Philosophical Foundation of Methodology within Social Sciences and Sociology: Ontological, Epistemological and Concomitant Methodological Inquiry

Abstract

Philosophically speaking, man developed cognitive skill that enables him to master the world surrounding him. To do so different scholars use different approaches. From the very beginning man attempt to construct his mechanism to gain what is perceived in his mind. However, as our mindsets are vary so our approach to look at our environment. From this it is obvious that we can conclude about epistemological positions we developed are also different. There is no single approach to see what mentally constructed total picture of the things around him. Therefore, different scholar develops different approaches and methodologies so as to grasp the realities and issues surrounding him. This leads to conclude that social world has different realities for different people so called multiple realities because of multiple approaches we develop to deal with them or some believes that there are multiple realities so there must be multiple approaches and methods to deal with them. On the otherhand, there are scholars who believe that reality is single so the method that we use to organize knowledge or epistemological position should be also one. In fact, this debate is endless. In philosophical terms, the metaphysics and epistemology as well as the prior and posterior intellectual venture employed in the knowledge world shape the overall truth man holds. The same is true for sociologists who engage in sociological knowledge production. From the very beginning sociologists constructed their own paradigm of the world or Society.