Lecture 1: intro Flashcards
What is this subject for?
To deepen understanding of what it means to do research. To be able to have dialogue across disciplines
Explain epistemology
knowledge acquisition. Theory of knowledge. What is knowledge? How do we go about getting knowledge
Explain Ontology
- What is real?
- Study of reality.
- Realism and objectivity
What is axiology?
- study of values
- Unspoken assumptions of research
What are Metaphysics?
the branch of philosophy concerned with the ‘first principles’ (or, broadly speaking, the fundamentals) of things like existence, time, space and identity.
What is a theory?
a generalised, abstract idea about the relations between phenomena.
What is empiricism?
The assertion that our senses provide our only secure source of knowledge
1.A beach is a coastal deposition of sand and gravel particles lying between mean tide and the inland extent of the highest storm waves
This statement is:
a. materialist
b. empiricist
c. both
c. because it provides the physical, actual characteristics and materials you can see. Also the senses are described here.
What is the difference between realism and idealism?
Realism: the assumption that we know objects really exist, independently of us.
Idealism: opposite of realism. This is the view that nothing exists outisde of our minds. There are aspects of society that appear to each of us as external, independent objects or facts, and yet are defined solely by human agents (ideas/actions).
What does the social constructionalist position mean?
Emphasizes the role of social processes in shaping and constructing reality. Social constructionism suggests that many aspects of human life, including identities, meanings, institutions, and even reality itself, are not inherent or fixed but rather constructed through social interactions, language, culture, and historical context.
The ‘social facts’ of appropriate or inappropriate behaviour and appearance at a beach derive from human thoughts and actions, but they appear as ‘objective reality’ to each of us as individuals. a shift from a purely idiosyncratic to a more nomothetic approach (or somewhere in between).
How is idealism understood by philosophers?
All that exists is mental or spiritual in nature. THis is an immaterialist perspective
Who between idealists and realists, care the most about numbers/stats and who cares more for interviews?
Idealists: care more about qualitative methods. Social constructionists
Realists care more for numbers (positivists)
