Epistemology can be described as a branch of philosophy that addresses the question of the sources, nature and limits of knowledge (Klein 2005). Another description of epistemology is offered by Hatch and Cunliffe (2006) whom define epistemology as “knowing how you can know” and develop this by asking the questions, how is knowledge generated? And what differentiates good knowledge from bad knowledge? It can be seen from the definitions offered above that epistemology is quite a broad topic within the field of philosophy, however, generally speaking epistemology is about how we know things. According to (Grix 2010) epistemology focuses on knowledge gathering processes and is concerned with developing new models or theories that are better than competing models and theories. Blaikie (1993) states, epistemology is a set of claims or assumptions about the ways in which knowledge of reality can be acquired, what can be known, how it is known and what conditions must be satisfied in order for it to be described as knowledge. Or in other words, epistemology is a theory of knowledge, which represents the criteria that should be met in order for reality to be distinguished from beliefs (Blaikie 2003).
According to (Grix 2010), epistemological positions are often divided between those based on foundationalism and those based on anti-foundationalism. Foundationalist views consist of the belief that reality exists independently of our knowledge of it, and that there are central values that exist that can be rationally and universally grounded. Anti-foundationalists on the other hand do not believe that the world exists independently of our knowledge of it, but rather human actors socially and
discursively construct reality. They also believe that there are no central values that can be rationally and universally grounded.
Sometimes, contrasting epistemological stances can be adopted and depending upon which epistemological stance is actually taken, this will most probably influence the type of methodology the researcher eventually employs. This highlights, firstly, the way in which a researcher’s ontological and epistemological positions can lead to different views of the same social phenomena, and secondly, the inter-dependent relationship between ontology, epistemology and methodology. Once this relationship is understood, it becomes much clearer why a researcher’s philosophical stance is of such importance. A researcher that holds a particular ontological stance may be influenced in their epistemological choices, which will then go onto influence their chosen methodology.
There are a number of specific epistemological positions, which include, empiricism, rationalism, falsificationism, neo-realism, constructionism, and conventionalism (Blaikie 2007) each of which will now be briefly described. Empiricism is described as knowledge that has been gained by sensory experience (Walliman 2006), and revolves around the notion that any idea that is not confirmed through experience is not valid and cannot be considered as scientific. Rationalism in contrast, is described as knowledge gained by reasoning (Walliman 2006), and revolves around the notion that social reality consists of the observed as well as the unobserved structures that are innate to human beings. Falisificationism, otherwise known as the hypothetico- deductive strategy was championed by Karl Popper (1959) and was proposed in order to account for the weaknesses of empiricism. This stance implies that for any theory to be regarded as scientific, it must be possible, at least in principle to falsify it, by using evidence to challenge it (Blaikie 1993).
Keat and Urry, (1975, p5) state that in neo-realism ‘a scientific theory is a description of structures and mechanisms which causally generate the observable phenomena, a description which enables us to explain them’. This view of causation highlights the independence of an event and its associated structures and mechanisms (Blaikie 2007). Although both rationalism and neo-realism entail the idea of an underlying reality and both contribute causal powers to this reality the former is a reality of
are the conceptions of reality different, the influences on the inhabitants of this reality are found to be in different places (Blaikie 2007).
Constructionism consists of the belief that knowledge is the outcome of people having to make sense of their encounters with other people and the physical world. Therefore, contrary to both empiricism and rationalism, constructionism rejects the notion that knowledge is discovered from an external reality or that it is produced by reasons independently of such a reality (Blaikie 2007). Constructionism is regarded to have two different forms, constructivism and social constructionism. Constructivism refers to the ‘meaning-giving activity’ of the individual mind (Blaikie 2007) therefore implying that knowledge is derived from an individual’s meaning giving activity to everyday life. Social constructionism, refers to the collective, inter subjective shared knowledge derived from social (rather than individual) meaning giving activity in explaining social processes.
In conventionalism, similarly to constructionism, reality is regarded to be a human creation. However, whilst in the latter, reality is assumed to be produced by social actors as they conduct their everyday lives, in the former reality is assumed to be an invention of the scientist. In other words a coventionalist is of the belief that scientific theories are created by scientists as a convenient tool to deal with the world (Blaikie 2007), that can be justified by the production of desired results whilst placing very little emphasis on whether they are true representations of the empirical world. According to a conventionalist, scientific theories go beyond the available data in determining what is true and what is not. As a result, whatever is regarded as reality is a consequence of the theory that is used, theories do not therefore describe reality but just determine what the scientist deems to be real.
In this study, the epistemological approach of falsificationism is adopted. Falsificationism implies that theories exist before observations take place. The occurrence of observations therefore can be used to test pre-existing theories, in an attempt to accept true ones or reject false ones and not as a means to develop them. Falsificationism is hence a logical fit as the research question implies a hypothesis, motivated by economic theory, to be examined empirically.
The inter-dependency of ontological and their related epistemological positions can form what Blaikie (2000) refers to as research paradigms. These philosophies are
effectively therefore, different research approaches that incorporate both an ontological and (the aligned) epistemological set of beliefs and assumptions. The next section outlines some of these key paradigms.