these variables are experienced internally, from Ally's personal ontology, as well as socially, in how others view Ally. More interesting by far than Ally's case is the case of her family members who opt into an African-American identity because their conception of race is realist-constructivist. The family members have bought into the "one drop" mentality that Mills discusses, a mentality that plays on racial binaries. And in spite of the lower social status conferred upon African-Americans throughout United States history, Ally's black-identifying family members embrace their heritage proudly even though they cannot necessarily pass as black.
Constructivism accounts… Continue Reading...
Periechontology
In order to understand the underlying concepts of faith with respect to philosophy, first it is important to understand 'philosophy' adequately. Jaspers was concerned about noting the originality and singularity of philosophy and he frames it as "to elucidate" (erhellen). As per Jaspers, this clarification or elucidation does not come to philosophers through an external agent but it happens by itself during the philosophical process and this happening is an innermost act. (Wildermuth, 2007). Philosophers understand the meaning and philosophy behind actions and things as they seek to explore… Continue Reading...
to Heidegger’s approach to ontology? In what way does Husserl’s concept of ontology relate to the ideas of Dewey and Heidegger?
According to Neill (2005), the educational philosopher John Dewey attempted to overcome the deficits of both traditional and progressive education by stressing that experience is a product of a dialogue between continuity, defined as the individual’s concept of the past, and interaction, defined as the immediate experience of the individual’s environment. Therefore, two students may be experiencing the same phenomenon but react very differently, based upon their past experiences. Similarly, two individuals with… Continue Reading...
Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research
According to Lopez-Alvarado (2017) and Muijs (n.d.), research design decisions are linked to ontology and epistemology. Ontology refers to the researcher’s beliefs about whether reality is absolute or contextual, universal or relative. Whether the researcher is a realist or a relativist determines research questions and designs, with an increased tendency for relativists to focus on phenomenological and qualitative methods and a realist to use quantitative methods. Muijs (n.d.) describes quantitative research as using numerical data and mathematical methods, showing how a realist will use these types of methods to seek for an objective truth. Likewise, epistemology refers to how the researcher acquires knowledge,… Continue Reading...
of knowledge (epistemology) and being (ontology), these criteria are tied to assumptions with respect to the way that people behave, communicate, and make judgments based on the information presented them. In my discipline, which is Public Policy and Administration, these assumptions are standard in the sense that norms exist with regard to the way individuals are expected to conduct themselves,… Continue Reading...
The term ‘deontology’ has its roots in the Greek language – ‘deon’ being the Greek word for ‘duty’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘study/ science of’. Within the context of modern ethical philosophy, the normative theory of deontology involves prohibited, allowed, or ethically incumbent choices. That is, deontology is categorized under those ethical theories which drive and evaluate one’s choice of what one should do (i.e., deontic theories), as opposed to virtue/aretaic theories which drive and evaluate the type of individual one is or ought to be. In the context of ethical theories involving… Continue Reading...
issues for researchers at this stage in the process is to focus on ontology and epistemology. What kinds of knowledge would be… Continue Reading...
through an evaluation of both individual and collective human psychological experience. Husserl set forth principles for ontology in psychology as well as epistemology, which can be especially useful when studying the divergent experiences of those with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia, whose sense of reality is radically different from their peers and yet theoretically no less “real,” (Wertz, 2005).
Besides Husserl, the primary contributors to the evolution of phenomenological psychology include Amadeo Giorgi, who clearly explicated the contributions of existential philosophy to phenomenological psychology, claiming that, “phenomenological thought is important for all aspects of psychology,” (p. 6). Thus, phenomenological psychology intended to fuse the principles of existential… Continue Reading...
Slaughter, (2011) takes a different approach to understanding the concept constructivism stating that constructivism is not a theory rather it is an ontology showing a set of assumption about the agency, human motivation and the world. The author believes that constructivism is not similar to liberalism, institutionalism, or realism rather the theory is rationalism. According to the constructivist perspectives, military power, international institutions, domestic preferences and trade relations are not important in the international politics since they have social meaning. Constructivists also believe that power relations among states should be a mixture of norms, ideas, and believe to understand the dynamic state behaviors. For example, nuclear arsenal between China and the United… Continue Reading...
and related to Confucian epistemology as well as cosmology and ontology. T'oegye believed that I and ki remained definitively separate, as they were constructed from completely different source energy or source material. Yet T'oegye also showed how both are present or at least influence human nature (Cua 104). The concept of the four beginnings can also be traced to Mencius, and provided Korean philosophers with the ability to assert that… Continue Reading...
