In the early 19th century various intellectuals, perhaps most notably the Hegelians, began

to question the prospect of empirical social analysis. Karl Marx died before the
establishment of formal social science but nonetheless fiercely
rejected Comtean sociological positivism (despite himself attempting to establish
a historical materialist 'science of society').[2]
The enhanced positivism presented by Durkheim would serve to found modern academic
sociology and social research, yet retained many of the mechanical elements [clarification
needed] of its predecessor. Hermeneuticians such asWilhelm Dilthey theorized in detail on
the distinction between natural and social science ('Geisteswissenschaft'), whilstneoKantian philosophers such as Heinrich Rickert maintained that the social realm, with its
abstract meanings and symbolisms, is inconsistent with scientific methods of
analysis. Edmund Husserl, meanwhile, negated positivism through the rubric
of phenomenology.[3]
At the turn of the 20th century, the first wave of German sociologists formally
introduced verstehende (interpretive) sociological antipositivism, proposing research
should concentrate on human cultural norms, values, symbols, and social processes
viewed from a resolutely subjective perspective[clarification needed]. As an antipositivist,
however, one seeks relationships that are not as "ahistorical, invariant, or generalizable" [4]
[not in citation given] as those pursued by natural scientists.
The interaction between theory (or constructed concepts) and data is always fundamental
in social science and this subjection distinguishes it from physical science [according to whom?].
Durkheim himself noted the importance of constructing concepts in the abstract (e.g.
"collective consciousness" and "social anomie") in order to form workable categories for
experimentation [clarification needed]. Both Weber and Georg Simmel pioneered
the verstehen (or 'interpretative') approach toward social science; a systematic process in
which an outside observer attempts to relate to a particular cultural group, or indigenous
people, on their own terms and from their own point of view[citation needed].
[Sociology is ] ... the science whose object is to interpret the meaning of social
action and thereby give a causal explanation of the way in which theaction
proceeds and the effects which it produces. By 'action' in this definition is
meant the human behaviour when and to the extent the agent or agents see it
as subjectively meaningful ... the meaning to which we refer may be either (a)
the meaning actually intended either by an individual agent on a particular
historical occasion or by a number of agents on an approximate average in a
given set of cases, or (b) the meaning attributed to the agent or agents, as
types, in a pure type constructed in the abstract. In neither case is the
'meaning' thought of as somehow objectively 'correct' or 'true' by some
metaphysical criterion. This is the difference between the empirical sciences of
action, such as sociology and history, and any kind of a priori discipline, such as
jurisprudence, logic, ethics, or aesthetics whose aim is to extract from their
subject-matter 'correct' or 'valid' meaning.

Max Weber, The Nature of Social Action 1922 [5]