Hypothetical-Deductive Method & Social Science Research

Hypothetical-Deductive Method

The hypothetical-deductive method is a three-tier structure:

• Protocol Statements: These express world phenomena capable of being objective and communicable empirically. Statements are established unambiguously.
• Laws: Universal statements that express the behavior or the relationship of a certain phenomenon regularly and invariably.
• Theories: Universal statements from which all the laws of a particular science can be derived.

Steps of the Hypothetical-Deductive Method

1. Starting Point: A problem is detected by observation or experimentation that is not yet resolved.
2. One or several hypotheses are produced to explain the observed fact or detected problem.
3. The hypothesis is formulated mathematically, and testable implications are derived for empirical science. The consequences are subjected to contrast with the experiment.
4. Verification: A hypothesis is considered true when the findings are consistent with the facts inferred from the hypothesis.
5. Corroboration: Although the hypothesis is consistent with the facts, we can never say that it is true; it has only been confirmed.
6. Falsification: A hypothesis is false when the facts in the world do not match the facts inferred in the hypothesis.
7. The hypothesis is tested in a number of cases, and if successful, it is accepted as law.

Once a number of laws are established by this procedure, an attempt is made to unify them through a general theory arising deductively.

The Method of Social Science

The method of social science poses a peculiar relationship between the subject and the object of knowledge. The subject is part of the study object.

Features of Social Science Research

• The speaker's freedom.
• Lower generalization capacity than in the natural sciences.
• The diversity of human events is much greater.
• Some sciences deal with individual facts.
• Value neutrality is impossible.

Two Traditions in Social Science

• Empirical-Analytic: Pursues the unity of science and requires applying the method of natural science to social sciences.
• Hermeneutics: Believes that the social sciences have a different status and must adopt their own methodology.

Two Methodological Approaches

• Explanation: To determine the causes of something.
• Understanding: Consists of grasping its meaning, and it is sometimes impossible to separate explanation from comprehension.

Techniques

Techniques can be quantitative and qualitative.

Rational Empirical Methods

Rational empirical methods have origins in Aristotle and have lasted until today. We count on two levels of knowledge: senses and understanding. From them, we access two levels:

• Sensible: Consisting of data provided to us.
• Intelligible: Things without meaning and what they are.

Understanding grasps that there is something permanent that does not change and acts as a support for all the changes experienced by a thing. This method begins with the physical experience of change and movement and culminates in the work of understanding. It intends to know what is common, universal, and necessary in all beings: Being as Being.

Empirical Methods

Empirical methods separate reason from experience.

• Reason: An appropriate source to develop formal sciences. Statements are truths of reason.
• Experience: Suitable for developing formal sciences. It does not consist of statements whose truth can only be seen using a single reason. Experience can interact and combine a feeling with all others.

Empiricist philosophy holds that the origin and value of our knowledge depend on sensory experience. It uses the inductive method in the investigation.

Rational Method

The old rationalism was born in the modern age. It affirms the primacy of reason over experience. Reason can give assurance that the knowledge produced by it is true for two reasons:

1. We have before us the same understanding; there is nothing in the intellect that has not previously been in effect, except the intellect itself.
2. Among our ideas, the clearest innate ideas are those that come from reason; the ideas from the senses are confused and uncertain.

Reason is a source of knowledge. The principles of knowledge are the truths of reason, which judge the truth and certainty and infuse our knowledge. The method adopted by classical rationalism is the combination of intuition and deduction. Discarded by this method is the foundation of knowledge of the clear idea: "I think, therefore I am."