ASSIGNMENT代写

美国亚利桑那代写作业:实证主义

2018-12-20 16:52

实证主义是一种可以应用于社会科学的哲学方法。这种方法是建立在“人类社会世界的现象与自然无机和有机世界的现象没有什么不同”的信念之上的(Unwin, 1992年第31页)。因此,“实证主义之父”(Kitchin, 2006年第20页)Auguste Comte认为社会现象应该用更科学的方法来研究。Kitchin(2006)解释道,这种新方法首次出现在孔德19世纪中期的著作中,关注的是可以被经验证明和观察到的事实和真相。事实上,创造“实证主义”一词背后的原因是,这些方法旨在优先考虑实际的真相。孔德要求用可复制的方法进行客观的研究,以便产生共同的规律,因此他对形而上学和规范性的问题不屑一顾,因为从科学的观点来看,这些问题似乎是不可能回答的。随着实证主义影响的扩大,它向两个主要方向发展;“逻辑实证主义”和“批判理性主义”(证伪)。逻辑实证主义是20世纪20年代维也纳学派的产物,它的核心思想是假设应该被设定和有力地检验,直到它在统计上成为真实(Johnston et al, 2000)。另一方面,Popper(1976)提出了一种理想,即某事物只有在被证明是错误的时候才会是正确的,因此学术界应该致力于否定假设。反过来,当你不偏向于满足你自己假设中的标准时,这就变成了一个更客观的方法。当然,这两种理想都有缺陷。毫无疑问,要证明许多事情是不可能的,尤其是在处理象应用于人类地理学这样复杂的过程时;并不是所有的东西都可以被证伪,例如不可能证伪不能直接测试的东西。然而,这两股实证主义在人文地理学的哲学应用中发挥了重要作用。
美国亚利桑那代写作业:实证主义
Positivism is a philosophical approach that can be applied to social sciences. The approach was founded upon the belief that “phenomena of the human social world are no different from those of the natural inorganic and organic world” (Unwin, 1992 p.31). As a result, the “father of positivism” (Kitchin, 2006 p.20), Auguste Comte felt that social phenomena should be studied using more scientific methodologies. Kitchin (2006) explains that this new approach, first presented in Comte’s mid 19th century writings, focused on facts and truths that could be empirically proven and observed. Indeed the reasoning behind the coining of the term ‘positivism’ was the approaches aim to prioritise actual truths. Comte demanded objective studies using replicable methods so that common laws could be generated, he was consequently dismissive of metaphysical and normative questions as they were seemingly impossible to answer from a scientific standpoint.As positivism grew in influence it branched into two main directions; ‘logical positivism’ and ‘critical rationalism’ (falsification). Logical positivism, a product of the Vienna Circle in the 1920s, revolves around the idea that a hypothesis should be set and vigorously tested until it becomes statistically true (Johnston et al, 2000). Popper (1976) on the other hand suggested the ideal that something is only true until it is disproved, therefore academics should be aiming to nullify hypotheses. In turn this becomes a more objective method as you are not biased toward satisfying the criteria within your own hypothesis. Of course there are flaws with both of these ideals. It is impossible to prove many things beyond a doubt, especially when dealing with processes as complicated as those applied to human geography; and not everything can be falsified, it is for example not possible to falsify something that cannot be directly tested. Nevertheless, these two strands of positivism played an important role in the application of the philosophy within human geography.