Sociology being a scientific study of social phenomenon wants to achieve total objectivity. It is a desirability for any scientific subject to achieve objectivity in their knowledge.
Objectivity vs Subjectivity Debate in Sociology
Why objectivity is important?(Equal to why reliability and validity)
Who advocated for objectivity
What will happen if there is no Objectivity?
This issue(reliability and validity)arise due to following reasons
Areas where subjectivity comes in→
How value ( social researcher and subject) come into picture
Objectivity refer to a set of knowledge where subjective dimensions or preference of the social scientists do not contaminate the collection and analysis of data. Objective is the main goal of any scientific investigation. Sociology as a study of society in scientific way aspire for achieving this goal.
Early sociologist who believe in positivist tradition looked society as objective phenomenon which have impact on humans behaviour. Sociologist from this tradition focuses more on those aspects of human behaviour which mark by relatively pattern and easy to comprehend with the use of data collection. Their main aim was to provide cause and effect relationship between social phenomena. For example Durkheim has used this while study suicide rate in Europe.In contrast, anti positivist shown disagreement with the basis assumption of positivism about social reality. They believe that there are two reality ( reality dualism) and social reality is marked by presence of 'geist' ( motive feeling of individual). This assumption about social reality lead to the emergence of social action approach in sociology which favoured interpretative understanding of human behaviour. Even Weber has provided verstehen approach to make limited generalization possible within social sciences.
Gunnar myrdal 'stated that total objectively in social sciences is a myth' because subjective dimensions in social reality makes it harder to achieving objectivity.
Andre Betteile:- areas where subjectivity crepe into(1) very choice of subject(2) methods to collect data(3)(4)(5)
Hence, sociology is a science which provides theory of social phenomena with rigorous research but total objectively is not possible and the reason for this is very nature of its unique subject matter which is highly dynamic and diverse. Pro t. K. Oommen believe that at best contextual objectivity is possible under social sciences research.