Types of Philosophical Research:
According
to Wingo, there are three types of philosophical researches: These are the
following:
Descriptive Philosophical Research: It
includes study of history of philosophy, study of different philosophers, and
general development of philosophical thought. For example: Educational issues
looked at from the viewpoint of different philosophers.
Normative Philosophical Research: It
includes to establish, norms, standards or guidelines, for conduct of human
affairs with reference to knowledge of reality. It involves identification of
human dispositions which are worthy of cultivation, pointing out arguments for
why these dispositions are to be considered excellence and discussing how
these excellence are to be nurtured or cultivated.
Analytical Philosophical Research: It
includes analysis of concepts, theories, language etc. It also includes
analyzing positivism, anti-positivism etc.
Philosophical Research Paradigms:
Before explaining Philosophical Research Paradigms, it is important to under the following terms first:
1. Ontology: They study what we mean when we say something exists. According to Blaikie, “Claims and assumptions that are made about nature of social reality, claims about what exists, what it looks like, what units make it up and how these units interact with each other.”
2. Epistemology: They study what we mean when we say we know something. According
to Crotty, “the theory of knowledge embedded in theoretical perspective and
thereby in the methodology.”
Therefore, paradigm can be defined in the following manner:
"Ontological + Epistemological Assumptions= Paradigm"
After a brief description about ontology and epistemology, now we are going to discuss various paradigms of philosophical research. These are:
POSITIVIST PARADIGM:
·
It is also called scientific paradigm.
·
The purpose of research is to prove or disprove
a hypothesis
·
Emphasis on scientific method, statistical
analysis and generalize findings
·
It usually has a control and experimental group
and pre/test post method.
· It was coined by French philosopher Auguste
Comte who believed that realty can be observed.
Positive
Thinkers
|
Philosophies
|
Aristotle
|
Deductive
Reasoning
|
Descarte
|
Realism
|
Galileo
|
Scientific
Method
|
Auguste
Comte
|
Positivism
|
Francis
Bacon
|
Inductive
Reasoning
|
Karl
Popper
|
Post
Positivism
|
Ontological
Assumptions
|
Epistemology
Assumptions
|
Reality is external to researcher and
represented by objects in space
|
The methodology of natural science should be
employed to study social reality
|
Objects have meaning independently of any consciousness
of them
|
Truth can be attained because knowledge rests
on a set of firm, unquestionable, indisputable truths from which our belief
may be deduced
|
Reality can be captured by our senses and
predicted
|
Knowledge is generated deductively from a
theory or hypothesis
|
Knowledge
is objective
|
POST POSITIVISM:
There
has been criticism of positivist paradigm for applying scientific method to research
on human affairs (casual links that can be established in the study of natural
science cannot be made in world of classroom where teacher and learner
constructed meaning).
Popper argued
that we should not quickly disregard all good qualities of scientific method.
Rather, we can make small adjustments that can be improved upon to provide
objective research within social science.
Limitations:
· No matter how stringently a scientist adheres to
scientific method, there is never an outcome that is objective.
· The critical theorists Habermas emphasizes the
determinist view of science as the “the ideal knowledge” which ignores the
moral choices, values and judgments scientist make.
·
Ideology of Parsimony Theory: Simple and concise
as possible.
INTERPRETIVIST PARADIGM:
It is
also called “Anti-Positivist Paradigm”,
because it was developed as a reaction to the Positivism. It is also sometimes
referred to as “Constructivism”
because it emphasizes the ability of individual to construct meaning.
Thinkers
|
Philosophies
|
Edmund Huserl
|
Phenomenology
|
Arthur Schultz Wilhelm
dilthey, Han Georg Gadamer
|
Hermeneutics
|
Harold Garfinkel
|
Ethnomethodology
|
Ontological Assumptions
|
Epistemology Assumptions
|
Reality is indirectly constructed based on
individual interpretation and is subjective.
|
Knowledge is gained through a strategy that
“respects the differences between people and objects of natural science and
therefore requires the social scientist to
grasp the subjective meaning of social action.
|
People interpret and make their own meaning of
events.
|
Knowledge is gained inductively to create a
theory
|
Events are distinctive and cannot be
generalized.
|
Knowledge arises from particular situations
and is not reducible to simplistic interpretation.
|
There are multiple perspectives on one
incident
|
Knowledge is gained through personal
experience.
|
Causation in social science is determined by
interpreted meaning and symbols.
|
Limitations:
· It abandons the scientific procedure of verification
and therefore results cannot be generalized to other situations.
·
It is biased because of its subjectivity
· It neglected to acknowledge the political and ideological
influence on knowledge and social realty.
