Explanatory concepts in psychology

Introduction

Scholars have perceived research from different angles ranging from professional, technical to utilitarian views; some seeing it as a means of gathering information while others seeing it as a process of moving facts from one form to another. However, as per Higgins (2021), research is a combination of both reasoning and experience that must be perceived as the most effective approach to discovering the truth. For students embarking on their academic journey, seeking psychology dissertation help can be crucial in navigating the complexities of research and achieving scholarly success.

However, to successfully conduct research, researchers must develop and implement suitable research design, methodologies and instruments that considers proper approaches, processes, paradigm, values, ontology and epistemology, all which suggest a framework for any social science research. Liu (2020) observed that research philosophy provides a framework for conducting any form of social science research, just as steel provides a structure for a building. Similarly, Glazel (2020) said that the philosophical underpinnings of any social science research help in determining the appropriate methods of data collection and analysis. This essay seeks to explore the philosophical perspectives of ontology and epistemology and their importance to psychology.

Ontology

Guzzini (2020) defined ontology as the study of being, the structure of reality and the nature of existence. A researcher’s position on ontology determines the approach they take in answering the research question regarding the social reality they are trying to solve. This implies that the researcher’s ontological view of the research question significantly influences the focus of their study, the chosen data, how that data is interpreted and analyzed.

Flynn (2020) argued that ontological claims are assumptions that social scientists make about the nature of social reality, what exists, what it looks like, what units combine to form it and how those units interact with one another. As such, Flynn (2020) and Inusah (2020) proposed that ontological stance can be expressed in the form of constructivism, objectivism, all of which are also known as objectivism. Ideally, objectivists believe that any social phenomenon under investigation and its meanings are independent of any social actors. On the other hand, subjectivist ontology argues that social actors largely determine social phenomena and their meanings.

Welch (2020) states that when engaging in any social science research, researchers depend on otology to choose whether they want to be shallow realists, cautious realists, conceptual realists’ idealists or subtle realists, all of which are six categories of ontological assumptions. A social science researcher who is objective with his ontological assumptions believes that events occur based on certain guiding principles, and that these events can only be tested through quantitative approaches namely measurements, statistical data, and calculations to test the theories and governing principles.

Epistemology

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that focuses on nature, origins, limits of human knowledge and methods (VanDijik, 2020). It is the theory of knowledge that is interested in the nature and origins of knowledge, as well as how that knowledge is constructed. As per Al-Ababneh (2020), epistemology is a core branch of philosophy that concerns the theory of knowledge, knowledge validation and the likely ways of gaining knowledge over social realities in the sense of whatever it can be understood to be. Thus, epistemology, put in simple terms, is concerned with how what is assumed to exist is known (Poulis, 2020).

Epistemology exists in two major positions namely: interpretivism and positivism. According to Asokan et al (2020), the researcher’s choice of one of an epistemological position will facilitate a them to use different methodologies depending on which position they take. Furthermore, a researcher’s epistemological and ontological positions can lead to different opinion and views about the same phenomenon.

Importance of ontology and epistemology on psychology

There are many ways in which ontology and epistemology are crucial and shape the discipline of psychology and the following discussions explore some of these ways.

Wundt and Freud’s Ontology

Wundt and Freud had contrasting ontologies of the mind, resulted in contrasting epistemic stances, which in turn led to contrasting methodologies. This contrast explains the role of ontology and epistemology in advancing the study of psychology. Sigmund Freud, a well-known scientist, developed various theories about the mind and its functioning, and used psychoanalytical treatment for various psychological problems based on those theories (Poulis, 2020). Much of his life was devoted to learning, developing theories and helping patients; a process through which he would further understand the human psyche.

Whereas Freud mostly took notes of his sessions with clients, his observations were mostly his interpretations of one patient’s problem at a time. Therefore, as per Asokan et al (2020), Freud’s theories were largely extrapolations from limited data, with most of the theories derived based on the idea of unconscious motivations, stimuli or thoughts outside the patient’s awareness. Therefore, Freud advanced the belief that all people have unconscious thoughts, desires, memories and feelings (Poulis, 2020). It is based on Freud’s beliefs in the unconscious mind that psychoanalysis was developed as a psychological theory. Ideally, in modern-day psychology, psychoanalysis therapy is used as a means of releasing repressed experiences and emotions by making the ‘unconscious’ ‘conscious’ (Albert et al, 2020).

But psychologists who did not believe in Freud’s theoretical perspectives found an alternative theory from William Wundt. Also considered as the father of modern psychology, Wundt’s idea of the mind contrasted with Freud’s ideas – he approached the study of the mind from a scientific point of view (Smith, 2020). Typically, it is Wundt who distinguished psychology as a unique science by melding philosophy and biology to create a distinct type of science that was more complete than the sum of either biology or philosophy.

Wundt’s contribution to psychology was manifested in the ontological approaches that led him to establish the first experimental psychology lab. With this lab, according to Mancilla et al (2020), Wundt developed new research methods and techniques. He needed the techniques that could be useful in finding out things that physical tests could not always reveal. For instance, according to Tamdgidi (2020), Wundt established the distinction between internal perception and introspection, because, in his views, introspection could not be relied on for scientific experiments. Instead, he preferred internal perception for reporting significant response to stimuli.

Logical behaviorism

Scientists have also used ontology and epistemology to achieve various objectives of behavioural and cognitive sciences. One such example is Gilbert Ryle’s logical behaviorism, also termed as the ghost in the machine. According to Lukyanenko et al (2020), Ryle explicitly took at the objectionable view as a purely mentalistic one, ascribing the Ghost in a machine concept to Rene Descartes. According to Rene Descartes’s views, the mind is seen as a ghostly and non-mental entity that is not in space and time, and that lacks causal and material properties. Similarly, Rene’s views, which was rejected by Ryle, holds that the mind somehow resided in the physical body and is therefore subject to the usual physical laws involving time and space (Lukyanenko et al, 2020). But because of the hegemony of the physical-mechanical worldview, this human body was something that worked like a machine on automation. Therefore, as per Ryle, this was the para-mechanical Cartesian picture of the ghost of the machine.

The mentalistic ascriptions we make of others and know largely consist of cognitive verbs as a significant example. To ascribe knowledge to machine, animal or a person, (i.e. S knows φ, S knows that p, S knows-how to φ) is to ascribe a certain form of achievement to S. That said, Ryle’s theory is largely considered to be an example of behaviorism, where mental attributes and displayed in behavior in the form of actions and not movements. However, according to Danayeefard et al (2020), the public realm in which epistemic concepts are purchased include not only episodic behavior but also dispositions to behave in some ways in conditions.

The ontology of non-human minds

Scholars have also used ontology and epistemology to understand non-human minds, with aim of understanding whether this makes them comparatively useful or not. From a traditional ontology point of view, the human body can only be called human when an “I” attaches itself into the body, and as a result, it learns to separate itself into two parts namely: the one who calls itself “I” – Mind, Subject, Soul, Will, Brain and many others that are synonymous of it-and the “animal” part, which is the enslaved body and is ruled by the other one. From an ontological perspective, it is this duality that makes the human being qua human (Poulis, 2020). Furthermore, as per Liu (2020), all the many forms of transcendence and dualism that present themselves in human life emanate from this separation. Therefore, transcendence and dualism firmly originate from the same anthropological dispositive which represents humanity.

Ideally, the ontological concept of human animality was developed to overcome this ‘dualism’ and its consequences (VanDijik, 2020). As per Glazel (2020), human animality is a futuristic philosophical goal. The concept is dealt with by placing it in its context, whereby human animality is the biological face of the concept of immanence. In this sense, ontology is used by psychologists to understand humans as people who live a life free from any form of transcendence. Through ontology, according to Welch (2020), psychologists can understand the concept of human animality and its practical consequences on ecology, economics, politics and ethics.

Epistemology of the Social

Guzzini (2020) defined social epistemology as the approaches that can be taken to construe human knowledge as a collective achievement. It also describes the evolution of various social dimensions of information or knowledge – dealing with knowledge in social contexts whereby knowledge attributions cannot be explained by evaluating isolated individuals (VanDijik, 2020). As per Guzzini (2020), some of the most common ways in which social phenomena are studied include testimony, peer disagreement, and group epistemology.

Testimony is a common epistemic scenario, where an individual seeks to understand the true value of proposition (p) by seeking other people’s opinions. According to Guzzini (2020), an individual might direct a question to one of their confidants or consult what is online. Upon receiving answers to their questions, the individual weighs what has been said to identify the truth of the matter in question.

Peer disagreement explains how an agent can adjust their initial belief about a specific issue about learning that their peer holds with strong opposition (Albert et al, 2020). As per Welch (2020), it questions whether, in this scenario, the individual should modify their belief about a phenomenon to the direction of the peer’s belief. A degree of this belief modification is always required because it needs epistemic agents in the specific type of situation to acknowledge their peer’s belief rather than dismissing them completely (Poulis, 2020).

Also termed as the epistemology of collective agent, group epistemology is used by psychologists to understand what it takes for a group to believe something, whereby, through what is called ‘summative approach’ a group believes something just in case all or almost all of its members hold the same opinion about it. However, Liu (2020) argued that it is common to ascribe a belief to a group without assuming that all, or nearly all members hold the same belief.

Nature of the self

Epistemology and ontology have also been useful in the study of different concepts of self. For instance, self-knowledge as a concept of self refers to the ability to detect that the thoughts, sensations, mental states and attitudes as one’s own (VanDijik, 2020). It is associated with other concepts such as self-conception and self-awareness. The other concept of self that can be understood through ontology and epistemology is the self as an activity. According to Guzzini (2020), the self as an activity was defined by Aristotle, as the main essence of a living being and while it did not exist apart from the living body, it is so-called ‘intellect’ part is perpetual and immortal in contrast to its organism dependent functions.

The ontology of science

The ontology of science is regarded as an important part of scientific practice meant to increase people’s knowledge about the world through the performance of experiments (Albert et al, 2020). as per Guzzini (2020), this knowledge is expressed in logical and formal language. Analytical philosophers of science tend to explicitly base their program on the presumption that any natural science’s intellectual content can be expressed in a formal prepositional system with an essential and definite structure. While it is possible to dispute the notion of propositional systems in the ontology of science, many scholars agree that the use of formal language is an essential ingredient to the philosophy of science (Poulis, 2020). Ideally, according to Inusah (2020), formal language as one of the fundamental characteristics of science facilitate the promotion of semantic clarity, which enables a free exchange of scientific knowledge and makes scientific reasoning simpler. That said, defining an explicit ontology is the first step towards formalizing knowledge, which is basically to describe what exists (Smith, 2020). However, Guzzini (2020) argued that because the most basic feature of science is experimentation, it follows that the development of the ontology of experiments is an important step towards the formalization of science.

Tied to this is the epistemic issue of how it is possible to know things, whereby an individual’s understanding of and interaction with the world occurs through some constructs of the human body such as fingers, ears and eyes, with most people being more intuitive in the understanding of the subjectivity of their perceptions (VanDijik, 2020). As per Guzzini (2020) the question of what objectively ‘is’ has long been a subject of philosophy, with some renowned philosophers like Locke arguing that humans’ understanding of the world comes from their experience of it.

But Cognitive bias, as evidence by the existence of the autism spectrum might contribute to ontologically inappropriate epistemic stances. According to Guzzini (2020), cognitive bias occurs when people adopt a systemic error in thinking when they process and interpret information in the world around them, affecting their judgment and decisions. Ideally, cognitive biases occur when the brain attempts to simplify information processing, working as a rule of thumb that helps people make a sense of the world and make decisions at a relatively faster speed.

Ontology, epistemology and artificial intelligence

Psychologists with a greater interest in technology have attempted to use ontology and epistemology in understanding artificial intelligence. Flynn (2020) argued that when it comes to AI, scientists should get epistemological, to seek to know how the only functioning intelligent system (i.e. the human brain) works to model the world either by learning or innately. However, as per Glazel (2020), this is in contrast with the ontological approach, whereby the focus is on organizing what is known in data ontologies and then trying to incorporate them into computers. But the study of ontologies has been proposed to be useful in the development of technical software that enables computers to talk to each other on the internet (Smith, 2020). This entails the development of internet protocols as well as other modern micro-service frameworks that apply ontology but without considering it from an academic standpoint.

In conclusion, Ontology and epistemology do matter in psychology as, for example, from the perspective of carrying out social research, this usually raises several metatheoretical questions that are related to epistemology and ontology. As ontology alludes to what kind of things exist within the social world and speculate about the form and nature of the social reality. Moreover, epistemology in psychology is a multi-sided perspective in psychology that allows us to reveal basic hidden ideas, feelings, actions and social interactions. On the other hand, epistemology deal with the nature of the information and ways of knowing and learning about social reality.

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