Samenvatting van alle hoorcolleges Designing Social Research uitgewerkt

Hoorcollege 1: What is sience?


1A
What is real?
 Premodern: Things are as they seem to be

 Modern: Acknowledgement of human subjectivity (I think, therefore I am), we
have subjective feelings, we see that there is subjectivity. There is a subjective
world and a objective world, they are connected to each other.

 Postmodern: There is no objective reality to be observed, the idea that there
is no reality. Anything can be true. Alternative facts. People don’t believe in
facts. This is a methodological answer. What is truth? No that is not my fact ->
so what is real? Nothing is real.


How do we do research?


Ordinary human inquiry -> the way humans do research.
 Humans recognize that future circumstances are caused by present ones.

 Humans learn that patterns of cause and effect are probabilistic
(waarschijnlijk) in nature. (we are always observing)

 Humans aim to answer ‘’what’’ and ‘’why’’ questions, and pursue these goals
by observing and figuring out.



How do we know what we know?
 Direct Experience and observation -> sun going up and down, observe the sun
(The sun is moving, instead of the earth)
 Personal inquiry
 Tradition: accepting what everybody knows
 Authority: judgement of an expert

 This kind of information is inaccurate, it is not quite precise