RP05
16/10/00 3:09 pm
Page 152
152 YOUR RESEARCH PROJECT INTRODUCTION: THE DEBATE ABOUT THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF RESEARCH
The first chapter of this book contained a brief description of ‘scientific method’, together with a short review of the debate surrounding research in which the positivist approach was challenged. In this chapter, the underlying philosophies in this debate are considered in more detail. To begin with, the positivist attributes of scientific enquiry are scrutinized to reveal some of its strengths and limitations. The radical questioning of the mainstream assumptions of scientific method, made in the 1960s by relativists and proponents of anti-method, are then discussed. This is followed by a brief examination of the interpretivist epistemology, explaining the drift of the arguments against positivism and the alternative approaches suggested. It is since the latter part of the nineteenth century that philosophical alternatives to positivism have been developed. However, although the study of human individuals and society can be seen as being quite different from the study of organic and inorganic matter, owing to the ability of humans to think, decide and give meanings to the world around them, some social scientists advocated a natural scientific approach in their investigations, investigating what they called ‘social facts’. This approach was fundamentally questioned by maintaining that it is the meaningfullness of the subject matter that is paramount. This ‘interpretivist’ approach sees social reality characterized by intersubjectivity and common meanings which need to be interpreted and understood. A middle way, using aspects of both philosophical standpoints, has also been promulgated. According to this approach, social life should be studied from both a positivist and an interpretivist viewpoint, and that one should verify subjective interpretations by comparison with the actual course of events. It has often been said that a study of the philosophy of the natural or human sciences is irrelevant to researchers. As a commentary on how theory after theory is erected, only to be torn down by the subsequent one, it has little bearing on the day-to-day practice of research, and only causes confusion. So why do I think that it is necessary to know something about philosophy as a background to research? Because everyone is a philosopher – everyone has a concept of the world. The alternative to philosophy is not no philosophy but bad philosophy. The ‘unphilosophical’ person has an unconscious philosophy, which they apply in their practice – whether of science or politics or daily life. (Collier, 1994, p. 16)
Philosophy works by making arguments explicit. A sensitivity towards philosophical issues is needed to enable you to evaluate research critically. It is necessary to discern the underlying, and perhaps contentious, assumptions upon which research reports are based even when these are not explicit, and thus to be able to judge the appropriateness of the methods that have been