User talk:Shimul Nongura

How epistemological and ontological stance related with development research by Shimul Nongura
Introduction: Ontology and Epistemology are words very commonly used within academia, and although they can seem daunting when first encountered, their meaning for NLP research is simple. Epistemology is concerned with the questions “What do you know?” and “How do you know it?”, whilst ontology is concerned with “What is there?”. Both act as the foundations of our approach to a research question and range from positivist stances to interpretivist stances. The choice of view in the research field is linked with the preferences of the researcher and the varieties and validities of the knowledge currently applied within NLP research. The researcher needs to be aware of his/her own bias and constantly question assumptions and subjectivity throughout the research project. Some initial enquiries to probe, include; •	An understanding of research design •	Personal factors affecting the design •	Considering all possible approaches to the design •	Choosing a design that is appropriate to the research question(s), the content and the working style and objectives of the researcher So, the researcher has a choice about his/her philosophical approach but must be aware that the approach will affect the rest of the methodology and that sometimes the research question itself will suggest a certain approach. NLP is not an exclusive study so it helps to understand the possibilities for further exploration so as to have the best possible background for making decisions about the approach.

Ontological: Our research design starts by considering the Ontological position which deals with the fundamental nature of existence, and for which there is no right or wrong answer as different people view topics differently depending on their role, values set or background – “the map is not the territory”. Each researcher will filter for preferences in his/her world according to his/her meta programmes which are derived from guiding principles and belief systems, motives and constraints, which in turn decide the events to be noticed and the events to be ignored, the evidence to be collected and the evidence to be set aside in building an argument. Something is going on which we refer to as the phenomenal flow and what some of us choose to explore depends on our own ontological position. Others may disagree and choose something else. Alternatively considers Social Constructionism as an alternative ontological position where social phenomena and their meanings are continually being changed and revised through social interaction e.g. the researchers’ own accounts of the social world where nothing is definitive as the versions evolve with experience. He goes on to give the example that human beings construct the organization and the culture instead of the organization and culture being pre-given categories which affect behaviors. This will often happen with start up companies where the culture evolves as the organization grows and the product or service develops. Often this development is aligned to the intellectual and experiential growth of the founding team. e.g. Microsoft and Apple where the leaders have empowered their teams and the organic internal growth evolves the brand and therefore could cause it to be more enduring. Ontological formations The concept of 'ontological formations' refers to formations of social relations understood as dominant ways of living. Temporal, spatial, corporeal, epistemological and per formative relations are taken to be central to understanding a dominant formation. That is, a particular ontological formation is based on how ontological categories of time, space, embodiment, knowing and performing are lived—objectively and subjectively. Different ontological formations include the customary (including the tribal), the traditional, the modern and the postmodern. The concept was first introduced by Paul James' Globalism, Nationalism, Tribalism together with a series of writers including Damian Grenfell and Manfred Steger. In the engaged theory approach, ontological formations are seen as layered and intersecting rather than singular formations. They are 'formations of being'. This approach avoids the usual problems of a Great Divide being posited between the modern and the pre-modern. From a philosophical distinction concerning different formations of being, the concept then provides a way of translating into practical understandings concerning how humans might design cities and communities that live creatively across different ontological formations, for example cities that are not completely dominated by modern valences of spatial configuration. Here the work of Tony Fry is important.

Epistemology: Having thought about the Ontological positions, the researcher must then consider the Epistemology of his/her work. The Epistemology is about the information that counts as acceptable knowledge in NLP and how it should be acquired and interpreted. Once a researcher accepts a particular epistemology, s/he usually adopts methods that are characteristic of that position, again allowing experience to dictate filters and preferences, so a central question to the research is whether the NLP can be studied according to the same principles as the natural sciences or whether there are limitations that push the researcher to a particular research design? Defining knowledge In mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person (e.g., knowing other persons, or knowing oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" (know a concept), "knowing how" (understand an operation), and "acquaintance-knowledge" (know by relation), with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these. In recent times, epistemologists including Sosa, Greco, Kvanvig, Zagzebski and Duncan Pritchard have argued that epistemology should evaluate people's "properties" (i.e., intellectual virtues) and not just the properties of propositions or of propositional mental attitudes. Belief In common speech, a "statement of belief" is typically an expression of faith or trust in a person, power or other entity—while it includes such traditional views, epistemology is also concerned with what we believe. This includes 'the' truth, and everything else we accept as 'true' for ourselves from a cognitive point of view. Truth Whether someone's belief is true is not a prerequisite for (its) belief. On the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. For example, if a person believes that a bridge is safe enough to support her, and attempts to cross it, but the bridge then collapses under her weight, it could be said that she believed that the bridge was safe but that her belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that she knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported her weight, then the person might say that she had believed the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to herself (by crossing it), she knows it was safe. Justification In the Theaetetus, Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being that knowledge is true belief "with an account" (meaning explained or defined in some way). According to the theory that knowledge is justified true belief, to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but with a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that he will recover from his illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have known that he would get well since his belief lacked justification. Plato Plato developed this distinction between true reality and illusion, in arguing that what is real are eternal and unchanging Forms or Ideas (a precursor to universals), of which things experienced in sensation are at best merely copies, and real only in so far as they copy ('partake of') such Forms. In general, Plato presumes that all nouns (e.g., 'Beauty') refer to real entities, whether sensible bodies or insensible Forms. Hence, in The Sophist Plato argues that Being is a Form in which all existent things participate and which they have in common (though it is unclear whether 'Being' is intended in the sense of existence, copula, or identity); and argues, against Parmenides, that Forms must exist not only of Being, but also of Negation and of non-Being (or Difference). In his Categories, Aristotle identifies ten possible kinds of things that may be the subject or the predicate of a proposition. For Aristotle there are four different ontological dimensions: 1.	According to the various categories or ways of addressing a being as such 2.	According to its truth or falsity (e.g. fake gold, counterfeit money) 3.	Whether it exists in and of itself or simply 'comes along' by accident 4.	According to its potency, movement (energy) or finished presence. According to Avicenna, and in an interpretation of Greek Aristotelian and Platonist ontological doctrines in medieval metaphysics, being is either necessary, contingent qua possible, or impossible. Necessary being is that which cannot but be, since its non-being entails a contradiction. Contingent qua possible being is neither necessary nor impossible for it to be or not to be. It is ontologically neutral, and is brought from potential existing into actual existence by way of a cause that is external to its essence. Its being is borrowed unlike the necessary existent, which is self-subsisting and is impossible for it not to be. As for the impossible, it necessarily does not exist, and the affirmation of its being is a contradiction. Ontological and epistemological certainty René Descartes, with je pense donc je suis or cogito ergo sum or "I think, therefore I am", argued that "the self" is something that we can know exists with epistemological certainty. Descartes argued further that this knowledge could lead to a proof of the certainty of the existence of God, using the ontological argument that had been formulated first by Anselm of Canterbury. Certainty about the existence of "the self" and "the other", however, came under increasing criticism in the 20th century. Sociological theorists, most notably George Herbert Mead and Erving Goffman, saw the Cartesian Other as a "Generalized Other", the imaginary audience that individuals use when thinking about the self. According to Mead, "we do not assume there is a self to begin with. Self is not presupposed as a stuff out of which the world arises. Rather, the self arises in the world".The Cartesian Other was also used by Sigmund Freud, who saw the superego as an abstract regulatory force, and Émile Durkheim who viewed this as a psychologically manifested entity which represented God in society at large.

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