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What is
epistemology?
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Epistemology

 Epistemology attempts to determine the nature of human

knowledge, its types, and claims to know the appropriate
methods to route man into that knowledge.

 Today, it is difficult to distinguish epistemology from other

methods of each science. Many of the decisions made by
professionals from different areas are related to research
processes.

 KNOWLEDGE – JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF

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JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF

 This means:

 1 - The person should be able to justify the claim.

 2 – The claim must be true.

 3 – A person must believe in it.

 What is truth in science and philosophy?
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 One thing is the linguistic truth, and other is the concept of truth in which we base
our ideas to talk and to understand the world.

 The truth in linguistics is correlated to power, to interpretation, to the opinion of

people.

 The concept of truth is not guided by opinion or an interpretation, and is not

correlated with power because to say anything, we always are in truth, we always
act, lie, think within truth, to guide some one or our selfes to act, think or believe in
something especific, that "really is", that is what truth is all about.

Truth it’s frame of possibility of saying anything that could be

true or false.
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What is truth?
 Problematic statement no. 1: RELATIVISM VERSION

Is a construction of our opinions. It depends on every person, is subjective.

 Prolematic statement no. 2: NIHILISTIC VERSION

Truth doesn't exist. There are just possible and different ways to interpret the
world, but truth will always change depending on who is defining it.

 Problematic statement no. 3: SKEPTICAL VERSION

Truth is imposible because knowledge is imposible too, we can´t have certanty of

our opinions, so truth and knowledge are just different ways that we create control
of the interpretations of reality. It depends on power.
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So… on what depends our thoughts?

Social values. Context.

 Includes our own  Includes temporal relationships.

experiences.
 Includes the way we interpret
them on the moment we
understand them.
 Includes the influences we
have on our social lives.
 Includes situational events.
 Includes what we know at that
time.
 Includes the social values in the
moment we confront the
situtation.
 Reading test 1
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Read your topic 6 of the module 2 on your Canvas and use the video put below this instruction to
resolve the next exercises.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqk3TKuGNBA

 According to the author Briones there are five main problems that emerge in the construction of the
social sciences. Describe the general complications that Briones found in this subject.

 What is a theory?

 What is the purpose of a theory?

 What is the difference between a theory and a scientific law?

 Prepare a table in which the different theories used in the social sciences as a direct influence of
philosophy are explained in general terms.
 Answers:
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General complications:

- The ontological assumtion: Trying to know the nature of things and constructing
knowledge with a prejudice of this phenomena.

- The object of study of the social sciences: it’s the individual or the colective group?

- The nature of the knowledge bring to us by science: it’s quantitative or it’s

qualitative?

- Does the investigator really is objective in his investigation? Does his personal
emotions, feelings or background affect the results of the investigation?

- Does the knowledge bring to us by the social sciences it is a matter of

interpretation, or is a fact that is comprensible by watching it and understanding it?
 Answers
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 Materialism: Everything comes for material stuff, so everything is understandable or could be understand
because of it’s material components.

 Rationalism: Everything that man can knowledge comes from our rational capability of understanding it with
concepts that are abstractions of reality as in mathematics.

 Empiricism: We can't know anything without the experience that provide us clarity of the topic.

 Realism: Ideas could came not by thoughts but by material things that influenciate us.

 Idealism: Ideas construct reality, without the mind, the things would never became relevant to an observant, so
how can we be so sure that would exist at all?

 Positivism: Ideas and knowledge came from direct sensory experience (science).

 Analytic Philosophy: everything has to be only logical assertions. Knowledge is constructed by our language,
so the only way of comprobation of our thoughts it’s logical thinking.

 Logical positivism: it’s a relation of experience and logical thinking whom approaches us to reality.

 Phenomenology: Our thoughts are influenced by our experience and how we construct our relationship with
things, so the importance of thoughts are the meanings.

 Hermeneutics: The interpretation is the key to constructing knowledge and understanding reality, and it’s
always historical.
 Ifz I see a man with a black mask on his head walking
down the street, my first thought it’s that this person is
going to do something bad or wrong?

 The most important topic of epistemology is that human beings have the
capability of think and reason the things they experience beyond of descrive
what they see, they can explain and understand the elements of that
experience, this brings us the capability of abstract the phenomena and
anticipate to the new experiences we may see.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cekWa_YdauA

The idea/concept of an apple:

APPLE
 z So our opinons are bad or useless?

 Let’s go farther than the duality. A Better model:

 A) Clarification of the meaning.

 B) True vs False.

 C) Justification of the statement or non related justification.

 D) Suspend your belief until you find out reasons and clear justifications of
your belief.
 Social Research
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methodology.
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What is research?

 It could be very obvious but “research is defined as a set of

systematic, empirical processes that apply to study of a
phenomenon.”

 So thinking you may know something, eventhough you may be

have a very goood intuition still lacks of confirmation; so
researching it’s the process of finding the best way of collecting
data that confirm us information.

 Research it’s not about confidence but constructing the best way
possible proof that guide us into understanding better the World.
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Problem of knowledge and problem of
reality.

 Remember; it’s different trying to solve a problem in an

enterprise or in the government, than a scientific knowledge.

 Why?

 Resolving a problem is useful but it's motivation is helping the

society you're working with, in the other hand, science doesn't
have the urgency to solve the problem, but to understand it.

 Sometimes, the worst decitions where taken when we decide

something without having the understanding of a phenomena.
 Social research.
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 The research is to be conducted in social fields closely related to

theoretical approach chosen for developing the same and for
interpretation of results. The approach will determine the kind of
questions allowed as well as the variables to be tested.

 It is important to consider that the studies focus on individuals or

social groups, whose behavior may be affected by multiple
factors; the investigator’s subjectivity is also considered a
determining element that affects the results. 
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 Activity 6
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 1. Individual task:

 Ask your self about a social phenomenon that you don’t understand and/or that you
feel that is interesting and you want to know more about it.

 2. In teams:

 In teams of 3 people, make 3 questions about the topic that you choose (each
person will make 3 questions, 1 for each member of the team) and try to identify,

what do you need to search to solve the questions that you

have?
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DESIGNING METHODS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES:

 An exploratory design seeks to examine an issue or a problem that has not

been studied profoundly. The researcher tries to find indicators that may serve
to define the studied phenomenon. Out of this type of investigation, you cannot
obtain definitive conclusions or generalizations.

 Correlational designs seek the relationship or degree of association between

two or more variables or concepts.

 Narrative design (Descriptive), the researchers collect information about

people’s lives and then describe and analyze it. The sources of data can be
biographies, interviews, documents, etc.

 Explanatory designs respond to the causes of phenomena or events and

focuses on demonstrating why an event occurs and the conditions under which
it shows.
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 The action research designs seek to solve everyday problems immediately and
improve the action. 

 The participative research it´s based on the investigation in which the

researcher it’s involved in the phenomena he is trying to study, but with the
characteristic that the investigation is more concrete (with a small group of
people, or an especific enterprise or gubernamental dependence) and not a
general investigation.

 Grounded designs (ethnography) seek to generate a theorem that explains, at

a conceptual level, an action in a specific area. This kind of research involves
description and interpretation, and it is carried out in a given context, it’s an
especific investigation of observation and description.