Sociology and Positivism

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to analyze the development of sociological empirical studies in postwar Japan. The rapid economic growth and the rise in the percentage of students who go on to college, which are two salient characteristics of social change in postwar Japanese society, made academic knowledge popular. While academic studies in the prewar period put stress on acquiring culture, those in the postwar period has stressed emphasis on positivism and usefulness. Therefore the postwar period in Japan can be called an era of positivism.Positivism has become the driving force in developing sociological empirical studies. The most well-known sociological empirical study is the national survey on Social Stratification and Mobility (so called the SSM survey). Looking back on the SSM survey from 1955 to 1985, we see that the relation of data analysis to sociological theory has been eclipsed by technical development in quantitative analysis. The separation of empirical studies from theoretical studies in sociology has been accelerated by the advent of postmodern thought. I will suggest a means to overcome this separation.