Methodological characteristics of anti-positivism

Anti-positivistic sociology philosophically inherited Kant's and Fichte's views that will is higher than reason and Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's voluntarism, and has the following characteristics in methodology:

(1) emphasizes the difference between natural science and social science and opposes the application of natural science methods to social science. Natural science is to explore the general laws of nature, while social science is to explain the connection of individual concrete things in society, which is unrepeatable and has no general laws.

② Oppose social realism and advocate social nominalism. Society consists of individuals, social activities are determined by individual actions, and individual actions are determined by individual motives, behavioral norms and value relationships. Social science should first study individual behavioral motives and social norms, and oppose positivistic sociology's view of social life as the interaction of some impersonal social facts or social structures.

Sociological research methods should focus on analyzing the factors of the whole society, finding out its components and explaining the relationship between the whole and the components. When analyzing various social organisms, we should emphasize classified research and explain their individual functions, and oppose positivism to reduce sociological research to only explain various social phenomena as a whole.

The main method of social science is to explain social phenomena by descriptive historical methods, and to oppose the application of general laws and methods of natural science to social science.

⑤ Investigating the cognitive ability of the subject is the main cognitive method, while the so-called objective facts of positivism are produced by the cognitive ability of the subject, and the knowledge of social science is subjective and relative.