Soc Defs Fall 2006

Front 1

fact

Back 1

any event in space and time
any non-random sequence of events
any attribte, quality or property of a thing
any relation between a thing and another thing
any condition

Front 2

scientific fact

Back 2

one or more events, processes, realtions or conditions that are consistent with a scientific law, explanation or empirical generalization

determined by proper scientific procedure

Front 3

explanation

Back 3

a casual account of how a given event came about or comes about reccurently under specifiable conditions

a statement of causal relations between 2 or more events or facts

Front 4

scientific theory

Back 4

related statements that explain a pattern or sequence of facts

theories strive for abstraction, generalizability and conditionality

Front 5

realist theory

Back 5

a troup of related statements that explain facts by hypothesizing the existence of hidden structres or processes (which produce facts worthy of explanation)

Front 6

positivist theory

Back 6

its indifferent to hidden structures and mechanism; any variables will do

it's concerned with prediction

Front 7

critical theory

Back 7

rejects "the separation of fact and value

it studies the world dispassionately

very critical/definitive
but is very black and white (no grey area)

Front 8

interpretive theory

Back 8

rejects explanation and prediction in favor of understanding the symbolic meaning that people ascribe to their own and others conduct

Front 9

realism

Back 9

view that the universe is mind-independent so humans have to adjust their conceptions to the facts of the universe

Front 10

materialism

Back 10

all mental phenomena emerge from physical structures and processes

associated with atomism (the quest for smallest units of matter that in lawful combinations produce the perceptible and knowledgable world)

Front 11

idealism

Back 11

view that our knowledge of the unoverse is ineluctably mind-dependent

Front 12

positivism

Back 12

auguste comte: only rigorous methods of scientific procedure can produce valid knowledge

Front 13

historicism

Back 13

an adequate understanding of any socio-cultural phenomenon requires us to examine it as a unique outcome of innumerable influences

Front 14

empiricism

Back 14

all valid knowledge is derived inductively from experience

Front 15

rationalism

Back 15

some general truths are knowable "a priori" by intrinsic self-evidence or intelligibility

Front 16

holism

Back 16

true architecture of reality consists of interdependent and encompassing structures or systems organized into levels

"whole is greater than the sums of its parts"

Front 17

reductionism

Back 17

structures and systems must be analytically decomposed into their elemental, irreducible parts, which are the true building blocks of reality