The, Positivism, And Pragmatism

Understanding the basic assumption and logic of the positivist paradigm is by knowing what it means. positivism means a perspective on knowledge and reality that

“The major goal of objectivists is aligned with that of the natural scientists – they identify causal explanations and fundamental laws that explain regularities in human social behavior” (Holden & Lynch, 2004). “Logical positivism uses quantitative and experimental methods to test hypothetical deductive generalizations” (Karami, Rowley, & Analoui, 2006). Social “science is characterized by empirical research; all phenomena can be reduced to empirical indicators which represent the truth” (Sale et al., 2002). “positivistic research assumes… social reality is a complex of causal relations between objects and causes of human behavior which are external to the individual” (Schulenberg, 2007). Einstein discovered the laws of the universe. The attempt by objectivists to discover the laws human social interactions logically follows.

According to Neuman (2011) epistemology is the issue on how we know the world around us or what makes us claim that it is true, epistemology includes what we need to do to produce knowledge and what scientific knowledge looks like once we have produced it’s an area of philosophy concerned with the creation of knowledge. Epistemology shows us that as people it is important that we do not always accept what we see but that we look deeper at things to understand why something is what it is.

Interpretivism beliefs that the world is socially constructed and subjective, that the observer is part of the what is observed and that science is driven by human interest. Furthermore, interpretivism, like action research, tries to understand what actually is happening by looking at the totality of each situation.

Objective and subjective approach of investigative things forms two important elements of ontology, broadly called as the Positivism and Subjectivism.

The epistemological perspectives of positivism and social constructivism can often be seen as direct opposed views on knowledge. A positivism approach involves accepting knowledge of things “that have been verified by the scientific method of formation and testing” (Pool, 1999, Pg. 91). Positivists focus on the falsification of things and insistence on their verification. Scientist, Karl Popper, brought new ideals to this approach by making light on the fact it is not possible to prove something true, but it can ultimately be proven true by never being proved false which can provide you with long term approximations for knowledge. (Pool, 1999, Pg. 92). The social constructivism approach answers the issues addressed that the positivism

Throughout the history of epistemology, we are baffled by the haunting spectre of objectifying our knowledge claims to attain certitude in our knowledge systems. There are different systems in accordance with our different times and we are always in the drive to dispute those who have come before us. However, the main question is what does it mean to be objective? Philosophers have always anchored the perspective of objectivity along the lines of truth--- the allegiance of our claims to the reality of the world. Others have anchored it on the opposite of subjectivity which is the knowledge away from personal biases and conditionings. Standpoint epistemology brings forth its attempt to break or permeate this barrier between our objectivity and

August Comte was a French philosopher (1798-1857) that work is based on positivism. This paradigm was popular in 20th century. It focused on that knowledge should be limited that cab be observed and measured. Positivist directly emphasized on those theory that can be tested. Positivist cannot measure the feelings, emotions and thoughts of humans. Positivist is purely based on empirical nature that may led to develop the post-positivism in the late 20th century. Post positivist argues that the combination of empirical observation with logical reasoning make some implications about a phenomenon (Thomas,

The structure of the Ontological Argument can be outlined as follows (The argument is based on Anselm's Proslogion 2):

Heather(1976, p12) states that “positivism is a position in epistemology.” Positivism is based on empiricism which means that all knowledge or ideas are based on sense experience(Phillips, 2000). There are two types of positivism. The first type is classical positivism which was developed by philosopher Auguste

Positivism is based on a notion that science is an only way to learn about the truth and this perspective belongs to epistemology which is denoted as philosophy of knowing. It majorly depends on quantifiable observations which lead to statistical analysis of the data. It has been noted positivism is in accordance with the empirical view

This is based on a notion that science is the only way to learn about the truth and this perspective belongs to epistemology which is denoted as philosophy of knowing. It majorly depends on quantifiable observations which lead to statistical analysis of the data. It has been noted positivism is in accordance with the empirical view that knowledge stems from human experience.

As part of this endeavour, the ontological status of the core ideas, and the logical structure of the

The advantages and disadvantages of studying a social phenomenon with a positivist versus an interpretivist approach

In some cases, the ontology can be described as a set of definition of formal vocabulary. Ontologies are also not limited to conservative definition, that is, definition in the traditional logic sense that only introduce terminology and do not add any knowledge about the world (Endeton, 1972).