

Both give us a starting point, but can push us in the wrong direction 

Humans Recognize that future circumstances are dertermined by present ones

Cause and Effect 

1.  Inaccurate Observation: Not being discriptive in your observations

2.  Overgeneralization: Generalizting a population; instead repeat the study to make sure you recieve the same results

3.  Selective Observation: Make and effort to find cases that do not fit the general pattern 

4.  Illogical Reasoning 

1. Pre-Modern: Things are as they seem to be

2.  Modern: Acknowledgement of human subjectivity, others may believe other things

3.  Post-Modern: There is no reality everything is based on images from your point of view 

Logic and Observation

Your logic and observation must make sense and correspond to what we observe 

Only people 18 and older can vote

Only people with license can drive

Republicans are more likely to vote for Republican candidates

People tend to marry in their class 

 To Explain why aggregated patterns of behavior are regular even when individuals change over time

Presumed to cause or determine a dependent variable

What you manipulate

Ex: Education vs. Prejudice

Education is the IV 

Dependent Variable

A variable that is assumed to depend on or is caused by another variable

EX: Education and Prejudice

Prejudice is the DV 

1. Discriptive: Studies that are designed to know what is going on or what exists

2. Relational: Looks at relationship between two or more variables

3.  Causal: Whether one or more variables causes or effects one or more outcome variables 

1. Prevents us from being taken in by flukes

2. Theories make sense of observed patterns in ways that can suggest other possibilities

3.  Therioes can shape and direct research efforts pointing towards likely discoveries through emperical observation 

1.  We are better able to understand the seemingly bizzare views and actions of otthers who are operating through a different paradigm

2.  We can profit from stepping out of our own paradigm 

August Comte

Three Stages of History 

Karl Marx

Suggests that social behavior could best be seen as the process of conflict: attempt to avoid domination and to dominate others

Compete interests 

Methodoly of People

People are constantly trying to figure out what life is

Technique: break the rules 

A social system is made up of parts, each of which contributes to the whole

The view of a social system as a whole with individuals parts that make it possible to work

EX: Police and Criminals 

Gender issues and opression of women and how it relates to the rest of social organizations

Eventually leads to all opressions 

5 Perspectives on Knowing for Feminist Paradigm

Explain Why... 

1.  Silence

2. Recieved Knowledge

3. Subjective Knowledge

4. Procedural Knowledge

5. Constructed Knowledge 

Racial Issues

Critical versus the Traditional