Metodologie sociálních věd

This book focuses on the main methodological problems social sciences face. The introductory section addresses the essential question of commensurability or lack thereof between social and natural sciences. Are social science statements comparable to explanations provided by natural sciences or is it rather a revelation of the meaning and understanding of social phenomena based on the clarification of the systems of rules? Is social cognition in its nature a causal explanation or rather an interpretation? Seeking answers to these questions is related to the problem of delaying the nature of cognition in social sciences, possible methods of constructing scientific theories and defining notions, explanations and narration in social sciences. Social reality can be studied through the use of explanation as well as through narration. The cognition then results in two different scientific images of the world, which differ in methodological starting points as well as in approaches to the research object and the normative or non-normative nature of the scientific discourse. The explanation is based on the idea of “nomological law” as we know it from the non-normative methodology of social sciences. Narration as a retrograde analysis is a new feature in this book. Although explanation and narration differ from each other, in the scientific examination of social reality they can be used as two mutually complementary approaches of scientific knowledge of society.