Thinking about what you know and how you know what you know involves questions of ontology and epistemology. Perhaps you’ve heard these terms before in a philosophy class; however, they are relevant to the work of sociologists as well. As we sociologists begin to think about finding something out about our social world, we are probably starting from some understanding of what “is,” what can be known about what is, and what the best mechanism happens to be for learning about what is.
Ontology deals with the first part of these sorts of questions. It refers to one’s analytic philosophy of the nature of reality. In sociology, a researcher’s ontological position might shape the sorts of research questions he or she asks and how those questions are posed. Some sociologists take the position that reality is in the eye of the beholder and that our job is to understand others’ view of reality. Other sociologists feel that, while people may differ in their perception of reality, there is only one true reality. These sociologists are likely to aim to discover that true reality in their research rather than discovering a variety of realities.
Like ontology, epistemology has to do with knowledge. But rather than dealing with questions about what is, epistemology deals with questions of how we know what is. In sociology, there are a number of ways to uncover knowledge. We might interview people to understand public opinion about some topic, or perhaps we’ll observe them in their natural environment. We could avoid face-to-face interaction altogether by mailing people surveys for them to complete on their own or by reading what people have to say about their opinions in newspaper editorials. All these are ways that sociologists gain knowledge. Each method of data collection comes with its own set of epistemological assumptions about how to find things out. We’ll talk in more depth about these ways of knowing in "Survey Research: A Quantitative Technique" through "Other Methods of Data Collection and Analysis", our chapters on data collection.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- There are several different ways that we know what we know, including informal observation, selective observation, overgeneralization, authority, and research methods.
- Research methods are a much more reliable source of knowledge than most of our other ways of knowing.
- A person’s ontological perspective shapes her or his beliefs about the nature of reality, or what “is.”
- A person’s epistemological perspective shapes her or his beliefs about how we know what we know, and the best way(s) to uncover knowledge.
EXERCISES
- Think about a time in the past when you made a bad decision (e.g., wore the wrong shoes for hiking, dated the wrong person, chose not to study for an exam, dyed your hair green). What caused you to make this decision? How did any of the ways of knowing described previously contribute to your error-prone decision-making process? How might sociological research methods help you overcome the possibility of committing such errors in the future?
- Feeling unclear about ontology, epistemology, what is, what we can know, and how we know what we can know? This video may help, or it may not. But it addresses some of these questions, and it’s hilarious. I highly recommend it: http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_jun_04/.
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