POLS1009 Chap.2 Ontology, Epistemology and Critical Reading
Ontology, Epistemology and Critical Reading
Before choosing a method, a political researcher holds views about what the social world is and how anyone can know it, often without saying so. This chapter makes those views explicit. Ontology concerns what exists, and the course reduces it to two streams: an objectivist view in which social phenomena stand apart from the people involved, and a constructivist view in which people keep making and remaking them.
Epistemology concerns how knowledge is justified, and five simplified standpoints run from confidence that truth can be measured to doubt that any single truth exists. These positions sit beneath the three main approaches to the discipline, of which the empirical-analytical approach is the course focus. The chapter then turns to reading.
You will learn to treat methods as tools for collecting and analysing any kind of information, to choose which sections of an article serve your purpose, and to read critically by questioning content, structure and style without reducing critique to a hunt for faults, so that every reading leaves you with notes you can use in your own writing.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Ontology and the objectivist and constructivist streams
- 02
Epistemology and the questions it asks about knowledge
- 03
Five standpoints from positivism to interpretivism
- 04
Three main approaches and the empirical-analytical focus
- 05
Methods as tools, data as any information, qualitative and quantitative work
- 06
Reading an article section by section for a stated purpose
- 07
Critical reading through content, structure and style questions
Worked example · free
Placing three research plans on the spectrum of epistemological standpoints
- 1Researcher A. Positivism: truth exists and can be measured directly, which is why A expects any careful observer to record the same amendment rates.
- 1Researcher B. Post-positivism: real attitudes are assumed to exist, but observing them is error-prone, so confidence comes from repeated studies that reduce the error.
- 1Researcher C. Interpretivism: no correct meaning is expected to be found, only the activists' own perspectives, read by a researcher with a perspective of their own.
- 1Link to approach. A and B fit the empirical-analytical approach, which rests on positivist, realist or post-positivist epistemology; C belongs to the interpretivist approach.
Key terms
- Objectivism
- An ontological position holding that social phenomena and their meanings exist independently of the people involved in them, so a researcher can treat them as things to be observed. The course pairs it with the label realism.
- Constructivism
- A view of social reality in which social actors continually produce social phenomena and categories through interaction, which means those categories are always open to revision. The course also calls it anti-realism.
- Positivism
- An epistemological standpoint that treats truth as real and directly observable and measurable, making it the most confident end of the spectrum of standpoints.
- Interpretivism
- An epistemological standpoint that denies a single discoverable truth and treats observations as individual perspectives interpreted by an analyst who brings a world view of their own.
- Critical reading
- A reading practice of engaging with a text that tests whether its argument makes sense and its logic holds, recording strengths as well as weaknesses rather than simply searching for faults.
Ontology, Epistemology and Critical Reading FAQ
What is the difference between ontology and epistemology?
Ontology asks what exists in the social and political world, for instance whether a category such as social class is out there or made through interaction. Epistemology asks how claims about whatever exists can be known and justified, for instance whether measurement can reveal it. Your answer to the first usually shapes your answer to the second.
Is interpretivist research less scientific than positivist research?
The course does not rank them that way. It presents empirical-analytical, interpretivist and political theory work as the three main approaches to the discipline, which rest on different views of truth, and concentrates its main lectures on the empirical-analytical approach, while interpretivist methods and political theory were introduced in separate recorded talks during Week 2.
Do I have to read every section of a journal article?
Rarely. Read the abstract every time, then follow your purpose: findings sit in the research design, the later analysis and the conclusion, while definitions usually appear early in the literature or theory section. For books, the introduction and conclusion plus the chapters you need will normally do, and published reviews offer critical summaries.
What does critical reading mean in political science?
It means engaging actively with a text and asking whether its argument holds together, not hunting for mistakes. Practical habits include clarifying what you want from the reading, summarising each section in your own words, keeping quotations with page references, and writing a short note on whether you found each part convincing and why.
Are qualitative methods just quantitative methods without numbers?
No. Qualitative research collects and analyses written, spoken and visual material and works by summarising and interpreting it, with no reliance on statistics. Quantitative research analyses numerical data, and some of those numbers can be produced by assigning values to qualitative material, so a single project can move between the two.
Exam move
Treat this chapter as two toolkits. For the philosophy, write each of the five standpoints on a card with its view of truth on one side and an invented research plan that fits it on the other, then shuffle and sort them along the spectrum until the order feels automatic. Add the Week 6 review's pairing of objectivism with positivist claims and constructivism with interpretivist ones.
For reading, pick any article from your course readings and decide in advance one purpose, such as finding a definition. Read only the sections that purpose calls for, then write three notes: one on content, one on structure, one on style, each naming something the text does well and something you doubt, with a reason for both.
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