Category: Philosophy of Science

The strange sounding words ‘Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology‘ often appear in social science texts or lectures.

Have you ever asked yourself what these terms mean, and how they relate to each other?

In this article, I’ll explain the individual meanings and the connection between Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology. This will equip you well for discussions in any academic field and help you better understand these basic philosophy of science concepts.

In my opinion, understanding these three terms is the key to taking your academic journey to the next level.

Why are Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology Such Important Concepts

As you’ve likely noticed, we are delving into the realm of philosophy of science. This field, which is part of philosophy, serves as a meta-discipline with implications for all other scientific fields.

The terms Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology are inherently philosophical and concern how we understand science.

This is crucial because without philosophical underpinnings, scientific work as you know it wouldn’t be possible.

For instance, when you’re developing a survey questionnaire for your master’s thesis, which 150 individuals will fill out, and then you conduct statistical tests in SPSS, this scientific endeavor adheres to specific ontological and epistemological assumptions.

These assumptions shape the research approach you are following, regardless of whether you are aware of them or not.

If you’re conducting interviews for your research, for example, your work will be rooted in a different ontology, a different epistemology, and, of course, a different methodology.

Without an understanding of the philosophical foundations underpinning your research, you might find yourself caught off guard when someone knowledgeable in this area poses a targeted question.

A fitting metaphor for the relationship between Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology is an iceberg.

Your methodology and methods are on the surface and visible. For example, you describe them in your methods section.

Ontology and Epistemology, on the other hand, lie beneath the surface, intricately connected to the visible part of the iceberg.

In a PhD thesis, students are sometimes asked to make a statement about their ontology and epistemology. But in a regular academic paper, you would not do so, because they shine through implicitly.

But if you are aware of them, you can fully understand what you are doing and know what others are talking about when they mention these things.

So, let’s take a look behind the curtain.

Ontology

Ontology resides at the deepest point underwater. This concept pertains to the philosophical exploration of ‘being’ itself or ‘how things exist.’

In other words, it addresses how we understand reality.

This might initially sound quite confusing. Why would there be differences in this regard?

Well, there are plenty of differences!

Ontology in the Natural Sciences

Let’s say you’re an atomic physicist working at CERN with a particle accelerator. Your scientific understanding of reality likely follows the belief that 1+1=2, and that the atoms observable in the particle accelerator are objectively real.

So, if a colleague or an alien were to look into the particle accelerator, the atoms would still be just as real, independent of you as the subject.

This ontology, following the tenets of objectivism, is accepted by the majority of researchers in the natural sciences. Admittedly, it would be quite challenging to make progress otherwise.

Ontology in the Social Sciences

However, when we delve into the realm of social sciences, things become a bit more difficult. Here, we don’t observe atoms or other natural scientific phenomena; rather, we study social phenomena.

These aren’t influenced by the laws of physics but are shaped by human interactions.

Can we then assume the same ontology here?

Some say yes, we can. In psychology, for instance, a natural scientific ontology has also prevailed. It is widely believed that psychological phenomena can be generalized and are objectively real, similar to the natural sciences. This, in turn, affects which methods for acquiring knowledge are accepted – but we’ll get to that shortly.

Other social scientists are dismayed by this ontology. For them, it’s evident that social phenomena are in the eye of the beholder and socially constructed.

How we, as humans, perceive reality is closely tied to how we interpret it. So, there’s no objective reality, but rather a subjective one. This ontology falls under the philosophical stream of constructivism.

Since the 1970s, a third prominent position has emerged in the social sciences, which somewhat mediates between the two, also known as ‘Critical Realism.’

You can ask yourself:

Is a chair a chair because it has four legs and a backrest? Or is a chair a chair because we use it for sitting?

The answer to this question can tell you more about the ontology through which you see the world.

Epistemology

Now, let’s move a bit closer to the surface to explore epistemology.

Here, the question is: How is it even possible to acquire knowledge about the world?

What methods of gaining knowledge are accepted in a scientific discipline?

When our CERN scientist conducts measurements in the particle accelerator, she is convinced that new knowledge can be generated through this process. Additionally, she is aware of the ‘nature’ of this knowledge – that it is concrete, tangible, and objective. This epistemology is also known as positivism.

In the realm of the social sciences, things again become more difficult. Here, knowledge could just as easily be characterized as personal, subjective, and unique.

This, in turn, has significant implications for how we, as researchers, can acquire new knowledge and which methods we can or cannot accept. This epistemological position is also called interpretivism.

The Relationship between Ontology and Epistemology

As you may have noticed, there is always a specific epistemology that aligns with an underlying ontology.

A positivist epistemology corresponds to an objectivist ontology.

An interpretivist epistemology aligns with a constructivist ontology.

There are, of course, other positions like critical realism, but that would be the subject of another video.

Methodology

The philosophical assumptions you make, specifically the ontology and epistemology that shape your understanding of reality and knowledge, determine the methodology you employ in your research.

Broadly speaking, there are once again two opposing positions in this area that dominate the social sciences. These methodological approaches are the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms.

Traditionally, a quantitative approach aligns with the objectivist-positivist position, while a qualitative approach corresponds better to the constructivist-interpretivist position.

At this level of the iceberg, however, the possibilities are much more flexible, at least in most social sciences. There are methods that combine both approaches or cross over, creating methodological pluralism.

Throughout the history of science, there have been (relatively) intense debates and disputes about which philosophical assumptions are the right ones for each discipline.

Fortunately, today, it is possible to be successful with less dogmatic positions and contribute to the diversity of a discipline by acknowledging the value of each position.

“What is a theory in research?”

…my professor asked me in my last oral exam at the university.

Pah! What an outrageous question.

I had apparently answered the questions related to the course material so well that he now wanted to test me.

The annoying thing was, I couldn’t really answer the question well. When are you ever asked that question?

This article will help make sure that you don’t experience the same thing that happened to me.

From now on, you will always have an answer for the question “what is a theory” plus some knowledge about the philosophy of science at your fingertips.

What is a theory in research?

Defining the term “theory” is not so easy. But one thing is clear: anyone who wants to deal with theory from a philosophy of science perspective cannot ignore one man: Karl Popper.

Popper defined theory as “universal statements” used to cast a net to “catch” the world. (Popper, 1959).

So a theory should aim to contribute general statements (universal statements) about phenomena (the world) in order to better explain or understand the world. Specific statements that are only true in a particular situation are therefore not suitable as theory.

A theory often only considers a specific section of reality. This section can then be represented as a so-called model.

The Demarcation Problem

Why was Popper’s work so important? Until Popper’s book “The Logic of Scientific Discovery” was published, it was not really defined when a methodology was considered “scientific” and when it was not.

This is also called the “demarcation problem”, i.e. the dividing line between science and non-science.

At that time, Popper criticized in particular the backward-looking character of many studies. For example, Popper’s contemporary Sigmund Freud looked back in time to explain the present. What Popper disliked was the fact that Freud could always search for evidence that confirmed his theory instead of looking for evidence that refuted it.

Falsification

Albert Einstein, on the other hand, tried to make predictions about the future using theory, which Popper preferred.

However, theory according to Einstein’s approach is much more fragile, as only one event in the future is enough to bring down the entire theory.

But Popper was convinced. He believed that theory must be falsifiable.

The old view was this: if I find a handful of white swans, I can propose the theory that all swans are white.

Popper’s view, however, was this: if I find a single black swan, I can refute the it.

Instead of looking for evidence, we should look for counter-evidence!

The main components of a theory in research

The development of a theory most often involves the observation of real-world phenomena. At least when we conduct science based on the idea of empiricism, which presupposes that knowledge is generated through human experience.

Through a step of interpretation and abstraction, we can convert the phenomena into concepts. On a practical level, we can do this in the qualitative analysis of interview data, to name just one example.

At this level, we can also make assumptions about how these concepts are causally related to each other. This is a very important component of any theory: what is the relationship between the individual components?

Once concepts and their relationships are established, we can in principle speak of a theory.

Now it is a matter of repeatedly testing, expanding, or falsifying it.

To do this, concepts are transformed into constructs that consist of individual variables. This step is important so that it is even determined what can be observed in a study and then ultimately measured. Measurability is achieved by operationalizing variables.

The theoretical relationship between the variables is expressed in hypotheses that can be tested through statistical calculations. Here we are in the realm of quantitative research. For example, an experiment could be carried out to draw conclusions about the relationship between two or more variables.

What is a theory in research? (4 questions)

To order the components of a theory a bit, you can ask questions as Whetten (1989) did:

What?

Which factors, be they concepts, constructs or variables, should be considered at all? Here the principle of parsimony or Ockham’s razor applies, namely: the theory that requires the fewest components to explain the phenomenon is usually the best.

How?

How are the factors connected to each other? You can easily imagine this with the boxes and arrows that are usually used as a graphic element to illustrate a theory in 2D.

Why?

What are the dynamics that the theory tries to model? What are the causal relationships that the theory assumes?

Who, Where, When?

What are the limitations of the theory, and who or what can it not represent if necessary?

Critique of the prevailing understanding of theory

However, this understanding of “what is a theory?” is not the only one.

Although Karl Popper did not consider himself a positivist, the image of theory explained above corresponds to positivist assumptions.

This would mean that we humans can perceive the world as it is with our senses and can therefore make statements about the objective world.

In the natural sciences, these assumptions are not questioned so much because, to put it bluntly, the probability that we live in a matrix and that the laws of nature do not reflect the objective world is rather low.

If scientists were to question the assumption that there is some sort of objective world outside of our minds it would be very hard to conduct research at all.

But in the social sciences, this epistemological standpoint has often been criticized. The reason for this is that the research object here is different, for example human behavior. Over time, sociology, psychology, and now even communication and media studies have increasingly been overlaid with natural scientific principles.

An example of the resulting conflict was the so-called positivism dispute, in which the German Frankfurt School, led by Theodor Adorno, took a counterposition with their “Critical Theory”.

According to critical theory, the subjective character of knowledge acquisition must be taken into account when developing theory.

Why do we need theory in research?

Alright, we’ve clarified the question “What is a theory?” (hopefully).

To wrap things up, here are a few thoughts on why they are important. After all, couldn’t we simply observe the world and write down our findings without abstracting them into theories?

Well, we might miss out on a lot of potential if we were to discard theory.

#1 Theories help us better understand the world

I always think of theories as glasses. I can put on different glasses and see the world differently. Through one pair of glasses, I see certain aspects of the world more clearly, and through another pair, I get a completely new perspective.

#2 Theories collect our knowledge

Here, you can imagine theories like a Wikipedia article. Someone writes the first draft, which is then checked, developed further, or even criticized by others. The important thing is always that every scientific work somehow tries to make a contribution, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger.

#3 Theories help in practice

Through theories, we can uncover problems and derive actions to change the world for the better.

And that is a wonderful idea, isn’t it?