Abstract
This article addresses the question of whether sociology can in principle become a quantitative science. I distinguish several senses in which a contrast between quantitative and qualitative science might be understood. I focus on the central — and traditional — sense: can sociology become a nomological science, in the way physics is? I argue that it cannot, on the ontological ground that the determinants of human actions cannot be analyzed in purely causal terms. In the article I try to characterize this difference.
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Fales, E. Must sociology be qualitative?. Qual Sociol 5, 89–105 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987155
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987155