Week 3 - Ontology and Epistemology


This blog I'll be giving my answers for the homework questions given to us last week about ontology and Epistemology

What is ontology? How is it relevant to research?

According to philosophyterms.com/ontology/ "Ontology is the study of being."
Ontology looks at what things exists, and what existence is. With ontology you are looking at the objects around you and making assumptions on what is real.
It is a matter of perspective.

What is Epistemology? How is it relevant to research?

According to britannica.com/topic/epistemology, Epistemology is "the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge."
Epistemology doesn't look at what is physical but rather what we know about the world and how to justify what we believe. Epistemology looks past our perspective of the world and tries to explain and justify our knowledge of what we think is real 

What is the connection between ontology and epistemology in a research context?

Ontology and epistemology are different ways of looking at reality; in research they provide different perspectives. Ontology comes first. We need to initially come up with some idea of what we think is real, then epistemology tries to explain that knowledge. 

 Ontology says, "There is a rock over there". Epistemology says, "How do I know there is a rock there, and how can I prove that it's there?"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 4 - Paradigms

Paradigms What is a paradigm? To start of this blog, we first need to understand what a paradigm is, then how it relates to science. owlcation.com has a fantastic description of what a paradigm is:  "Essentially, a paradigm is a set of assumptions governing how we interact and interpret the world." Basically a paradigm is the assumptions which we generally believe to be true, it's a perspective of what we think is real and true that we base our thinking on. Everyone has their own paradigm which reflects their beliefs and experiences. In relation to science, a paradigm is a shared set of assumptions and beliefs. Scientists can't explain the universe and how it works, so they form a paradigm to base their thinking on. Without this base you can't start because there is no starting point. Paradigms don't always stay the same. Sometimes the assumptions can be proven wrong, and new scientific progress is made. New sets of assumptions are made. This ...
Read more