Information Technology Research Concepts
Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology
This is a summary of my readings from module one in my course. Ontology, epistemology and methodology are three related concepts. Ontology is the building blocks of reality, or the nature of reality. Ontology can be objective, as the speed of light and can be subjective where different perspective are present as when we start our senescence with “it dependence”. Realist treat reality as objective and interpretivits treat reality as subjective. (Tansley 2004) We use epistemolgy to reach new knowledge that is based on our building blocks (ontology). Methodology is more practical; it deals with methods, systems and rules we use to conduct inquiries. This definition makes methodology somewhat similar to epistemology. Epistemology is more of a philosophical construct that would answer questions as “How can we be sure that we know what we know?” (Guba & Lincoln 2006) So, Epistemology is the “how”.
Paradigm
Paradigm is another concept. Paradigm is a collection of related concepts or a philosophical genre. (Weber 1997)
