An Introduction to the Philosophy of Methodology

Kerry E Howell

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781446290620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della filosofia

This book provides students with a concise introduction to the philosophy of methodology. The book stands apart from existing methodology texts by clarifying in a student-friendly and engaging way distinctions between philosophical positions, paradigms of inquiry, methodology and methods. Building an understanding of the relationships and distinctions between philosophical positions and paradigms is an essential part of the research process and integral to deploying the methodology and methods best suited for a research project, thesis or dissertation.

Aided throughout by definition boxes, examples and exercises for students, the book covers topics such as:

-Positivism and Post-positivism

-Phenomenology

-Critical Theory

-Constructivism and Participatory Paradigms

-Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism

-Ethnography

-Grounded Theory

-Hermeneutics

-Foucault and Discourse

This text is aimed at final-year undergraduates and post-graduate research students. For more experienced researchers developing mixed methodological approaches, it can provide a greater understanding of underlying issues relating to unfamiliar techniques.

ONE

Introduction: Problems Identified

Introduction

The objective of this text is to provide sound underpinning for dissertations, theses, research projects and, where necessary, more advanced interdisciplinary research programmes. This book draws together a diverse set of material that gives a comprehensive assessment, understanding and application of philosophical positions, paradigms of inquiry, ontology, epistemology, methodology and methods or data collection. Indeed, this text recognises the difficulties regarding philosophy, theory, truth, knowledge, reality, when developing understanding, and the absolute minefield these issues engender for individual researchers and larger interdisciplinary research programmes and projects. This book involves an original perspective on other similar texts because, even though distinct works exist regarding these individual areas, there has been limited coverage of the relationship between philosophical issues in general and through methodological approaches the impacts these have on researchers, participants and data collection procedures. For example, considerations regarding the nature of reality and the role of theory in the pursuit of knowledge will have implications for the methodology and methods pursued in a research project. Methodology will impact on methods and have considerable influence on what knowledge is considered to be and the consequent outcomes of the investigation. If one considers that knowledge or reality exists external to individuals then the researcher is required to undertake data collection procedures in an empirical and distanced manner; usually this perspective pursues an objective detached stance. However, if one considers there is a relationship between reality and mind then such a stance is impossible to attain and subjective tendencies will resonate throughout the research process. Consequently, this text explores these issues and begins with an assessment of notions regarding reality that were identified, discussed and debated in antiquity and further developed through Enlightenment and the thoughts of among others David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel and Arthur Schopenhaur.

Chapter 1 provides explanations regarding theory and practice and identifies correlations between ideas relating to knowledge, truth and reality. Knowledge, truth or reality can either involve abstract conceptualisation or be grounded and developed through practical situations and data. Indeed, these areas may be considered reflections of human relations and stances regarding levels of subjectivity and objectivity. Furthermore, this chapter introduces problems regarding ideas about knowledge, reality, truth and how these may be reflected through different ontological perspectives (conceptualisations of reality or truth) as well as the relationship between the observer and observed (epistemology). Kant considered that knowledge could be developed through critical thinking, which involved both application of received doctrines and systems as well as one’s inherited thoughts, prejudices and traditions. To obtain a non-biased position or objectivity one must take the thoughts of others into account. Objectivity was not some higher standpoint but the very fact of understanding the social and subjective nature of self and others. Objects need to be viewed from different perspectives through, which one’s point of view may expand. Thought is extended by taking into account the thoughts of others. We compare and contrast the possible judgements of others by putting ourselves in their place through the concept of imagination (Kant, 1952).

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Definition Box

Reality, Truth, Knowledge and Theory

Reality: Related to knowledge and can be totally separate from or a construction of the mind. Positivist perspectives of reality differ from phenomenological notions of reality; positivism sees reality as totally independent of humanity whereas the latter considers them to be intrinsically linked.

Truth: Truth is a difficult concept to pin down and may be interpreted as reflections of reality based on evidence which is determined by an understanding of reality; that is ontological and epistemological positions. Truth provides an understanding of reality at a given point in time; truths like theories do not hold for eternity, when truth and/or theories change so does the nature of reality.

Knowledge: Knowledge incorporates our stock of explanations and understanding of why reality and the truth and theories that reflect this are as they are; knowledge involves interpretations of facts derived from data as well as abstract comprehensions of phenomenon.

Theory: Theory provides ways of explaining or giving meaning to understandings extrapolated from data. Theory can be expressed through immutable laws at one extreme and social or constructions at the other. Theory is a means of reflecting reality, truth or knowledge.

Each relates to the distinction between clear objective external realities that can be understood perfectly by human beings and solipsistic comprehensions of the world which consider phenomenon to be determined by the subjective mind.

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Ontology and Epistemology: Does an External Reality Exist?

For empirical science and positivism a real external world exists, which focuses on empirical occurrences and concentrates on the precise nature and rules of events. Conversely, in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant states that ‘all objects of any experience possible to us are nothing but appearances that are mere representations which ... have no independent existence outside our thoughts’ (1992: 519). Transcendental idealism identifies an ordinary means of awareness which may not perceive objects as they truly exist. We only have access to reality through our perceptual capabilities, consequently it is not possible to say whether what we see is accurate; the mind constructs an understanding of phenomenon. So phenomenon as perceived or experienced involves representation; thought may initially consider that it is capable of describing an existing reality, but, all it may provide is a means of making actions transparent to self. However, the idea of an objective reality has been accepted for many years and such a notion is difficult to dispel. That said, this idea should not be taken as gospel and the pursuit of objective reality our only goal; especially in contexts where none may be realised. Indeed, once this is taken on board then other means or ways of understanding may refocus our thoughts and expand our pursuits of knowledge and truth. A distinction exists between a posteriori knowledge, which can be understood through direct awareness of phenomenon (empirically) and a priori knowledge that is known through propositions (non-empirically). Normally, a posteriori knowledge depends on support from sensory experience whereas a priori knowledge depends on intellectual processes or pure reason. Fundamentally, Kant distinguished between things that exist in themselves and the appearances of phenomenon; we know the world through the projection of pre-existing categories apparent within the mind and are not able to access things in themselves. That is, we can only have an interpretation of entities or objects as they appear to us once they have been categorised and edited by the means at our disposal for understanding the given phenomenon.

Kant (1992) argued that elements of occurrences and events are initially ‘phenomenon of the brain’ and made up of ‘subjective conditions’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 3). As soon as someone comprehends that the ‘world is my representation’ it should be recognised by all as a truism. However, it is not a proposition that everyone understands and becomes or turns into an assessment of the relationship between the ideal and the real (realism and idealism); ‘the world in the head (ideal) and the world outside the head (real)’. Schopenhaur, argued that understanding was ‘limited to the facts of consciousness; in other words philosophy is essentially idealistic’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 5) and because it denies that the world is not primarily representation, realism is nothing but an illusion. Knowledge of truth ‘is rendered more difficult only by the fact ... that not everyone has sufficient power of reflection to go back to the first elements of his consciousness of things’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 5). This is because the idea of the objective has its embryonic existence in the subjective; that is consciousness.

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Question Box

Knowledge

Socrates saw virtue as knowledge and to be virtuous was to both know oneself and understand what one ought to do. One would consider that because virtue is knowledge and knowledge can be taught then so can virtue. However, on the one hand, Socrates argues that there are no experts of virtue while on the other hand he considers that virtue may be taught. But what if there are no experts to teach virtue? Indeed, he attempts to overcome this problem by considering that ‘the soul ... has learned everything that there is. So we need not be surprised if it can recall the knowledge of virtue or anything else which ... it once possessed’ (Plato, 1976: 129–30). When we learn a basic principle, if we persevere, the rest will follow. The soul remembers what it forgot at birth ‘for seeking and learning are in fact nothing but recollection’ (Plato, 1976: 130). Knowledge is already present and only requires recollection.

Express your considerations regarding this understanding of knowledge and learning from first principles. Does knowledge or what is sought pre-exist the research process?

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Given that the starting point is the subjective self, would the objective world exist without consciousness (without idealism or the subjective)? Indeed, if we imagine an objective world without a knowing subject we actually achieve the opposite of what we intended. ‘We become aware that what we are imagining at that moment is in truth the opposite of what we intended, namely nothing but just the process in the intellect of a knowing being that perceives an objective world’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 5). The real world is phenomenon of the mind and the assumption that an external world exist no more than a contradiction. When we undertake a research project we approach the world with pre-conceptions about the relationship between mind and external reality; such will affect the methodological approach, research programme and methods of data collection. If one considers reality to be an external entity then it is likely that the research will pursue objectivity and test or falsify hypotheses or null hypotheses through data, experimentation and or statistical analysis. If we consider the world and mind to be intrinsically linked a more interpretive approach would be appropriate.

Kant considered that space and time themselves were due to the intuition or perception of the subject and were consequently not things-in-themselves. Subsequently, that which exists in time and space is not objective and things-in themselves that can only be subjective and an objective world representation. Through our ‘mind we represent to ourselves objects as outside us ... Space is not an empirical concept ... derived from outer experience ... Space is a necessary ... representation’ (Kant, 1992: 67–8). Furthermore, time is also ‘a necessary representation that underlies all intuitions’ (Kant, 1992: 74). All things involve reflections of the mind continually interacting in relation to time and space; who and where we are in the era we exist will determine our notions and understanding of things, while at the same time things impact on our notions of time and space.

In many contexts, idealism is misinterpreted as denying the existence of empirical reality and the external world. However, idealism transcends realism and leaves the external world untouched but at the same time considers that the object and the empirical real is conditioned by the subject in two ways: first it is ‘conditioned materially or as object in general, since an objective existence is conceivable only in the face of the subject’. Second ‘it is conditioned formally, since the mode and manner of the object’s existence, in other words, of it being represented (space, time, causality) proceed from the subject and are predisposed in the subject’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 8). Indeed, this links Berkeley’s concept of idealism (the object in general) with Kantian (special mode and manner of objective existence).

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Reflection Box

George Berkeley

In his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) George Berkeley (1658–1753) argued that the external world were no more than collections of ideas. This was a striking proposal and many dismiss the idea with some indignation. However, Berkeley was a serious philosopher and considered that God produced sensations or ideas within our mind. He further argued that if his ideas were fully understood he would be identified as a philosopher that defended truth against ‘the mob’ or ‘the vulgar’.

Consider Berkeley’s position and the implications this has for the relationship between object and subject.

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Fundamentally, time and space which underpin the notion of an objective reality are themselves subjective-based entities. Kant dealt with this but does not use the notion of brain or mind. Indeed Kant based his subjective stance on the ‘faculty of knowledge’. The intellect creates the order of things ‘and exists only for things, but ... things also exist only for it’ (Kant, 1992: 9).

Realism considers that the world exists independently of the subject. However, let us remove the subject and leave only the object and then return the subject to the world; the world then repeats itself to the subject exactly (as a perfect mirror image of that which exists). ‘Thus for the first world a second has been added, which, although completely separated from the first resembles it to a nicety. Now the subjective world of this perception is constituted in subjective, known space exactly as the objective world is in infinite space’ (Kant, 1992: 9).

The question becomes the extent to which an external world corresponds to our subjective interpretation? Which returns to the question; is the world of subjective or objective origin? John Locke and David Hume assumed an objective or external origin because they argued understanding was drawn or developed from experience; it is a posteriori. Whereas, Kant and Schopenhaur considered the world to be a priori and subjective in origin because the ‘only thing actually given empirically in the case of perception is the occurrence of a sensation in the organ of the sense’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 11). No one can doubt that ‘knowledge begins with experience . Nevertheless it . may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge ... supplies from itself’ (Kant, 1992: 41–2).

Realism identified that the object existed without the subject. However, it is difficult to clearly conceive of such an object. Through knowledge and representation it is not possible to know things from within because the knowledge of all things comes from without. We may only understand from within if we are capable of getting inside things ‘so that the inside would be known directly’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 12). Furthermore, knowledge of the world remains ‘a mere representation since no path is here possible which leads beyond this’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 12).

Idealism and Materialism

There also exists a distinction between idealism and materialism, which may be investigated through assessing the existence of matter. Is matter real or an ideal? Is matter a representation or is it independent of the mind? If independent then matter is a thing-in-itself, if a representation then idealistic. Locke asserted the unquestionable existence of matter whereas Berkeley denied this assertion.

Materialism points out that the ‘knower is a product of matter as that matter is a mere representation; but is also as one sided; for materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself’ (Schopenhaur, 1966: 13). Furthermore, no less correct is the assertion that all matter exists as representation (Materia menacium verax): Matter is a lie and yet true. The world is more than mere representation and that the object is conditioned by the subject. Indeed a ‘consciousness without object is no co...