Difference Between Ontology And Epistemology

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Ontology and Epistemology Introduction
Ontology and epistemology are two aspects of philosophy of social science,in this essay I will introduce the two theories.

First I will talk about ontology,in general,ontology is the core domain of philosophy,it force on“real”and always study in how is being,reality is not just materially existence,it includes all real world,it means everything is real,no matter the substance or the spirit,no matter the concrete or abstract,the world is real and it is not affected by people’s mind,things can not disappear just because human do not discover them,it is“being”,it is objectivism,for example,there is a chair,you see a the chair and think it’s real,the chair exists no matter what …show more content…

Positivism and interpretivism are two perspectives of epistemology,first I want to talk about positivism.

Positivism is a scientific way to find the truth,it means that people should use scientific study to know and explain the social world,such as observation,measurement and experimentation,only through these ways,that people can get knowledge about the society. There are five important principles in positivism,they are objectivism,empiricism,scientific method,value freedom and instrumental knowledge.As for interpretivism,it pays more attention to human behaviors and the meanings,some people think scientific method may not totally gain the knowledge about human itself,it can not help to understand the meaning of social facts,so they use interpretivism to understand the world(Fulcher,J.&Scott,J.2007),there are also five key points of interpretivism,they are subjectivism,meaning,interpretation,value freedom and …show more content…

The other difference are about their research method.Firstly,positivism use observations and experimentation,people repeat experimentation to get some same results,then these same answers become knowledge,such as laws and theories,and the way to find knowledge is according to observation,hypothesis,prediction and test,if the hypothesis is not proved by test,people should make another hypothesis until it is proven,then the final hypothesis is becoming knowledge(Professor Frank Wolfs ),however,interpretivism thinks highly of human behavior,it drives for results that human do the same thing under the same situation,it aims to understand,for example,when Foster studied crime,she did lots of interview and made some different levels,then she could interpretive people’s interpretations(Bryman,A.2008).Secondly,values plays different roles in them,it is no doubt that both positivism and interpretivism think scientist and researcher should keep their values away during the research,it is value freedom,but interpretivism thinks that values can influence our knowledge,for example people in different countries behave differently as well because of their different cultures and background,it is value relevance,it means values should be considered into the study.Finally,their results of research are different,positivism force on the explanation and description,so usually it study in facts and then get knowledge about law and theory,on the other hand,interpretivism pay attention to the

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