Social science perspectives on climate change and development

University of Copenhagen

Xaquín S. Pérez-Sindín López

Tag: research philosophy

  • Why philosophy matters to your research project

    This Slavoj Zizek video illustrates very well why and for what we need philosophy in our research design. Simply because philosophy helps us to formulate the right research question. Because there are not only wrong answers but also wrong questions.

  • How to use theory in research

    You should have clear whether your research will adopt a deductive or inductive approach. The basic difference between both is regarding its relation to theory. Deductive approach aims to take a theory on your topic as a reference, develop an hypothesis based on such theory and then, after the collection on data, this hypothesis is…

  • Ontology in research

    Imagine all managers in a given organization leave and are replaced by new ones. Would such alteration have an important impact on the organization itself? Would the organization keep being the same? If you as researcher consider that such change is irrelevant to understand the organization itself, it means that your ontological position is rather…

  • Are you forced to assume a philosophy for your research?

    If after reading the previous post on positivism and interpretativism philosophy you think that choicing one or another is still unrealistic in practice you might be interesting on adopting the view of pragmatism. This view argues that more important than the research philosophy is the research question. The pragmatism view also argues that is perfectly…

  • Understanding research philosophies

    The point of this post is not about choosing one or another philosophy for your research. Actually, you could skip this topic and begin thinking about whether you will use questionnaire or secondary data method. The point here is enhancing your understanding of the way in which we approach the study of a particular field.…