Critically Evaluate Three Philosophical Approaches to the Understanding of the Social World Commenting on the Implications That Arise for the Conduct of Social Research.

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Introduction

The whole point of conducting research is to investigate, explore and aid in the

development of theory about how the social world works. Social researchers use different

tools to investigate their research, these tools are not value free and they imply a certain

understanding of the world.

I will be critically evaluating these research tools in this essay because there is a range of

considerations to take into account when choosing a research tool.

Epistemology – is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge. It

talks about variety of knowledge.

Ontology – is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being. What it means

to be and live in the world because there is a difference between how people behave and

how they think they behave in the world.

Positivism

Epistemology looks at what knowledge is and there are two broad approaches within

epistemology:

1. Positivism

2. Interpretivism

When choosing what method of research you are going to take you must first ask yourself

if the social world is a suitable subject of study by the natural science model?

Science in the natural world explains, predicts and controls. Scientists believe that by fully

understanding a phenomenon we find out facts and so control it. The function of science

implies a particular understanding of knowledge called positivism.

Epistemology

Positivism is the epistemological position that advocates the application of the methods of

the natural sciences to the study of the social reality. Its observing and recording empirical

data. (Class Notes 2005)

Positivism developed in the mid-nineteenth century when they wanted to be seen as

scientists.

Positivists begin by asserting that investigating the social and cultural world is no different

in principle to investigating the natural world and that the same basic procedures apply to

both. From this it follows that, as in the natural sciences, the only admissible scientific

evidence is ‘facts established by systematic personal observation. (Deacon et al. 1999 p4)

In essence using this approach to study social research is saying that we should study

understanding people in the world in the same way you would go about understanding

biology or geology. The only difference being that humans can talk to the researchers so its

essential to use simple direct questions and dont allow your own values or beliefs to

influence your work.

Positivists believe you can generalise to find universal truths about your research, they

would argue that the social world can be studied as an objective reality. Critics however

would say that its not a natural study because you cant study humans in a laboratory

because thats not a humans natural environment.

Ontology

The ontological premise is that the world has a physical reality independent of the

observer. This shows how positivists believe the world is something real that we can see,

feel and touch. So again when choosing your method of research you must ask yourself if

you believe this can apply to social research and not just in the study of physical

phenomenon.

Positivists ontological approach is that they are objectivists, they only believe the research

they collect to be useable fact if they have been completely objective during research.

Collecting useable facts requires researchers to be ‘objective, keeping their distance from

their research subjects and not allowing their work to be influenced by their own values or

subjective judgements. (Deacon et al.1999 p4)

Objectivism is like a large organisation made up of all different people or different schools

of thought. Everything in it is ordered. The organisation has a physical reality apart from

the individual actors within it.

However it is immensely difficult to conduct research in a completely objective way and I

dont feel that any research can be conducted without certain values impinging on the

researcher and so their findings. I dont think that even in a laboratory conditions can be

completely controlled when studying humans. Laboratories arent natural environments so

they cant show natural real life behaviour.

Research Strategy

If you believe that the scientific method of finding out information can be used to study the

social world than you would use quantitative techniques, which is evidence that can be

expressed in numbers. Its completely objective and rules out the variables, because they

see qualitative research as being too value laden.

The two most fundamental doctrines of Logical Positivism are (1) that propositions of

existential import have an exclusively empirical reference, and (2) that this empirical

reference can be conclusively shown by logical analysis. The empiristic doctrine is thus to

be proved by a logical method. (Weinburg 1936 p1)

Theory / Research Order

The research tool you decide on shows your relationship between research and theory, and

the approach that positivism takes is deductive, the scientific method.

Deductive – if you operate in such a way that the theory comes first and your hypothesis

comes from the theory. Its a traditional paradigm that is like a circular process, you start

with a theory, form a hypothesis from the theory, test this, you get the findings and then

revise the theory.

The circular process is used in all the natural sciences.

The place of theory in research:

1. Grand Theories

2. Middle Range Theories

Grand Theories are theories about why people act the way they do in the world; its our

general understanding of the world.

An example of this is Goftmans Dramaturgical model –

We all have roles as actors in every social place we go and youre given a broad outline of

the script of what we should do.

Middle Range Theories are very abstract theories that are very hard to research because