Buddhini Karunathilaka

Introduction to Copernican Revolution Human history is framed as a series of events and episodes, representing sudden ruptures of knowledge. Few examples of the historical periods where it was expected to move the innovations to a certain extent where it was not done in the previous periods. It leads the world to sudden shake-ups in science, technology, philosophy and literature. ‘Scientific revolution’ was taken place at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It has influenced the drastic changes in the European approach towards science. Here, the term ‘revolution’ indicates a period where there was a turmoil and social upheaval in the ideas about the world changed rigorously. And it was marked as the beginning of a new era of the academic considerations. The scientific philosophy which was introduced by the medieval philosophers was abandoned in favor of the new methods proposed by Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton. It was started to lose the hegemoni...

There are two positions of using positivism in social sciences. One set of people claims that positivism can be used in social sciences. But there is an opposite opinion which says that positivism cannot be studied in social sciences. However, the criticisms of positivism in the context of social sciences can be listed as following.  Reductionism   Most of the sociologists have reduced everything into fact and values. Comte and Durkheim reduced everything into facts whereas Weber emphasized the prominence of values. Weber had an intellectual combat with Comte and Durkheim because of the complete rejection of values. It is true that facts are quantifiable and values cannot be quantifiable. However, the prominence of values cannot ignore only because they cannot be quantified. He defined sociology as the ‘study of social action’. Even Durkheim was criticized for the over emphasis on the concept of fact. And he was criticized for reducing live values into relatively dead social f...

Durkheim is a French sociologist who wanted to establish sociology as a new academic discipline. Instead of that, he had two other goals; to analyze how societies may possibly uphold integrity and consistency in the modern period and the practical aspects of scientific knowledge. He accepted scientific method as the valid guide for knowledge. He studied society as an examination of facts. In addition, he believed that social sciences could scientifically study when uncovered of the metaphysical generalizations and philosophical assumptions. His views can be summarized into three sub-sections; methodology of social sciences, division of labour and suicide.  He reduced everything into facts (reductionism). It is similar with that of Wittgenstein’s views. Wittgenstein keep facts above things as things are not able to determine facts. He says, ,"1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things” (Wittgenstein, 1922, p. 31).  ‘Fact’ can be defined as the existence of things. Bu...

Comte was a French philosopher considered as the first philosopher of science. Auguste Comte was the person who coined the term ‘positive philosophy’. It was then commonly accepted as ‘positivism’.  It should be mentioned that, ‘in order to legitimize the utility of the new science of human society, Comte insisted that it be “positive,” i.e., scientific in methods of analysis and prognosis’ (Abraham & Morgan, 1985, p. 15). He combined the study of the society with scientific method. In other words, he was the first person to introduce the philosophical and methodological foundation to social science research. He wanted to build a natural science of the society, which means that he wanted to study the society through natural scientific methods. No one has analyzed the society through an empirical approach before him. Therefore, he is considered as the ‘Father of Sociology’. In his The Course in Positive Philosophy, he has discussed about the physical sciences that are already in...

The critical theory has derived from Marx and Kant. They used the term ‘critique’ when forming their philosophical speculations. Marx used it in his book ‘Das Capital-A Critique of Political Economy’ and Kant has used the term in his three critiques; The ‘Critique’ of pure reason, The ‘Critique’ of Practical Reason and ‘The ‘Critique’ of Judgment.’  Critical theory of social research is discussed with the ideas of Marx and Freud. It criticizes both positivist approach and interpretive approach. It criticizes positivist approach for its inability to focus on the meaning of human actions and it criticizes the interpretive approach for being more subjective and for being relativist. This approach goes beyond the surface level illusions and it uncover the real structures in this material world as it could be helpful to the people to change the conditions and to build a better world. Moreover, it has broad meaning in the context of the history of social sciences. Critical theory can be ...

The idea of ‘value-free’ social science was conceded down to later decades as a way of understanding the objectivity of knowledge. However, it has been extensively misunderstood. A value judgment is based on the righteous or wrongness of something. A value judgment is a judgment, which is based on an exacting set of values or value systems.  It has been mentioned that social science should have to accept the domain of human objectives, values, goals, and meanings into its context. Value subjectivism is considered as the main view in that context. Subjectivism can be considered as the non-rational nature of judgments. I has arose two main problems. The first one is when there is an absence of rational claims of evaluative judgments (ends, goals, and the notion of good), then it was subjected to the questions of the way that those goals have to be determined. Most of the philosophers were not subjected to alternative answers like goals and valid values have been set by a supernatural...

Professions are assessed with the responsibilities and the standards of its practice. “Professional practice has a tradition that requires professionals to cultivate certain virtues” (Beauchamp, TomL;Childress, James F;, 2009, p. 34). Every profession such as teaching, doctoring, nursing has its’ own standards of the conduct and virtues. Moreover, “roles and practices in medicine and nursing reflect social expectations as well as standards and ideals internal to these professions”. The virtues related to those kinds of professions have risen along with the traditional healthcare relationship and the focal virtues that can be defined as trustworthiness, compassion, consciousness, integrity, discernment, truthfulness, respectfulness, benevolence, non malevolence, and faithfulness. Every ethical system and professional ethical basis is centered to establish social welfare.Medical professionals are prominent because they spend their time, labor and knowledge to cure a patient from mental a...

The philosophy of Wittgenstein can be classified into two major eras. Where he did a doctrinal change and also he changed the method that he used. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus represents his early philosophy and Philosophical Investigations represents his later philosophy. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus consists of the limits of language, limits of logic and he rejected religious, ethical and aesthetic statements as they are subjective statements which lead to disagreements among people. Philosophical Investigations comes under the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. It is based on two major themes, which can be called as the philosophy of language and philosophical psychology. It can be also named as a grammatical investigation since he stated that philosophy is based on some misunderstandings of our language. This book is also hierarchically numbered remarks. Most of the remarks are composed as conversations between Wittgenstein and an interlocutor that consists with the reality and ...