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Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel
Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel

Antipositivism (also known as interpretivism or negativism) is the belief within social science that the social realm is not subject to the same methods of investigation as the natural world. The social realm requires a different epistemology in which academics do not use the scientific method of the natural sciences. Antipositivists hold that researchers need to be, first, aware that our concepts, ideas, and language shape how we think about the social world. Therefore, antipositivists focus on understanding the interpretative method employed.


Beginning with Giambattista Vico in the early eighteenth century, and later with Montesquieu, there was a separation between natural history and human history. The former is not directly under human control whereas the latter is in fact humanity's creation. As such, an epistemological distinction is made between the natural world and the social realm which informs antipositivism. The natural world can only be understood with regard to its external characteristics, whereas the social realm can be understood externally and internally, and can therefore be known fully. The internal focus is seen fully developed in antipositivist methods.

In the early nineteenth century, various intellectuals, led by the Hegelians, questioned the prospect of empirical social analysis. Karl Marx died before the establishment of formal social science, but nonetheless fiercely rejected Comtean sociological positivism—despite himself attempting to establish a historical materialist "science of society".


At the turn of the twentieth century, the first wave of German sociologists formally introduced verstehende (interpretive) sociological antipositivism, proposing research should concentrate on human cultural norms, values, symbols, and social processes viewed from a resolutely subjective perspective. As an antipositivist, however, one seeks relationships that are not as "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable" as those pursued by natural scientists.




Antipositivism thus holds there is no methodological unity of the sciences: the three goals of positivism - description, control, and prediction - are incomplete, since they lack any understanding. Science aims at understanding causality so control can be exerted. If this succeeded in sociology, those with knowledge would be able to control the ignorant and this could lead to social engineering.


Frankfurt School


Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman thinks that "our innate tendency to express moral concern and identify with the Other's wants is stifled in modernity by positivistic science and dogmatic bureaucracy. If the Other does not "fit in" to modernity's approved classifications, it is liable to be extinguished."

See also

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