SOCI 313 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Antipositivism, Scientific Method, Donna Haraway
23 Sep 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Epistemology: how we know, what we know (cid:894)(cid:449)hat (cid:455)ou do(cid:374)"t k(cid:374)o(cid:449)(cid:895) Social researcher base their work on a number epistemological assumptions: answer the question of how knowledge is produced and what constitutes valid knowledge. Contrasting positions: positivism, interpretivism/social radicalism, stand point theory. Ontology: the entire set of schemas, concepts and or categories in a domain or field of study (everything we know already: two ontological debates: Do social phenomena have an objective reality, independent of our perceptions? (objectivist perspective) Is what passes for reality merely a set of mental constructions? (constructionist perspective) Epistemology: an account of the knowing subject, the object of study, and the relationship between them theory of knowledge. Knower= researcher, known= the research: positivism assumes a sharp dichotomy between the knower and the known. 2 scientific method) aid us in clarifying and maintaining this dichotomy: weakness of positivism: (cid:862)fa(cid:272)ts(cid:863) a(cid:396)e (cid:272)ultu(cid:396)all(cid:455) lo(cid:272)ated a(cid:374)d a(cid:396)e the(cid:373)sel(cid:448)es the p(cid:396)odu(cid:272)t of social processes and particular worldviews.
