The enduring legacy of epistemic positivism within the social sciences presents a persistent methodological conundrum. This paradigm, predicated on the empirical verifiability of phenomena and a commitment to objective, value-neutral observation, presupposes an ontological externality of the subjects under investigation, mirroring the approach of the natural sciences. However, the application of this framework to the study of human societies is fraught with conceptual difficulties. The core incommensurability lies in the nature of social reality itself, which is not an inert, external datum but is perpetually co-constituted through interpretation and intersubjectively validated meaning. Consequently, social constructs such as institutions, norms, and identities cannot be fully apprehended through nomothetic methodologies that seek universal laws. Their essence is tied to an inherent interpretive contingency that quantitative analysis alone cannot penetrate. To treat these constructs as mere variables is to engage in a form of reification, stripping them of the very meaningful context that gives them substance. This critique does not advocate for the wholesale abandonment of empirical rigor but rather for its reconceptualization. The central challenge is accommodating the ideographic—the particular, the contextual, and the meaningful—within a scientific discourse historically biased toward the universal. The resultant methodological schism between quantitative and qualitative, or explanatory and interpretive, approaches is not merely a technical dispute; it reflects a fundamental philosophical divergence on the nature of social knowledge and the legitimate modes of its acquisition. This necessitates a move toward a more sophisticated methodological pluralism, one that acknowledges the distinct, yet potentially complementary, contributions of divergent epistemic traditions.