Lecture 1
Ontology
- •The goal of science is to learn about ‘reality’, but what is reality? Is there one reality or multiple
(e.g. as many as their are human beings?)
- Ontology is the branch of philosophy (metaphysics) that focusses on these questions
- The key ontological question in the social sciences is whether there is an objective reality
outside the perspective of people
1. Constructivism
- Constructivism states that social reality is not the same as physical reality. People create their
own reality through social interaction
- A molecule might exists in reality, outside people’s mind, but something more abstract, such as
culture, only gets meaning in a person’s mind.
- Social reality therefore can only be understood as the collection of perspectives in which the
perspective of the researcher is also ‘a perspective’ (‘the problem of the other mind’)
- One perspective is not necessarily more valuable than others. The best we can do is ‘describe
as thoroughly as possible the perspectives of individuals’ and the social interactions that binds
or divides them’ (=thick description)
2. Objectivism
- Objectivism is the ontological position that social observations are ‘real’: they exist outside a
person’s mind..
- Things such as ‘culture’ or ‘power’ are not only constructs of the mind, but ‘exists’ in the real
world
- Objectivism is the ontological foundation for a positivist or realist epistemology.
Epistemology
- Epistemology is ‘s the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge, i.e.
nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. ’
- Resolves around the classical question: ‘what can I (learn to) know’
- Epistemology is rooted in ontology (what you can learn depends on your view of reality)
- A pertinent epistemological question for the social sciences is whether the methods used in
physics are equipped to study people, social interaction, and societies.
- We are not going to answer this question here, but it is crucial that you understand that such
questions are critical for the type of more specific methods a researcher (like you) uses.
1. Interpretivism
- Interpretivism states that there are vast differences between the methods social sciences and
natural sciences rely on.
- Interpretivism states that social science should focus on ‘verstehen’ instead of
‘erklären’ (Wilhelm Dilthey)
- Erklären: Systematically study the conditions for certain events or relations.
- Verstehen: Trying to understand why events happen or why social relations exist
- According to interpretivists ‘verstehen’ is better suited for social science because the
perspective of people is critical in understanding their behavior.
2. Positivism
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