Branches of philosophy
Onthology
It is concerned with reality and is often presented with questions such as ‘what is the meaning of being?’ or ‘what can be said to exist?’.
There are two dominant positions within ontology; realism and nominalism.
Ontology is an area of philosophy that deals with the nature of being, or what exists.
Realism: The researcher views the world as existing separately from humans and their interpretations of it.
Nominalism: The researcher believes that their interpretations of the world are based on their inner subjectivity and the personal ‘lens’ through which they are viewing.
Epistemology
Epistemology is an area of philosophy that is concerned with the creation of knowledge, focusing on how knowledge is obtained and investigating the most valid ways to reach the truth.
Epistemology essentially determines the relationship between the researcher and reality and is rooted in the ontological assumptions
There are three significant branches within epistemology: empiricism, rationalism and transcendental philosophy.
Empirical researcher gives cognition (or understanding) a passive role, indicating that the object of study is recorded by the brain, but is not produced by the brain.
Rationalists regard logical reasoning as the active producer of concepts ex nihilo (out of nothing), and therefore adopt a deductive logical reasoning process.
Transcdental: Grounded in the belief that concepts and objects are not fixed, but are constantly evolving, transcendentalists believe the rationalist claim that objects are deduced from a general concept, whilst rejecting the claim that the concept is a product of ex nihilo.
Instead they argue that concepts are formed in one’s consciousness through a combination of previous existing empty templates of reason, also known as a priori categories, and the raw material of the object under study. In effect, transcendentalists believe that the templates of reason and the data acquired from the human senses change and develop continuously.
Axiology
Axiology is a branch of philosophy that studies judgements about the value. Specifically, axiology is engaged with assessment of the role of researcher’s own value on all stages of the research process.
Axiology primarily refers to the ‘aims’ of the research. This branch of the research philosophy attempts to clarify if you are trying to explain or predict the world, or are you only seeking to understand it.
Positivism
Research is undertaken in a value-free way, the researcher is independent from the data and maintains an objective stance
Realism
Interpritivism
Pragmaatism
Research is value laden; the researcher is biased by world views, cultural experiences and upbringings. These effect research findings
Research is value bound, the researcher is part of what is being researched, cannot be separated and so will be subjective
Values play a large role in interpreting results, the researcher adopting both objective and subjective points of view
Logic
The study, from a philosophical perspective, of the nature and types of logic, including problems in the field and the relation of logic to mathematics and other disciplines.
The rules of logic are guides to correct reasoning just as the rules of arithmetic are guides to correctly adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers, the principles of photography are guides to taking good photos, and so on.
Formal logic studies the abstract patterns or forms of correct reasoning.
Formal logic studies the abstract patterns or forms of correct reasoning.
Informal logic studies the non-formal aspects of reasoning—qualities that cannot be accurately translated into abstract symbols