PSCI 2701 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Realism, Antipositivism, Scientific Method
14 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
Philosophy of social science: knowledge and knowing in political science. Ontology: the science or study of being; assumptions about the nature of the social world. Questions about what the nature of the world is, how society is structured. Epistemology: the theory of science of the method or grounds of knowledge. How we learn about the world depends on what we be and how we believe that world is based on. Leads us to think about what knowledge is possible for us to acquire. Methodology: the study of the direction and implications of empirical research, or the suitability. Social laws exist, aren"t subject to our changes. Epistemology: scientific knowledge is limited to what can be observed. Empirical regularities, general laws and causal relationships can be discovered and applied to predict social phenomena. What can be observed, can also be measured. Induction: observation > pattern > hypothesis > theory. Deduction: theory > hypothesis > observation > confirmation.
