Unlock Elite Access: Level Up Your Preparation with Exclusive Content

Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

What is positivism? Critically analyze the major arguments against it.

  • UPSC 2025
  • Sociology as a Science

Auguste Comte coined "positivism" and made it the culmination of his law of three stages — human thought moving from theological through metaphysical to the "positive" stage, where knowledge rests only on observed facts and their invariant laws of succession.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions.

What the full answer covers

  • What Positivism Actually Claims
  • Weber's Verstehen Critique — Meaning Cannot Be Read Off the Outside
  • The Nomothetic–Idiographic Divide
  • Phenomenology and Ethnomethodology — Order Is Produced, Not Discovered
  • The Frankfurt School's Ideological Charge
  • Reflexivity and the Limits of the Observing Subject

Unlock this answer and 1,500+ more

  • 1,500+ solved UPSC Sociology PYQs from 1985 to 2026, Paper-1 and Paper-2
  • Topic-wise across all 25 syllabus units, newest exam year first
  • A full model answer for every question, shaped to 10 or 20 marks, with thinkers and Indian examples
  • Read online on lotusarise.com, plus PDF download

₹1,499₹2,50040% off

Get Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions @ ₹1,499 →

One-time payment · 12 months of access · Instant access · UPI, cards, RuPay

See every Sociology as a Science question (64 solved) →Already enrolled? Log in