POLSCI 2NN3 Study Guide - Comprehensive Final Exam Guide - Wigmore Hall, Verstehen, Tuskegee University
20 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Answering these questions requires delving into larger philosophical questions: A) there is an objec ive world (cid:343)o here(cid:344) ha is wha i is regardless of how we perceive it. It is stitched together and reproduced by social beliefs and social acts that are capable of changing in unexpected ways. There are fundamentally different answers to the ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions. The answers lead to different types of political science. For the purposes of simplicity, we will highlight two different approaches to doing political science (positivism and interpretivism) Positivist approaches are characterized by a series of assumptions. Ontology: the social world is analogous to the natural world. I has an (cid:343)objec ive(cid:344) exis ence o side of o r s bjec ive beliefs s: the social world is patterned, predictable, and regulated by laws in the same essential way as the natural world. Epistemology: we can know the social world as it truly is.
