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EPISTEMOLOGY
The study of knowledge and of how we know. All science, since it is concerned with verification and proving or disproving, must make assumptions about how we know. All science then adopts an epistemology. In sociology there has been a long debate about the sources of knowledge and this can be seen in the differences between positivism and postmodernism, or between positivism and phenomenology. For sociologists this debate is most frequently engaged over the methods to be used for learning about the world: the survey or experimental method on one side, and participant observation or using one's own ‘member's’ understanding to analyze conversations. See: EMPIRICISM / ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH / MEMBER / POSITIVISM / VERSTEHEN / .

Last updated 2002--0-9-

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Athabaca University ICAAP

© Robert Drislane, Ph.D. and Gary Parkinson, Ph.D.
The online version of this dictionary is a product of
Athabasca University and
ICAAP

*This social science dictionary has 1000
entries covering the disciplines of sociology, criminology, political
science and women's study with a commitment to Canadian examples and
events and names