Neo Positivism

Neo Positivism arises out of the analogy between physical and social phenomena.Auguste comte made philosophical positivism the cornerstone of his sociological thought.But the school of neo-postivisim traces the origin to statistical tradition rather than Comte’s philosophical positivism.Neo positive takes phenomena form the physical world as models for social events and uses the laws of the former to explain the latter.It asserts that sociology should be a science and its methods should follow these of the natural expecially physical sciences.

Neopositivists consider sound scientific methodology to be the first principle of sociological analysis.For them sound scientific methodology involves mathematical and other formal models that incorporate formalization of variables.Computer techniques and language,experimental logics,laboratory experiments and computer simulation of human behaviour. Among early thinkers Pareto and Giddings stressed the scientific nature of sociology and recommended the use of methods commonly adopted in the natural sciences. Dodd,Ogburn,Zipf are considered to the leading exponents of neo-positivism.

• Main features of Neo positivism
• Criticism of Neo-Positivism