EPISTEMOLOGY VS ONTOLOGY Many years ago, when still a child, I read a book whose name I have long since forgotten. In it was written the following: ‘The power of the pack is the wolf, and the power of the wolf is the pack.’ This was a striking statement, and one which exercised an immense influence on how I perceived both the world and its people. Now, decades later, being confronted with issues of knowledge, existence and logic, the quote came back to me as almost an epistemology of ontology - one that explains the world in which I have lived and survived for so many interesting years. But, perhaps I am a little too hasty in my employment of those terms right now. Just what is the difference between epistemology and ontology? And why are these concepts important? Epistemology is the study of knowing; essentially it is the study of what knowledge is and how it is possible. It consists of ideas about the natural world and focuses on how we can (and ought) to obtain knowledge, and how we can (and ought) to reason: the forms into which our models are cast, and their relationships to the world (i.e. what we are trying to model/know about). Ontology, on the other hand, is more concerned about the natural world – how it came to be rather than an analysis of what is. In the power of the pack, the pack of wolves would be the natural given – one can say it is ‘where it all begins’, or, its ontology. The fact that the wolves gain their power from the strength of the individuals in the pack is the epistemology for the nature of the pack. Some analysis has gone in to the nature of the pack and why it forms a strong unit. In epistemology we strive to generate truthful (valid or plausible) descriptions and explanations of the world. This said, the ‘world’ need not incorporate the earth’s entirety – if one were to study the habits and activities of a pack of wolves in a particular area, that would become the “world of study”. This would usually be termed the scope or target of our research. Thinking and theorising about society in our world is what we call our epistemology. When studying the pack of wolves, one is required to think about what 2 one sees, make conclusions (theorise) about them and ultimately, based on one’s thinking and theorising, explain what is seen. Concluding that ‘the power of the pack is the wolf and the power of the wolf is the pack’, is a good example of this kind of thinking, theorising and explaining. The pack of wolves is the basis of the study. It is visible as a society under study, and is therefore one’s ontology. Ontology is concerned with how you, as the observer of a phenomenon, may know. It is not concerned with what you may know thereby. It implies a study of existence based on the assumption of its absolute and metaphysical meaning, and not on its cognitive meaning. Epistemology, on the other hand, seeks to understand the origin, processes and limitations of observation. These include operations such as drawing distinctions, establishing relations, and the creation of constructs. In addition, it includes all consequences of knowledge resulting from communication between observer and observed, within a community of observers who may, in addition, observe each other. Ontology asks, “what is?”, or “what can we know?”, where epistemology asks “how do we come to know?”. At this stage you would probably have noticed that ontology precedes epistemology – you need to identify a “world” or target for your study (ontology) before you can acquire any further information from your target (epistemology). At this point, I trust that it is clear that epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It includes the methods, validity and scope of knowledge that we employ in our research. It is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion. Epistemology implies the provision of evidence for your conclusions – how will we know that what you conclude from your research is the truth and not just an opinion, perhaps even an unfounded one? In quantitative research one would normally use statistical evidence to support our notions, but in qualitative research it is not always as easy. There are, nevertheless, many ways in which you can support the validity of your conclusions and findings. Methods such as triangulation, authentication of target groups and referrals to similar research, for example, may be used to support your inferences. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 3 Ontology is a branch of metaphysics 1 that deals with the nature of being which does not require much evidence for validity – one can normally see it. We could say that ontology is “the science of being”, whereas epistemology is “the science of the methods or grounds of knowledge”. Ontology thus focuses on what there is. In order to understand it, we need to understand and agree upon the notion of existence. A person who was born and has lived in a jungle, completely cut off from the modern world will know trees, the animals that live in the jungle, and so forth. We can say that his ontology is limited to what he has experienced and seen in the jungle. Things like cell phones and computers will not be included in his ontology. Epistemology goes one step further. Throughout the history of qualitative research, investigators have always defined their work in terms of hopes and values, religious faith, and occupational and professional ideologies. Qualitative research has always been judged on the standard of whatever the work communicates, or on how we conceptualise our reality and the world around us. Epistemology defines these standards of evaluation. Questions of representation, the forms of theories/models, the kinds of evidence that are or can be brought to bear on these models, and especially the relationships between all these elements, are all central to epistemology. It is therefore the general theory of cognition that focuses on the questions: ‰ How do humans recognise, mentally, what “really” exists? ‰ What are the limits of such recognition/cognition? Epistemology is mostly linked to a modernist approach to research, whereas ontology is said to belong with a postmodernistic approach. I have my doubts whether one should separate the two based on such an oversimplification, because modernism and postmodernism cannot be separated so easily. In addition, research may also not always be so purist as to focus on either one or the other. From the following diagram on generic 2 qualitative research activities you will notice that both ontology and 1 2 Metaphysics = the science that investigates ultimate reality. Generic – activities that will be present in (almost) all qualitative research projects. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 4 epistemology occupy a position, with ontology defining the research framework, and epistemology determining the set of research questions: Theory Research framework Ontology Epistemology Set of questions Method Methodology The way in which the set of questions is examined The net that contains the researcher’s epistemological, ontological and methodological premises is called the premise, paradigm or interpretive framework, a “basic set of beliefs that guides action”. Analysis Figure 1: Generic qualitative research activities. We can simplify the qualitative research activities models above by focusing on three main and interrelated activities, namely ontology, epistemology and methodology. Together, ontology, epistemology and methodology form an all-encompassing system of interrelated practice and thinking that defines for researchers the nature of their enquiry. We call this our research premise, paradigm or interpretive framework. Ontology specifies the nature of reality that is to be studied, and what can be known about it. Epistemology specifies the nature of the relationship between the researcher (knower) and what can be known. Methodology specifies how the researcher may go about practically studying whatever he or she believes can be known. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 5 This can be illustrated in terms of positivist, interpretive and constructionist paradigms as follows (TerréBlanche and Durrheim, 1999: 6): Ontology Positivist ‰ ‰ Epistemology Methodology Stable, external ‰ Objective ‰ Experimental reality ‰ Detached ‰ Quantitative ‰ Hypothesis Law-like observer testing Interpretive ‰ Internal reality of ‰ Empathetic ‰ Interactional subjective ‰ Observer ‰ Interpretive ‰ Qualitative ‰ Deconstruction ‰ Textual experience Constructionist ‰ Socially intersubjectivity ‰ Suspicious constructed reality ‰ Political ‰ Discourse ‰ Observer constructing versions analysis ‰ Discourse analysis The three dimensions of paradigms shown in the table above represent different approaches to research. If the researcher believes that what is to be studied consists of a stable and unchanging external reality (e.g. economic laws, cognitive mechanisms, the law of gravity for example), then he can adopt an objective and detached epistemological stance towards that reality, and can employ a methodology that relies on control and manipulation of reality. The aim of such research would be to provide an accurate description of the laws and mechanisms that operate in social life. You may recognise this as a positivist 3 approach. If, on the other hand, the researcher believes that the reality to be studied consists of an intersubjective and interactional epistemological stance toward that reality, he will probably use methodologies (such as interviewing or participant observation) that rely on a subjective relationship between researcher and 3 Positivism employs the language of objectivity, distance, and control because they are believed to be the keys to the conduct of real social science. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 6 subject. This is characteristic of the interpretive 4 approach, which aims to explain the subjective reasons and meanings that lie behind social action. Finally, if the researcher believes that reality consists of a fluid and variable set of social constructs, he may adopt a suspicious and politicised epistemological stance, and employ methodologies that allow the researcher to deconstruct versions of reality. This is characteristic of constructionist 5 research, which aims to show how versions of the social world are produced in discourse, and how these constructions of reality make some actions possible, and others unthinkable (TerréBlanche and Durrheim, 1999: 6). The difference between positivism, interpretive research and social constructionism can be illustrated as follows: Positivism/realism. Interpretive research/impressionism. Social constructionism/cubism. Artwork by Evette Nel-Fry. 4 Interpretive research focuses on what is being accomplished, under what conditions, and out of what resources. It relies on first-hand accounts, tries to describe what it sees in rich detail and presents its ‘findings’ in engaging and sometimes evocative language. 5 Constructionism is the research approach that seeks to analyse how signs and images have powers to create particular representations of people and objects. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 7 You should by now have a good idea of what the difference between epistemology and ontology is. In summary: ‰ Epistemology is a set of questions based on a framework; ontology is the framework. ‰ Epistemology refers to the how of research. Ontology refers to the what of research. Perhaps you will find the questions in the following table useful in discriminating between epistemology and ontology (TerréBlanche and Durrheim, 1999: 443): EPISTEMOLOGY ONTOLOGY o How to interpret the world? o Which world is this? o Our place in the world? o What is to be done in it? o What is there to know? o Which of my selves is to do it? o Who knows it? o What is a world? o How do you know? o What kinds of worlds are there? o How sure are they? o How are they constituted? o How is knowledge transmitted? o How do they differ? o What are the limits of the o What happens when worlds are in knowable? (4) confrontation? o What happens when boundaries are violated? o Text versus world? We can now move on to some more intricate questions. An important concept that you will probably require in your research is the issue of critical epistemology. Critical epistemology is an understanding of the relationship between power and thought, and power and truth claims. You should uphold the epistemological principles that apply to all researchers, but here you need to be really careful – it is easy to twist your arguments to fit your particular preferences by describing them in terms of an unfounded epistemology. Writers and researchers often put on a Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 8 particular political or social ‘hat’, with the intention of gaining support from a particular group, rather than striving for the real truth, for scientific validity. For example, through the years we’ve seen numerous researchers adopting an epistemology justifying “apartheid” when it was still policy in South Africa (and when some first world governments silently supported or at least tolerated the policy). Unfortunately we have seen and are currently seeing as many researchers who adopt the opposite stance based on as little scientific truth as the former. You will only truly make a positive epistemological contribution to science if you are objective and honest in your interpretation and analysis of information. This brings us to what Babbie and Mouton (2004) call the epistemic imperative. In the world of science our aim is to generate truthful (valid/plausible) descriptions and explanations of the world. This is called the epistemic intent of science. “Epistemic” is derived from episteme, the Greek word for “truthful knowledge” (Babbie and Mouton, 2004: 8). We use “truthful” as a synonym for “valid” or “close approximation of the truth”. We accept knowledge to be “truthful” when we have sufficient reason to believe that it is an accurate representation or explanation of some phenomenon in the world. To put it less philosophically, scientists accept claims to be “truthful” or “valid” if there is enough evidence to support such claims. Such evidence usually accumulates over time. Claims have to withstand repeated testing under various conditions in order to be accepted as valid or, at least, plausible. There is no such thing as “instant verification” of an hypotheses or theory. Even when the scientific community accepts certain points of view, hypotheses or theories as valid and plausible, this “acceptance” is based on the best available evidence at a given point of time. It is always possible that new empirical evidence might come to the fore in the future which would force scientists to revise their opinions and change their theories. This means that the commitment to “truth” does not equate with the search for certainty or infallible knowledge, or for truths that hold absolutely – without concern for time and space. The notions of “certainty” and “infallibility” suggest that we can never be wrong. If we are to accept a particular point of view as “certain” or “infallible” we are in fact Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 9 saying that no amount of new evidence can ever lead us to change our beliefs. Such a view is not only obviously false, but clearly makes a mockery of scientific enterprise. The commitment to true and valid knowledge is, therefore, not a search for infallible and absolute knowledge. In contrast to pre-scientific forms of knowledge, the “epistemic imperative” demands that scientists commit themselves unconditionally to the pursuit of the most truthful claims about the world. This has at least three implications: 1. The idea of an imperative implies that a type of “moral contract” has been entered into. It is neither optional nor negotiable. This “contract” is intrinsic to scientific inquiry. Being a member of the global science community assumes that you have made this commitment. When you embark on a scientific project, or undertake any scientific enquiry, you tacitly agree to the epistemic imperative - to the search for truth. But the epistemic imperative is not merely an ideal or regulative principle. It has real consequences. This is evident in the way that the scientific community deals with any attempt to suspend or violate the imperative. 2. The “epistemic imperative” is a commitment to an ideal. Its goal is to generate results and findings which are as valid or truthful as possible. The fact that it is first and foremost an ideal, means that it might not always be attained in practice. Methodological problems and practical constraints (such as lack of resources) may lead to the ideal not being fully attained. We usually have to suffice with results that are, at best, approximations to the truth. 3. The meaning that we attach to the concept “truth” presupposes a loose, somewhat metaphorical relationship between our scientific proposition and the world. Contrary to the classical notion, according to which “truth” means the literal correspondence of our statements with reality, we accept that this relationship is a much more complex one. The notion of “fit”, or even “modelling” is a more appropriate term for two reasons: Firstly, it suggests that a statement or set of statements can be more or less true. The notion of “fit” is not an absolute one, but allows for degrees (from a “loose fit” to a “good fit”). Secondly, the term “fit” can refer to both the relationship between our statements and the world (the traditional Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 10 notions of “representation” or “correspondence”), as well as to the relationships between our statements. In the latter’s case, we would use the term “coherence”. This means that “fit” is used to refer to both empirical and conceptual fits. When our conceptual system exhibits a high degree of internal coherence, we could also speak of the concepts as “fitting” well (Babbie and Mouton, 2004: 8-9). So we now know that we should strive towards the truth or validity in our research. Let us return to the concept of critical epistemology. The example of a Eurocentric versus an African approach to research belongs to what is called critical race theory. This theory enacts an ethnic epistemology, arguing that ways of knowing and being are shaped by the individual’s standpoint or position in the world. This standpoint undoes the cultural, ethnical, and epistemological logic (and racism) of the Eurocentric paradigm. It is often advisable to keep clear of ethnicity, unless ethnicity forms a part of or is the purpose of your research. The important point is that you avoid using biased arguments to gain political or economic power. The quality of your research will be judged according to the criteria of validity and authenticity. Validity and authenticity are prerequisites for understanding. It is in this that epistemology and ethics are brought together. It is also a meeting point between epistemology and ontology, because the way in which we know (ontology) is tied up with what we know (epistemology). Ontological and educative authenticity on the other hand, were designated as criteria for determining a raised level of awareness; in the first instance, by individual research participants and, in the second, by individuals who surround them or with whom they come into contact for some social or organisational purpose. Is it evident that the validity of your epistemological approach starts with ontology? You will find that it is rather difficult to separate epistemology from ontology, since they actually form a unified system. Fortunately, it is not always necessary to separate the two. It is, however, very important that you don’t confuse them. As a matter of routine, it helps to mention ontology first, and then epistemology, since it enables you to base your study on Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 11 something (your target group, world or society) before you do any thinking and theorising. The reason we need not always separate ontology and epistemology is that they are highly interdependent. Choice of representation (i.e., the way in which models must be articulable) does, in fact, have real implications for what aspects of the world receive the most attention – what the model handles well, and what gets minimised or left out. And, in the other direction, models of what there is (ontology) have implications for what can be known and how it can be known (epistemology). There is thus a great deal of interdependence between ontology and epistemology, and it is something of a truism, philosophically, that whenever things get very interesting, there are strong implications for both. Epistemology is not just a way of knowing. It is also a system of knowing with both an internal logic (contextualising information gathered to your research purpose) and an external validity (ensuring that findings are in line with the general environment and that they will be acceptable to external verifiers, experts and other readers). Epistemology is intimately linked to world-view. People with a European frame of reference will not have the same outlook on the world around us as people with an African frame of reference. Ladson-Billings (Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S. 2000: 258), avers that a European will adopt the premise that the individual mind is the source of knowledge and existence. In contrast, an African person believes in “Ubuntu” (I am because we are), and so the source of knowledge and existence is to be found in the community and not the individual. The validity of Ubuntu, however, is put into question by the current spate of crime, including fraud, bribery and misuse of public funds by government officials and social leaders. This stands in stark contrast to the notion that people with an African frame of mind regard the interest of the community above their personal interests. The fact remains however; there is probably a difference between the European and African outlooks. This is important if we are to understand research questions in an African context. It is also perhaps one of the main reasons it is unlikely that Eurocentric solutions will be successfully applied to an African environment. Thus, the conditions under which people live and learn, shape Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 12 both their knowledge and their world-views. The process of developing a world-view that differs from the dominant world-view requires active intellectual work on the part of the knower. This is because schools, societies, and the structure and production of knowledge are all designed to create individuals who internalise the dominant world-view, knowledge production and acquisition processes. The hegemony of the dominant paradigm makes it more than just another way to view the world – it claims to be the only legitimate way to view the world. So the African epistemology stands in stark contrast to, amongst others, the Eurocentric epistemology for example. There are three other types of epistemology that you should take notice of: ‰ Interpretive epistemology – the knower and known interact and shape one another. ‰ Subjectivist epistemology – the knower and respondent co-create understandings). ‰ A sacred, existential epistemology places us in a non-competitive, nonhierarchical relationship to the earth, and to the larger world. This sacred epistemology stresses the values of empowerment, sacred governance, care, solidarity, love, community, covenants, morally involved observers, and civic transformation. REFERENCES 1. Babbie, E. and Mouton, J. 2004. Fourth edition. The practice of Social Research. Oxford University Press: New York. 2. Clarke, E. 2005. Situational Analysis. Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. Sage Publications: London. 3. TerréBlanche, M. & Durrheim, K., 1999. Research in Practice. Applied Methods for the Social Science. University of Cape Town Press: Cape Town. 4. http://www.seanet.com/~macki/chace/academic/pomo1.html. 5. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/EPISTEMOLOG.html. 6. http://home.mira.net/~deller/ethicalpolitics/seminars/neville.htm. 7. http://gemusehaken.org/?p=93. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 13 8. http://erg4146.casaccia.enea.it/Ont-know.htm. 9. http://suo.ieee.org/email/msg07392.html. 10. Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. 2000. Handbook of Qualitative Research. Second edition. Sage Publications, Inc. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi. Article by Dr J.P. Nel, D. Com ©Mentornet 2007 The Meanings of Methodology From Chapter 4 of Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 7/e. W. Lawrence Neuman. Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education. Published by Allyn & Bacon. All rights reserved. 91 The Meanings of Methodology Philosophical Foundations The Three Approaches Positivist Social Science Interpretive Social Science Critical Social Science Feminist and Postmodern Research Conclusion The confusion in the social sciences—it should now be obvious—is wrapped up with the long-continuing controversy about the nature of Science. —C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, p. 119 Many people ask whether the social sciences are real science. They think only of the natural sciences (e.g., physics, chemistry, and biology). The meaning of science significantly shapes how we do social scientific research. We can define science in two ways: (1) what practicing scientists actually do and how the institutions of science operate and (2) what philosophers have dissected as the core meaning of twenty-first-century science. One thing is clear. The many studies in the sociology and philosophy of science tell us that the practice and meaning of social science are more nuanced and complex than what most people think. As Collins (1989:134) remarked, “Modern philosophy of science does not destroy sociological science; it does not say that science is impossible, but gives us a more flexible picture of what science is.” The question regarding what makes social science scientific has a long history of debate and is relevant for learning about social research. It bridges across the various social sciences and considers whether a disjuncture or unity exists between natural and human sciences. Philosophers and great social theorists such as Auguste Comte, Émile Durkheim, David Hume, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Max Weber have pondered this question. Despite more than two centuries of discussion and 92 debate, the question is still with us today. Obviously, it does not have one simple answer. The question does not have one answer because there is no one way to do science; rather, there are multiple sciences, or several alternative approaches. “Approaches is a general term, wider than theory or methodology. It includes epistemology or questions about the theory of knowledge, the purposes of research, whether understanding, explanation, or normative evaluation . . .” (Della Porta and Keating, 2008:1). Each approach to social science rests on philosophical assumptions and has a stance on what constitutes the best research. The approaches are found in social science fields across nations, although as Abend (2006) has argued, very different approaches to social research may predominate in different nations. More specifically, the prevailing approach found in the United States may not be widely accepted or used among social scientists elsewhere. You may find the pluralism of approaches confusing at first, but once you learn them, you will find that other aspects of research and theory become clearer. Specific research techniques (e.g., experiments and participant observation) make more sense if you are aware of the logic and assumptions on which they rest. In addition, the approaches will help THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY you understand the diverse perspectives you may encounter as you read social research studies. Equally important, the approaches give you an opportunity to make an informed choice among alternatives for the type of research you may want to pursue. You might feel more comfortable with one approach or another. Learning about the approaches is not simple. When you read reports on research studies, the author rarely tells you which approach was used. Many professional researchers are only vaguely aware of the alternatives. They learn an approach’s principles and assumptions indirectly as they receive training in research methods (Steinmetz 2005a:45). The approaches operate across the social sciences and applied areas and make a very big difference in the way to do research.1 The major approaches I present here are ideal types, and I have highlighted their differences so that you can see what each is about more clearly. Although the approaches operate relying on different core assumptions, competing principles, and contrasting priorities, a person could conduct research studies using more than one approach and learn a great deal. Each approach makes significance advances to knowledge on its own terms. As Roth and Mehta (2002) argued, we can study the same social events using alternative approaches and learn a great deal from each approach used. Each offers a different perspective or viewpoint not only on the social event we wish to study but also on the most important questions, the types of relevant data, and the general way to go about creating knowledge. PH I LOSOPH ICAL FOU N DATIONS In this chapter, we link abstract issues in philosophy to concrete research techniques. The abstract issues proscribe what good social research involves, justify why we do research, relate moral-political values to research, and guide ethical research behavior. The alternative approaches are broad frameworks within which all researchers conduct studies. Couch (1987:106) summarized the different approaches as follows: The ontological and epistemological positions of these . . . research traditions provide the foundation of one of the more bitter quarrels in contemporary sociology. . . . Each side claims that the frame of thought they promote provides a means for acquiring knowledge about social phenomena, and each regards the efforts of the other as at best misguided. . . . They [the positions] differ on what phenomena should be attended to, how one is to approach phenomena, and how the phenomena are to be analyzed. The quote mentions two areas of philosophy, ontology and epistemology. All scientific research rests on assumptions and principles from these two areas whether or not a researcher acknowledges them. We do not need a deep discussion over philosophical assumptions to conduct research; however, we make choices implicitly among them when we do a study. Most of us accept assumptions without question. However, by becoming aware of the assumptions, you can better understand what underlies your choices about research. Different philosophical assumptions highlight how and why the approaches to social research differ. This is not a text about the philosophy of science, but research methodology rests on a foundation of ontological and epistemological assumptions. Once you learn them, you can start to recognize the bases of many disputes and differences among social scientists. You will become a better researcher by considering assumptions and being explicit about them. This is so because being reflexive and aware of assumptions—rather than accepting them without awareness—will help you to think more clearly. As Collier remarked (2005:327), existing sciences, particularly social sciences, are not innocent of philosophy. Many of them from their onset assumed some philosophical position about what a science should look like, and tried to imitate it. Further, their practitioners have often forgotten their philosophical premises . . . thereby turning these premises into unchallengeable dogmas. A division of labor between the practical activity of doing research and being aware of the root philosophical issues in science has had unfortunate consequences. Most practicing researchers focus on mastering specific research techniques. This has left “the question of what empirical research might be 93 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY or entail to philosophers of social science,” and this gap “obscured what might otherwise be a more accurate picture of the range of extant research practices: the actuality of divergent approaches . . .” (Mihic, Engelmann, and Wingrove 2005:483). We now turn to the two areas of philosophy and some basic divisions within them that relate directly to the major approaches to social science research. Ontology concerns the issue of what exists, or the fundamental nature of reality. When we do a study, we are making assumptions about what we will study and its place in the world. Two basic positions within ontology are the realist and nominalist. Realists see the world as being “out there.” The world is organized into preexisting categories just waiting for us to discover. A realist assumes is that the “real world” exists independently of humans and their interpretations of it. This makes accessing what is in the real world less difficult. To use a cliché, “What you see is what you get.” A subgroup of realists, critical realists, modify this assumption. They say that it is not easy to capture reality directly and that our inquiry into reality “out there” can easily become distorted or muddied. Our preexisting ideas, subjectivity, or cultural interpretations contaminate our contact with reality. The critical realist adds a few safeguards or adjustments to control the effect of such interpretations. The nominalist assumes that humans never directly experience a reality “out there.” Our experience with what we call “the real world” is always occurring through a lens or scheme of interpretations and inner subjectivity. Subjective-cultural beliefs influence what we see and how we experience reality. Our personal biography and cultural worldview are always organizing our experiences into categories and patterns. They do this without our realizing it. Nominalists recognize that some interpretative schemes are more opaque than others, yet they hold that we can never entirely remove the interpretative lens. We are always limited in how far we can reach Ontology An area of philosophy that deals with the nature of being, or what exists; the area of philosophy that asks what really is and what the fundamental categories of reality are. 94 beyond our inner thoughts, cultural background, and subjectivity. Let us make this abstract distinction between realists and nominalists more concrete. A realist sees a rug. She says reality presents her a rug— something to cover a floor and walk upon. She looks at a person’s facial features, hair, and skin tone and recognizes that the person belongs to one of the world’s racial groupings. She examines a person’s body in depth—such as skeleton, genitals, breasts, results of chemical tests for hormones, and hair coverage—and sees that the person is a biological male or female. By contrast, a nominalist looks at a rug and asks what might this be. He asks what is it made of, how was it created, in what ways is it used, why is it here, and how does a specific historicalcultural setting and people’s practices with it shape what we see. Is it only something to wipe his feet on and walk upon? Do some people sit, sleep, and eat on the rug all day? Do people hang it on walls to keep a room warm? Can it be a work of art to be admired and provide aesthetic pleasure? Do people see the rug as a religious object and worship it? When the nominalist sees a person’s skin tone and facial features, he is perplexed. Why are there categories of racial distinction? What might such categories contain when the entire idea of race varies greatly by culture and historical era? Likewise, a nominalist looks at a human body and worries about ambiguities in the physical differences. Is everyone clearly one or another of the biological sexes? How well do biological-physical differences match the gender-social differences of a society? As with racial categories, the number of gender categories and what distinguishes one from another varies greatly by culture and era. What a nomialist sees largely comes from imposing a subjective viewpoint onto the visible physical appearances, and what other people might see could be very different. We can put realist-nominalist ontological assumptions on a continuum (see Figure 1). A hardcore realist says we see what exists, and we can easily capture it to produce objective knowledge. A critical realist is more cautious and recognizes that subjective-culture interpretations may color some of our experiences with reality. A moderate THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY Realist FIGURE 1 Nominalist Ontological Assumptions nominalist says subjective-cultural factors greatly shape all of our experiences with the physical and social world, and we can never totally remove such factors. An extreme nominalist says our basic understanding of every physical-social experience is depends so heavily on interpretative-cultural factors that the experiences make no sense without these factors and any form of objective knowledge is impossible. Epistemology is the issue of how we know the world around us or what makes a claim about it true. How we can learn about or know the world is rooted in our ontological assumptions. Epistemology includes what we need to do to produce knowledge and what scientific knowledge looks like once we have produced it. If we adopt a realist position, we can produce knowledge and learn about reality by making careful observations of it. A realist says there is an empirical world “out there” that exists apart from our inner thoughts and perceptions of it. As we gather empirical evidence we find that some of our ideas about reality can be verified or found consistent with the evidence, while other ideas are false because they lack supporting empirical evidence. As we investigate empirical reality, we can distinguish truth from myth or illusion and produce objective knowledge. After we pull together and organize the ideas that have been verified, we will discover broad principles or laws to explain what reality contains and how it works. We produce new knowledge deductively by testing preexisting ideas and conjectures about reality against empirical data. We can also work inductively to gather together and organize empirical evidence into higher order generalizations. Working inductively and deductively, over time we can distinguish true from false ideas about broad areas of reality. If we adopt a nominalist position, making observations will not lead to knowledge about reality because interpretations and subjective views greatly influence all observations. The same holds true for people we might observe—their interpretations and subjective views shape all they say and do. What we and other people experience as reality is constructed from the outcome of a constant process of actions and interpretations that take place in particular locations and times. It is impossible to separate an objective “out there” reality from interpretations or effects of the time/place in which it occurs. The best we can do is to recognize our own viewpoints and interpretations. We might try to discover other people’s inner, subjective views and interpretations as they carry out their daily lives. General laws of social life, laws that hold across all people and places, are not possible to create. The best knowledge about the world that we can produce is to offer carefully considered interpretations of specific people in specific settings. We can offer interpretations of what we think other people are doing and what we believe to be their reasons in specific settings. To produce social science knowledge, we must inductively observe, interpret, and reflect on what other people are saying and doing in specific social contexts while we simultaneously reflect on our own experiences and interpretations. TH E TH REE APPROACH ES Science is a human creation. It is not something handed down like a sacred text written in stone. Until the early 1800s, only philosophers and religious scholars engaging in armchair speculation wrote about human behavior. Early social thinkers argued that we could study the social world using principles from science. These thinkers held that rigorous, systematic observation of the social world combined with careful, logical thinking could provide a new, valuable form of knowledge. Slowly the idea that we could examine the social world by using scientific principles gained Epistemology An area of philosophy concerned with the creation of knowledge; focuses on how we know what we know or what are the most valid ways to reach truth. 95 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY broad acceptance. The next issue was how to conduct scientific research to study social reality. A simple answer was to borrow from the natural sciences (e.g., physics, biology, and chemistry) and copy/adapt their assumptions and research methods as much as possible. Many social researchers embraced this answer, but it posed several difficulties. First, even natural scientists debate the meaning of science. The socalled scientific method is little more than a loose set of abstract, vague principles that offer limited guidance, and working scientists use several methods. Second, some people said that human beings have qualitative differences from the types of objects studied in natural science (stars, rocks, plants, chemical compounds, fish, etc.). Humans have the ability to think and learn. They are aware of themselves as well as their past and possess motives and reasons. Some asked whether such human characteristics require only some adjustments to the natural science approach or require an entirely separate, special kind of science. The three approaches in this chapter are core ideas distilled from many specific arguments.2 They are ideal types. In practice, we as social researchers may mix elements from each approach, yet these approaches represent differences in outlook and alternative assumptions about doing social science research.3 The approaches are evolving positions that offer different ways to observe, measure, and understand social reality. To simplify the discussion, the assumptions and ideas of the three approaches have been organized into answers to ten questions (see Chart 1). The three approaches are positivist social science, interpretive social science, and critical social science. Most ongoing social research is based on the first two. Positivism is the oldest and the most widely used approach. The other two nonpositivist alternatives represent a different outlook and Paradigm A general organizing framework for theory and research that includes basic assumptions, key issues, models of quality research, and methods for seeking answers. 96 C H A RT 1 Ten Questions 1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social scientific research? 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? 10. Where do sociopolitical values enter into science? assumptions about social science research that go back more than a century. Each approach is associated with different social theories and diverse research techniques. Connections among the approaches to science, social theories, and research techniques are not strict. The approaches are similar to a research program, research tradition, or scientific paradigm. A paradigm, an idea made famous by Thomas Kuhn (1970), means a basic orientation to theory and research. There are many definitions of paradigm. In general, a scientific paradigm is a whole system of thinking. It includes basic assumptions, the important questions to be answered or puzzles to be solved, the research techniques to be used, and examples of what good scientific research is like. Positivism has been a dominant paradigm in social science, especially as practiced in the United States since 1945. Anthropology and history are the least positivist fields and economics and experimental psychology the most positivist with political science and sociology somewhat mixed. Several paradigms compete in sociology,4 but it “has been THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY predominantly positivist since 1945, aside from a brief period of epistemological turmoil . . .” (Steinmetz, 2005a:25). POS ITIVIST SOCIAL SCI ENCE Positivist social science (PSS) is used widely, and positivism, broadly defined, is the approach of the natural sciences. In fact, most people assume that a positivist approach is science. Many versions of positivism exist and it has a long history within the philosophy of science and among researchers.5 Yet for many researchers, positivism has come to be a pejorative label to be avoided. Turner (1992:1511) observed, “Positivism no longer has a clear referent, but it is evident that, for many, being a positivist is not a good thing.” Varieties of PSS go by names such as logical empiricism, the accepted or conventional view, postpositivism, naturalism, the covering law model, and behaviorism. Steinmetz (2005b:227) calls “the special cluster of ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions that has prevailed in U.S. sociology for the past half century” methodological positivism. Western European philosophers developed positivism in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Two British philosophers, David Hume (1711–1776) in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) in A System of Logic (1843), outlined the fundamentals of positivist science. The French founder of sociology—Auguste Comte (1798–1857)—wrote Cours de Philosophie Positivistic (The Course of Positive Philosophy) (1830–1842), which elaborated principles of social science positivism. French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) used positivist assumptions in his Rules of the Sociological Method (1895), a core text for early social researchers. Positivism sets up a certain model of science as value-free, atomistic; discovering causal laws. . . . These are supposed to be characteristic of the natural sciences that have made them so successful, and the assumption is that if the social sciences could only imitate them, they would achieve similar success. (Collier 2005:328) Positivism is associated with several social theories and structural-functional, rational choice, and exchange-theory frameworks. PSS researchers prefer precise quantitative data and often use experiments, surveys, and statistics. They seek rigorous, exact measures and “objective” research. They test causal hypotheses by carefully analyzing numbers from the measures. Researchers in many fields (public health administration, criminal justice, market research, policy analysis, program evaluation) rely on positivist social science. PSS dominated the articles of major sociology journals in Britain, Canada, Scandinavia, and the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s and 1990s, it had declined sharply in European journals but remained dominant in North American journals.6 In positivism, “there is only one logic of science, to which any intellectual activity aspiring to the title of ‘science’must conform” (Keat and Urry, 1975:25, emphasis in original). Thus, the social sciences and the natural sciences use the same method. In this view, any differences between the social and natural sciences are due to the immaturity of the social sciences and their subject matter. There is an assumption that eventually all science, including the social sciences, will become like the most advanced science, physics. Some differences remain among the sciences because of the subject matter (e.g., studies of geology require techniques different from astrophysics or microbiology because of the objects being examined), but all sciences share a common set of principles and logic. Positivist social science is an organized method for combining deductive logic with precise empirical observations of individual behavior in order to discover and confirm a set of probabilistic causal laws that can be used to predict general patterns of human activity. Positivist social science (PSS) One of three major approaches to social research that emphasizes discovering causal laws, careful empirical observations, and value-free research. 97 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY The Questions 1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social scientific research? The ultimate purpose of research is to obtain scientific explanation—to discover and document universal causal laws of human behavior. As Turner (1985:39) stated, the “social universe is amenable to the development of abstract laws that can be tested through the careful collection of data” and researchers need to “develop abstract principles and models about invariant and timeless properties of the social universe.” Scientists engage in a neverending quest for knowledge. As we learn more and discover new complexities, we still have more to learn. Some versions of PSS maintain that humans can never know everything: Only God possesses such knowledge; however, God gave humans the capacity for knowledge, and we have a duty to discover as much as we can. 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? Modern positivists adopt a realist ontology. They hold that reality exists “out there” and is waiting to be discovered. Human perception and intellect may be flawed, and reality may be difficult to pin down, but it exists, is patterned, and has a natural order. Without this assumption (i.e., if the world were chaotic and without regularity), logic and prediction would be impossible. Science lets humans discover this order and the laws of nature. “The basic, observational laws of science are considered to be true, primary and certain, because they are built into the fabric of the natural world. Discovering a law is like discovering America, in the sense that Causal laws General cause–effect rules used in causal explanations of social theory and whose discovery is a primary objective of positivist social science. Mechanical model of man A model of human nature used in positivist social science stating that observing people’s external behaviors and documenting outside forces acting on them are sufficient to provide adequate explanations of human thought and action. 98 both are already waiting to be revealed” (Mulkay, 1979:21). The assumptions of realist ontology (also called essentialist, objectivist, or empirical realist) about reality prevail in commonsense thinking, especially in Anglo-European societies. The assumption is that what we can see and touch (i.e., empirical reality) is not overly complex. What we observe reflects the deeper essence of things, people, and relations in the world. It is a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” or “show-me” type of stance. Things are as they appear, created out of a natural order of the world. Thus, race, gender, and measurements of space and time just “are.” This view has many implications. For example, males commit more crime than females do because of something involving their “maleness.” A related assumption about time is that it is linear or flows in a straight line. What happened in the past always differs somewhat from the present because time flows in only one direction—forward to the future. Other PSS assumptions are that social reality is stable and our knowledge about reality is additive. While time flows, the core regularity in social reality does not change, and laws we discover today will hold in the future. The additive feature of knowledge means we can study many separate parts of reality one at a time, then add the fragments together to get a picture of the whole. Over time, we add more and more knowledge, ever expanding our understanding of the world. 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? PPS assumes that humans are self-interested, pleasure-seeking/pain-avoiding, rational mammals. A cause will have the same effect on everyone. We can learn about people by observing their behavior that we see in external reality. This is more important than what happens in internal, subjective reality. Sometimes, this is called a mechanical model of man or a behaviorist approach. It means that people respond to external forces that are as real as physical forces on objects. Durkheim (1938:27) stated, “Social phenomena are things and ought to be studied as things.” This emphasis on observable, external reality suggests that researchers do not have to examine unseen, internal motivations. THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? PSS emphasizes the determinism of relationships and looks for determining causes or mechanisms that produce effects. PSS investigates how external forces, pressures, and structures that operate on individuals, groups, organizations, or societies produce outcomes (e.g., behaviors, attitudes). PSS downplays an individual’s subjective or internal reasons and any sense of free choice or volition. Mental processes are less central than the structural forces or conditions beyond individual control that exert influence over choices and behavior. While individual people may believe that they can act freely and can make any decisions, positivists emphasize the powerful social pressures and situations that operate on people to shape most if not all of their actions. Even positivists who use rational choice explanations focus less on how individuals reason and make choices than on identifying sets of conditions that allow them to predict what people will choose. Positivists assume that once they know external factors, individual reasoning largely follows a machinelike rational logic of decision making. Few positivists believe in a strict or absolute determinism in which people are mere robots or puppets who must always respond similarly. Rather, the causal laws are probabilistic. Laws hold for large groups of people or occur in many situations. Researchers can estimate the odds of a predicted behavior. In other words, the laws enable us to make accurate predictions of how often a social behavior will occur within a large group. The causal laws cannot predict the specific behavior of a specific person in each specific situation. However, they can say that under conditions X, Y, and Z, there is a 95 percent probability that one-half of the people will engage in a specified behavior. For example, researchers cannot predict how John Smith will vote in the next election. However, after learning dozens of facts about John Smith and using laws of political behavior, researchers can accurately state that there is an 85 percent chance that he (and people like him) will vote for candidate C. This does not mean that Mr. Smith cannot vote for whomever he wants. Rather, his voting behavior is patterned and shaped by outside social forces. 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? PSS sees a clear separation between science and nonscience. Of the many ways to seek truth, science is special—the “best” way. Scientific knowledge is better than and will eventually replace the inferior ways of gaining knowledge (e.g., magic, religion, astrology, personal experience, and tradition). Science borrows some ideas from common sense, but it replaces the parts of common sense that are sloppy, logically inconsistent, unsystematic, or full of bias. The scientific community—with its special norms, scientific attitudes, and techniques—can regularly produce “Truth,” whereas common sense does so only rarely and inconsistently. Many positivist researchers create an entirely new vocabulary that is more logically consistent, carefully considered, and refined than terms of everyday common sense. The positivist researcher “should formulate new concepts at the outset and not rely on lay notions. . . . There is a preference for the precision which is believed possible in a discipline-based language rather than the vague and imprecise language of everyday life” (Blaikie, 1993:206). In his Rules of the Sociological Method, Durkheim warned the researcher to “resolutely deny himself the use of those concepts formed outside of science” and to “free himself from those fallacious notions which hold sway over the mind of the ordinary person” (quoted in Gilbert, 1992:4). 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? A PSS explanation is nomothetic (nomos means law in Greek); it is based on a system of general laws. Science explains why social life is the way it is by discovering causal laws. Explanation takes this form: Y is caused by X because Y and X are specific instances of a causal law. In other Determinism An approach to human agency and causality that assumes that human actions are largely caused by forces external to individuals that can be identified. Nomothetic A type of explanation used in positivist social science that relies heavily on causal laws and lawlike statements and interrelations. 99 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY words, a PSS explanation states the general causal law that applies to or covers specific observations about social life. This is why PSS is said to use a covering law model of explanation. PSS assumes that the laws operate according to strict, logical reasoning. Researchers connect causal laws and can deductively connect the many facts that they observe. Many positivists believe that it may be possible eventually to express the laws and theories of social science in formal symbolic systems with axioms, corollaries, postulates, and theorems. Someday social science theories could look similar to those in mathematics and the natural sciences. The laws of human behavior should be universally valid, holding in all historical eras and in all cultures. As noted before, the laws are in a probabilistic form for aggregates of people. For example, a PSS explanation of a rise in the crime rate in Toronto in 2010 refers to factors (e.g., rising divorce rate, declining commitment to traditional moral values) that could be found anywhere at any time: in Buenos Aires in the 1890s, Chicago in the 1940s, or Singapore in the 2020s. The factors logically obey a general law (e.g., the breakdown of a traditional moral order causes an increase in the rate of criminal behavior). 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? Positivism developed during the Enlightenment (post–Middle Ages) period of Western thinking.7 It includes an important Enlightenment idea: People can recognize truth and distinguish it from falsehood by applying reason, and, in the long run, the human condition can improve through the use of reason and the pursuit of truth. As knowledge increases and ignorance declines, conditions will improve. This optimistic belief that knowledge accumulates over time plays a role in how positivists sort out true from false explanations. PSS explanations must meet two conditions: They must (1) have no logical contradictions and (2) be consistent with observed facts, yet this is not Covering law model A positivist social science principle that a few high-level, very abstract theories cover and allow deducing to many low-level, more concrete situations. 100 sufficient. Replication is also needed.8 Any researcher can replicate or reproduce the results of others. This puts a check on the whole system for creating knowledge. It ensures honesty because it repeatedly tests explanations against hard, objective facts. An open competition exists among opposing explanations. In the competition, we use impartial rules, accurately observe neutral facts, and rigorously apply logic. Over time, scientific knowledge accumulates as different researchers conduct independent tests and add up the findings. For example, a researcher finds that rising unemployment is associated with increased child abuse in San Diego, California. We cannot conclusively demonstrate a causal relationship between unemployment and child abuse with just one study, however. Confirming a causal law requires finding the same relationship elsewhere with other researchers conducting independent tests and careful measures of unemployment and child abuse. 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? PSS adopts a dualist view; it assumes that the cold, observable facts are fundamentally distinct from ideas, values, or theories. Empirical facts exist apart from personal ideas or thoughts. We can experience them by using our sense organs (sight, smell, hearing, and touch) or special instruments that extend the senses (e.g., telescopes, microscopes, and Geiger counters). Some researchers express this idea as two languages: a language of empirical fact and a language of abstract theory. If people disagree over facts, the dissent must be due to the improper use of measurement instruments or to sloppy or inadequate observation. “Scientific explanation involves the accurate and precise measurement of phenomena” (Derksen and Gartell, 1992:1714). Knowledge of observable reality obtained using our senses is superior to other knowledge (e.g., intuition, emotional feelings); it allows us to separate true from false ideas about social life. Positivists assign a privileged status to empirical observation. They assume that we all share the same fundamental experience of the empirical world. This means that factual knowledge is not based on just one person’s observations and subjective reasoning. It must be communicated to and THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY shared with others. Rational people who independently observe facts will agree on them subjectively. This is called intersubjectivity, or the shared subjective acknowledgment of the observable facts. Many positivists also endorse the falsification doctrine outlined by the Anglo-Austrian philosopher Sir Karl Popper (1902–1991) in The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934). Popper argued that claims to knowledge “can never be proven or fully justified, they can only be refuted” (Phillips, 1987:3). Evidence for a causal law requires more than piling up supporting facts; it involves looking for evidence that contradicts the causal law. In a classic example, if I want to test the claim that all swans are white, and I find 1,000 white swans, I have not totally confirmed a causal law or pattern. Locating one black swan is all it takes to refute my claim—one piece of negative evidence. This means that researchers search for disconfirming evidence, and even then, the best they can say is, “Thus far, I have not been able to locate any, so the claim is probably right.” 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? Positivists try to learn about how the social world works to enable people to exercise control over it and make accurate predictions about it. In short, as we discover the laws of human behavior, we can use that knowledge to alter and improve social conditions. This instrumental form of knowledge sees research results as tools or instruments that people use to satisfy their desires and control the social environment. Thus, PSS uses an instrumental orientation in which the relevance of knowledge is its ability to enable people to master or control events in the world around them. PSS has a technocratic perspective to the application of knowledge. The word technocratic combines technology and bureaucracy. PSS says that after many years of professional training, researchers develop in-depth technical expertise. As an expert, the researcher tries to satisfy the information needs of large-scale bureaucratic organizations (e.g., hospitals, business corporations, government agencies). The questions such organizations ask tend to be oriented to improving the efficiency of operations and effectiveness of reaching organizational goals or objectives. In a technical expert role the researcher provides answers to questions asked by others but not to ask different questions, redirect an inquiry into new areas, challenge the basic premises of questions, or defy the objectives set by leaders in control of the bureaucratic organizations. 10. Where do sociopolitical values enter into science? PSS argues for objectives of value-free science. The term objective has two meanings: (1) that observers agree on what they see and (2) that scientific knowledge is not based on values, opinions, attitudes, or beliefs.9 Positivists see science as a special, distinctive part of society that is free of personal, political, or religious values. Science is able to operate independently of the social and cultural forces affecting other human activity because science involves applying strict rational thinking and systematic observation in a manner that transcends personal prejudices, biases, and values. Thus, the norms and operation of the scientific community keep science objective. Researchers accept and internalize the norms as part of their membership in the scientific community. The scientific community has an elaborate system of checks and balances to guard against value bias. A researcher’s Intersubjectivity A principle for evaluating empirical evidence in positivist social science stating that different people can agree on what is in the empirical world by using the senses. Instrumental orientation A means–end orientation toward social knowledge in which knowledge is like an instrument or tool that people can use to control their environment or achieve some goal. The value of knowledge is in its use to achieve goals. Technocratic perspective An applied orientation in which the researcher unquestioningly accepts any research problem and limits on the scope of study requested by government, corporate, or bureaucratic officials, uncritically conducts applied research for them, and obediently supplies the officials with information needed for their decision making. Value-free science A positivist social science principle that social research should be conducted in an objective manner based on empirical evidence alone and without inference from moral-political values. 101 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY proper role is to be a “disinterested scientist.”10 PSS has had an immense impact on how people see ethical issues and knowledge: To the degree that a positivist theory of scientific knowledge has become the criterion for all knowledge, moral insights and political commitments have been delegitimized as irrational or reduced to mere subjective inclination. Ethical judgments are now thought of as personal opinion. (Brown, 1989:37) Summary Positivist social science is widely taught as being the same as science. Few people are aware of the origins of PSS assumptions. Scholars in western Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who developed these assumptions had religious training and lived in a cultural-historical setting that assumed specific religious beliefs. Many PSS assumptions will reappear when you read about quantitative research techniques and measurement in later chapters. A positivist approach implies that a researcher begins with a cause–effect relationship that he or she logically derives from a possible causal law in general theory. He or she logically links the abstract ideas to precise measurements of the social world. The researcher remains detached, neutral, and objective as he or she measures aspects of social life, examines evidence, and replicates the research of others. These processes lead to an empirical test and confirmation of the laws of social life as outlined in a theory. Chart 2 provides a summary of PSS. When and why did PSS become dominant? The story is long and complicated. Many present it as a natural advance or the inevitable progress of pure knowledge. PSS expanded largely due to changes in the larger political-social context. Positivism gained dominance in the United States and became the model for social research in many nations after World War II once the United States became the leading world power. A thrust toward objectivism— a strong version of positivism—developed in U.S. sociology during the 1920s. Objectivism grew as researchers shifted away from social reform– oriented studies with less formal or precise techniques toward rigorous techniques in a “value-free” manner modeled on the natural sciences. Researchers 102 C H A RT 2 Summary of Positivist Social Science 1. The purpose of social science is to discover laws. 2. An essentialist view is that reality is empirically evident. 3. Humans are rational thinking, individualistic mammals. 4. A deterministic stance is taken regarding human agency. 5. Scientific knowledge is different from and superior to all other knowledge. 6. Explanations are nomothetic and advance via deductive reasoning. 7. Explanations are verified using replication by other researchers. 8. Social science evidence requires intersubjectivity. 9. An instrumental orientation is taken toward knowledge that is used from a technocratic perspective. 10. Social science should be value free and objective. created careful measures of the external behavior of individuals to produce quantitative data that could be subjected to statistical analysis. Objectivism displaced locally based studies that were action oriented and largely qualitative. It grew because competition among researchers for prestige and status combined with other pressures, including the need for funds from private foundations (e.g., Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation), university administrators who wanted to avoid unconventional politics, a desire by researchers for a public image of serious professionalism, and the information needs of expanding government and corporate bureaucracies. These pressures combined to redefine social research. The less technical, applied local studies conducted by social reformers (often women) were often overshadowed by apolitical, precise quantitative research by male professors in university departments.11 Decisions made during a large-scale expansion of federal government funding for research after World War II also pushed the social sciences in a positivist direction. THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY I NTERPRETIVE SOCIAL SCI ENCE We can trace interpretive social science (ISS) to the German sociologist Max Weber (1864– 1920) and German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911). In his major work, Einleitung in die Geisteswissenshaften (Introduction to the Human Sciences) (1883), Dilthey argued that there were two fundamentally different types of science: Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft. The former rests on Erklärung, or abstract explanation. The latter is rooted in an empathetic understanding, or verstehen, of the everyday lived experience of people in specific historical settings. Weber argued that social science should study social action with a purpose. He embraced verstehen and felt that we must learn the personal reasons or motives that shape a person’s internal feelings and guide decisions to act in particular ways. We shall speak of “social action” wherever human action is subjectively related in meaning to the behavior of others. An unintended collision of two cyclists, for example, shall not be called social action. But we will define as such their possible prior attempts to dodge one another. . . . Social action is not the only kind of action significant for sociological causal explanation, but it is the primary object of an “interpretive sociology.” (Weber, 1981:159) Interpretive social science is related to hermeneutics, a theory of meaning that originated in the nineteenth century. The term comes from a god in Greek mythology, Hermes, who had the job of communicating the desires of the gods to mortals. It “literally means making the obscure plain” (Blaikie, 1993:28). The humanities (philosophy, art history, religious studies, linguistics, and literary criticism) use hermeneutics. It emphasizes conducting a very close, detailed reading of text to acquire a profound, deep understanding. Text can mean a conversation, written words, or pictures. We conduct “a reading” to discover deeper, richer meanings that are embedded within the text. Each reader brings her or his subjective experience to the text. When studying the text, the researcher/reader tries to absorb or get inside the viewpoint the text presents as a whole and then to develop an understanding of how each of the parts relates to the whole. In other words, true meaning is rarely obvious on the surface. We can reach it only through a detailed examination and study of the text, by contemplating its many messages, and seeking the connections among its parts.12 Interpretive social science (ISS) has several varieties: hermeneutics, constructionism, ethnomethodology, cognitive, idealist, phenomenological, subjectivist, and qualitative sociology.13 An interpretive approach is associated with the symbolic interactionist Chicago school in sociology of the 1920s–1930s. Often people just call ISS qualitative research because most interpretive researchers use participant observation and field research. These techniques require researchers to devote many hours in direct personal contact with the people they study. Other ISS researchers analyze transcripts of conversations or study videotapes of behavior in extraordinary detail, looking for subtle nonverbal communication to understand the details of interactions in their context. The positivist researcher may precisely measure selected quantitative details about thousands of people and use statistics whereas an interpretive researcher may live for a year with a dozen people to gather mountains of highly detailed qualitative data so that he or she can acquire an in-depth understanding of how the people create meaning in their everyday lives. Interpretive social science concerns how people interact and get along with each other. In general, the interpretive approach is the systematic Interpretative social science (ISS) One of three major approaches to social research that emphasizes meaningful social action, socially constructed meaning, and value relativism. Verstehen A word from German that means empathetic understanding (i.e., a deep understanding with shared meaning) and that is a primary goal for social research according to interpretative social science. Hermeneutics A method associated with interpretative social science that originates in religious and literary studies of textual material in which in-depth inquiry into text and relating its parts to the whole can reveal deeper meanings. 103 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY analysis of socially meaningful action through the direct detailed observation of people in natural settings in order to arrive at understandings and interpretations of how people create and maintain their social worlds. The Questions 1. What is the ultimate purpose of conducting social scientific research? For interpretive researchers, the goal of social research is to develop an understanding of social life and discover how people construct meaning in natural settings. The ISS researcher wants to learn what is meaningful or relevant to the people he or she is studying and how they experience everyday life. To do this, he or she gets to know people in a particular social setting in great depth and works to see the setting from the viewpoint of the people in it. He or she tries to know in the most intimate way the feelings and interpretations of people being studied, and to see events through their eyes. Summarizing the goal of his ten-year study of Willie, a repair shop owner in a rural area, interpretive researcher Harper (1987:12) said, “The goal of the research was to share Willie’s perspective.” ISS researchers study meaningful social action, not just people’s visible, external behavior. Social action is the action to which people attach subjective meaning and is activity with a purpose or intent. Nonhuman species lack culture and the reasoning to plan things and attach purpose to their behavior; therefore, social scientists should study what is unique to human social behavior. The researcher must take into account the social actor’s reasons and the social context of action. For example, a physical reflex such as eye blinking is Meaningful social action Social action in social settings to which people subjectively attach significance and that interpretive social science treats as being the most important aspect of social reality. Constructionist orientation An orientation toward social reality that assumes the beliefs and meaning that people create and use fundamentally shape what reality is for them. 104 human behavior that is rarely an intentional social action (i.e., done for a reason or with human motivation), but in some situations, it can be such a social action (i.e., a wink). More than simply having a purpose, the actions must also be social and “for action to be regarded as social and to be of interest to the social scientist, the actor must attach subjective meaning to it and it must be directed towards the activities of other people” (Blaikie, 1993:37). Most human actions have little inherent meaning; they acquire meaning in a social context among people who share a meaning system. The common system of meaning allows people to interpret the action as being a socially relevant sign or action. For example, raising one finger in a situation with other people can express social meaning; the specific meaning it expresses (e.g., a direction, an expression of friendship, a vulgar sign) depends on the cultural meaning system that the social actors share. 2. What is the fundamental nature of social reality? ISS sees human social life as an accomplishment. People intentionally create social reality with their purposeful actions of interacting as social beings. In contrast to the positivist view that social life is “out there” waiting to be discovered, ISS adopts a more nominalist ontology. Social reality is largely what people perceive it to be; it exists as people experience it and assign meaning to it. Social reality is fluid and fragile, and people construct it as they interact with others in ongoing processes of communication and negotiation. People rely on many untested assumptions and use taken-for-granted knowledge about the people and events around them. Social life arises in people’s subjective experiences as they interact with others and construct meaning. Capturing people’s subjective sense of reality to really understand social life is crucial. In ISS, “access to other human beings is possible, however, only by indirect means: what we experience initially are gestures, sounds, and actions and only in the process of understanding do we take the step from external signs to the underlying inner life” (Bleicher, 1980:9). A constructionist orientation in ISS assumes that people construct reality out of their interactions and beliefs. No inner essence causes the reality THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY people see. For example, when you see a chair, there is no “chairness” in it; rather, what you see to be a chair arises from what the people of particular society and time define, accept, and understand to be a chair. Yes there is a physical object of wood or metal or cloth configured in a particular shape, but what you see as the empirical reality of a chair arises out of cultural-social processes that tell you to define the object as a chair. In general, what people see and experience in the social world is socially constructed. Just because people’s experiences are socially constructed does not make them illusionary, immaterial, or unimportant. Once people accept social creations as being facts, or as real, the creations have very real consequences. For example, if socially constructed reality tells me that the person moving into an apartment next to mine has committed violent crimes and carries a gun, I will behave accordingly whether or not my constructed belief fits actual physical reality. For the constructionists, people live in, believe, and accept the constructed reality that has links to but is somewhat distinct from physical reality. A constructionist notes that people take the social world around them “for granted” and behave as if the social world were a natural, objective, part of fixed reality. For example, people accept that a week has 7 days. Very few people realize that a week could be very different. Cultures have had 3-day, 5day, and even 10-day weeks. The 7-day week is not a physical reality, but people take it for granted and treat it as a natural, fixed part of reality. The week that we now accept is a social construction. People created it in particular places and under specific historical circumstances. PSS language connects directly to reality, and there is an attempt to make language as pure, logical, and precise as possible so that it accurately reflects reality. By contrast, the constructionist sees language as comprising social constructions. As we learn language, we learn to think and see the world in certain ways. Language has little direct connection to essential reality; it contains a worldview that colors how we see and experience the world. The difference continues to affect others’ social concepts, such as gender and race. For example, Anglo-European society divides gender into two categories and race into six categories, primarily based on shades of skin color. The PSS realist ontology suggests that genders and races are real (i.e., males and females or races are essential distinctions in reality). In contrast, the constructionist says that language and habitual ways of thinking dictate what people see. They might see a world with two genders and six races, but other cultures see more than two genders or a different number of races and base racial differences on something other than skin color. In contrast to the PSS demand for “cold hard facts,” constructionists emphasize the processes by which people create social construction and use them as if they were real “things.”14 PSS assumes that everyone experiences the world in the same way. The interpretive approach questions whether people experience social or physical reality in the same way. These are key questions for an ISS researcher: How do people experience the world? Do they create and share meaning? Interpretive social science points to numerous examples in which several people have seen, heard, or even touched the same physical object yet come away with different meanings or interpretations of it. The interpretive researcher argues that positivists impose one way of experiencing the world on others. In contrast, ISS assumes that multiple interpretations of human experience, or realities, are possible. In sum, the ISS approach defines social reality as consisting of people who construct meaning and create interpretations through their daily social interaction. 3. What is the basic nature of human beings? Ordinary people are engaged in an ongoing process of creating systems of meaning through social interaction. They then use such meanings to interpret their social world and make sense of their lives. Human behavior may be patterned and regular but this is not because of preexisting laws that are waiting for us to discover them. The patterns result from evolving meaning systems or social conventions that people generate as they interact socially. Important questions for the interpretive researcher are these: What do people believe to be true? What do they hold to be relevant? How do they define what they are doing? Interpretive researchers want to discover what actions mean to the people who engage in them. It 105 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY makes little sense to try to deduce social life from abstract, logical theories that may not relate to the daily feelings and experiences of ordinary people. People have their own reasons for their actions, and we need to learn the reasons that people use. Individual motives are crucial to consider even if they are irrational, carry deep emotions, and contain mistaken beliefs and prejudices. Some ISS researchers say that the laws sought by positivists may be found only after the scientific community understands how people create and use meaning systems, how common sense develops, and how people apply their common sense to situations. Other ISS researchers do not believe that such laws of human social life exist, so searching for them is futile. For example, an ISS researcher sees the desire to discover laws of human behavior in which unemployment causes child abuse as premature at best and dangerous at worst. Instead, he or she wants to understand how people subjectively experience unemployment and what the loss of a job means in their everyday lives. Likewise, the interpretive researcher wants to learn how child abusers account for their actions, what reasons they give for abuse, and how they feel about abusing a child. He or she explores the meaning of being unemployed and the reasons for abusing a child in order to understand what is happening to the people who are directly involved. 4. What is the view on human agency (free will, volition, and rationality)? Whereas PSS emphasizes deterministic relations and external forces, ISS emphasizes voluntary individual free choice, sometimes called human agency. ISS adopts voluntarism and sees people as having volition (being able to make conscious choices). Social settings and subjective points of view help to shape the choices a person makes, but Voluntarism An approach to human agency and causality assuming that human actions are based on the subjective choices and reasons of individuals. Natural attitude An idea used in ISS that we assume that the world of commonsense understanding is stable and real and continues from the past into the future without dramatic change; we do this from the practical need to accomplish everyday tasks. 106 people create and change those settings and have the ability to develop or form a point of view. ISS researchers emphasize the importance of considering individual decision-making processes, subjective feelings, and ways to understand events. In ISS, this inner world and a person’s way of seeing and thinking are equally if not more significant for a person’s actions than the external, objective conditions and structural forces that positivists emphasize. 5. What is the relationship between science and common sense? Positivists see common sense as being inferior to science. By contrast, ISS holds that ordinary people use common sense to guide them in daily life. Common sense is a stockpile of everyday theories that people use to organize and explain events in the world. It is critical for us to understand common sense because it contains the meanings that people use when they engage in everyday routine social interactions. ISS says that common sense and the positivist’s laws are alternative ways to interpret the world; that is, they are distinct meaning systems. Neither common sense nor scientific law has all of the answers. Instead, interpretive researchers see both scientific laws and common sense as being important in their own domains; we create scientific laws and common sense in different ways for different purposes. Ordinary people could not function in daily life if they tried to base their actions on science alone. For example, to boil an egg, people use unsystematic experiences, habits, and guesswork. A strict application of natural science would require people to know the laws of physics that determine heating water and the chemical laws that govern the changes in an egg’s internal composition. Even natural scientists use common sense when they are not “doing science” in their area of expertise. Common sense is a vital source of information for understanding people. A person’s common sense emerges from a pragmatic orientation and set of assumptions about the world. People assume that common sense is true because they need to use it to accomplish anything. The interpretive philosopher Alfred Schutz (1899–1959) called this the natural attitude. It is the assumption that the world existed before you arrived and it will continue to exist after THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY you depart. People develop ways to maintain or reproduce a sense of reality based on systems of meaning that they create in the course of social interactions with others. report is a detailed description of the gambling world. The theory and evidence are interwoven to create a unified whole; the concepts and generalizations are wedded to their context. 6. What constitutes an explanation or theory of social reality? PSS theory tries to mimic theory in natural science. It may have deductive axioms, theorems, and interconnected causal laws. Instead of interconnected laws and propositions, theory for ISS tells a story. ISS describes and interprets how people conduct their daily lives. While it may contain social science concepts and limited generalizations, it does not dramatically depart from the lived experiences and inner reality of the people being studied. ISS is idiographic and inductive. Idiographic means that the approach provides a symbolic representation or “thick” description of something else. An interpretive research report may read like a novel or a biography. It is rich in detailed description and limited in abstraction. Like the interpretation of a literary work, it has internal coherence and is rooted in the text, which here refers to the meaningful everyday experiences of the people being studied. The purpose of ISS theory is to provide an interpretative explanation. ISS attempts to provide readers a deep feeling for another person’s social reality by revealing the meanings, values, interpretive schemes, and rules of daily living. For example, ISS theory may describe major typifications that people use in a setting to recognize and interpret their experiences. A typification is an informal model, scheme, or set of beliefs that people use to categorize and organize the flow of the daily events they experience. ISS theory resembles a map that outlines a social world and describes local customs and norms. For example, an interpretive report on professional gamblers tells the reader about the careers and daily concerns of such people. The report describes the specific individuals studied, the locations and activities observed, and the strategies used to gamble. The reader learns how professional gamblers speak, how they view others, and what their fears or ambitions are. The researcher provides some generalizations and organizing concepts, but the bulk of the 7. How does one determine whether an explanation is true or false? PSS logically deduces from theory, collects data, and analyzes facts in ways that allow replication. For ISS, a theory is true if it makes sense to those being studied and if it allows others to enter the reality of those being studied. The theory or description is accurate if the researcher conveys a deep understanding of the way others reason, feel, and see things. Prediction may be possible but it is a type of prediction that occurs when two people are very close as when they have been married for a long time. An interpretive explanation documents the actor’s point of view and translates it into a form that is intelligible to readers. Smart (1976:100) calls this the postulate of adequacy: The postulate of adequacy asserts that if a scientific account of human action were to be presented to an individual actor as a script it must be understandable to that actor, translatable into action by the actor and furthermore comprehensible to his fellow actors in terms of a common sense interpretation of everyday life. Like a traveler telling about a foreign land, the researcher is not a native. Such an outside view never equals the insider account that people who are Idiographic A type of explanation used in interpretive social science in which the explanation is an indepth description or picture with specific details but limited abstraction about a social situation or setting. Typification An informal model or scheme people use in everyday life to categorize and organize the flow of the events and situations that they experience; often part of common knowledge or common sense, it simplifies and helps to organize the complexity and flow of life. Postulate of adequacy An interpretive social science principle that explanations should be understandable in commonsense terms by the people being studied. 107 THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY being studied might give; however, the closer it is to the native’s account, the better. For example, one way to test the truthfulness of an ISS study of professional gambling is to have professional gamblers read it and verify its accuracy. A good report tells a reader enough about the world of professional gambling so that if the reader absorbed it and then met a professional gambler, the understanding of gambling jargon, outlook, and lifestyle might lead the gambler to ask whether the reader was also a professional gambler. 8. What does good evidence or factual information look like? Good evidence in positivism is observable, precise, and independent of theory and values. In contrast, ISS sees the features of specific contexts and meanings as essential to understand social meaning. Evidence about social action cannot be isolated from the context in which it occurs or the meanings assigned to it by the social actors involved. As Weber (1978:5) said, “Empathic or appreciative accuracy is attained when, through sympathetic participation, we can adequately grasp the emotional context in which the action took place.” For ISS, facts are fluid and embedded within a meaning system; they are not impartial, objective, or neutral. Facts are contingent and context specific; they depend on combinations of specific events with particular people in a specific setting. What PSS assumes—that neutral outsiders observe behavior and see unambiguous, objective facts—ISS takes as a question to be addressed: How do people observe ambiguities in social life and assign meaning? Interpretive researchers say that social situations are filled with ambiguity. Most behaviors or statements can have several meanings and can be interpreted in multiple ways. In the flow of social life, people are constantly “making sense” by reassessing clues in the situation and assigning meanings until they Bracketing A strategy of interpretive social science researchers to identify the taken-for-granted assumptions of a social scene and then set them aside or hold them in temporary abeyance. By recognizing and separating the ordinary, “obvious” meanings people use in daily life, researchers can better understand their role. 108 “know what’s going on.” For example, I see a woman holding her hand out, palm forward. Even this simple act carries multiple potential meanings; I do not know its meaning without knowing the social situation. It could mean that she is warding off a potential mugger, drying her nail polish, hailing a taxi, admiring a new ring, telling oncoming traffic to stop for her, or requesting five bagels at a deli counter.15 People are able to assign appropriate meaning to an act or statement only if they consider the social context in which it occurs. ISS researchers rarely ask survey questions, aggregate the answers of many people, or claim to obtain something meaningful to the questions. To ISS researchers, each person’s interpretation of the survey question must be placed in a context (e.g., the individual’s previous experiences or the survey interview situation), and the true meaning of a person’s answer will vary according to the interview or questioning context. Moreover, because each person assigns a somewhat different meaning to the question and answer, combining answers produces only nonsense. When studying a setting or data, interpretive researchers of the ethnomethodological school often use bracketing. It is a mental exercise in which the researcher identifies and then sets aside taken-forgranted assumptions used in a social scene. ISS researchers question and reexamine ordinary events that have an “obvious” meaning to those involved. For example, at an office work setting, one male coworker in his late twenties says to the male researcher, “We’re getting together for softball after work tonight. Do you want to join us?” What is not said is that the researcher should know the rules of softball, own a softball glove, and change from a business suit into other clothing before the game. Bracketing reveals what “everyone knows”: what people assume but rarely say. It makes visible significant features of the social scene that make other events possible and is the underlying scaffolding of understandings on which actions are based. 9. What is the relevance or use of social scientific knowledge? Interpretative social scientists want to learn how the world works so they can acquire an in-depth THE MEANINGS OF METHODOLOGY understanding of other people, appreciate the wide diversity of lived human experience, and better acknowledge shared humanity. Instead of viewing knowledge as a type of tool or instrument, ISS researchers try to capture the inner lives and subjective experiences of ordinary people. This humanistic approach focuses on how people manage their practical affairs in everyday life and treats social knowledge as a pragmatic accomplishment. According to the ISS practical orientation, the relevance of social science knowledge comes from its ability to reflect in an authentic and comprehensive way how ordinary people do things in commonplace situations. ISS also emphasizes incorporating the social context of knowledge creation and creates a reflexive form of knowledge. ISS researchers tend to apply a transcendent perspective toward the use and application of new knowledge. To transcend means to go beyond ordinary material experiences and perceptions. In social research, it means not stopping at the surface or observable level but going on to an inner and subjective level of human experience. Rather than treating people as external objects that a researcher studies, the transcendant perspective urges researchers to examine people’s complex inner lives. Also, rather than study social conditions as they now appear, researchers should examine ...
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