ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Alternative Sociology: Probing into the Sociological Thought of Allama M. T. Jafari Chapter 5: Human Sciences, Values and Understanding Values and Understanding in Human Sciences The subject matter of sociology is human behavior in society. All social behavior is guided by values.

Thus the study of social behavior can never be value-free if value freedom is interpreted in the sense of absence of values because values of the society under investigation form a part of the social facts to be studied by sociology. Moreover social research is in itself a type of social behavior and is guided by the value of search for true knowledge. In other words, the values can operate at three levels: At the level of philological interpretation.

At the level of ethical interpretation in assigning value to an object of enquiry. At the level of rational interpretation in which the sociologists seeks the meaningful relationship between phenomena in terms of causal analysis. The point of value interpretation is to establish the value towards which an activity is directed. Sociologists should observe value neutrality while conducting social research. It means that s/he should exclude ideological or non- scientific assumption from research.

S/he should not make evaluative judgment about empirical evidence. Value judgment should be restricted to sociologists' area of technical competence. S/he should make her/his own values open and clear and refrain from advocating particular values. Value neutrality enables the social scientists to fulfill the basic value of scientific enquiry that is search for true knowledge. Thus sociology being a science cherishes the goal of value neutrality.

According to Alvin Gouldner value-free principle did enhance the autonomy of sociology where it could steadily pursue basic problems rather than journalistically react to passing events and allowed it more freedom to pursue questions uninteresting either to the respectable or to the rebellious. It made sociology freer as Comte had wanted it to be -to pursue all its own theoretical implications. Value free principle did contribute to the intellectual growth and emancipation of the enterprise.

Value-free doctrine enhanced freedom from moral compulsiveness; it permitted a partial escape from the parochial prescriptions of the sociologists' local or native culture.