Analysis of the problem of observation propositions in social sciences from the perspective of Quine's naturalized epistemology

Sciences claim to have objective knowledge. The claim of objective knowledge is an approximate objectivity rather than an absolute objectivity. When it comes to objectivity, natural sciences approach this ideal more than social sciences. Social sciences are criticised for objectivity due to reasons such as the presence of researchers in the research object and the variability of the human factor. Although these criticisms are made in the sense that subjectivity will infiltrate the knowledge produced in social science research, there have been approaches in sciences such as sociology where this issue is not taken into consideration. Scientific knowledge is produced in accordance with the dominant paradigm with a set of methods and techniques within the methodological assumptions of this paradigm. These methods and techniques can ultimately be based on observation. At the point of being human, the researcher is orientated towards this information with his five sense organs. This situation is more complex for social science researchers than natural science researchers. Social science researchers are orientated towards social reality based on human actions. Therefore, the explanation of social reality is not independent from the explanation of human actions. Human actions are related to internal processes that cannot be directly observed. This makes the knowledge of social reality controversial in terms of objectivity. With his project of naturalising epistemology, Quine focuses on the relations between observations and theories in the sciences. Quine argues that our observations are rudimentary inputs and from these rudimentary inputs we construct theories as dense outputs. If the observations made in social science research, and more specifically in sociological research, are considered as rickety inputs and the theories constructed from these observations as dense outputs, the problem of what is articulated to the observation data in this process arises. The things that are added to our sensory inputs may be inferences based on logical relationships between data, or they may be ideologies, beliefs, culture-specific ontologies, etc., which may undermine the ideal of objectivity of scientific knowledge and are based on theory-loadedness. This paper presents a methodological framework, based on Quine's philosophy of science, which, by touching centrally and specifically on sociological research processes and, in some parts, on social science research processes, will enable us to uncover what arises from theory-burdenedness and what is embedded in our scientific knowledge.