Abstract
One’s views about the nature of reality and knowledge are likely to influence his sense of rationality, his idea of values and ethics, his understanding of institutions and their relation with human behavior, and the methods he thinks appropriate to study social phenomena to explain or predict human activity in social and political spheres. The paper, against this backdrop, aims at explaining how ontology and epistemology are related to methods (in terms of explanation and prediction) using example of how different ontological and epistemological perspectives affect the conception of power and the methods that are followed to study the nature and role of power in a society. Following Colin Hay and Jonathan Grix’s theses of directional relationship among ontology, epistemology, and methods, the paper attempts at demonstrating how this relationship works in practice with an example of different conceptions of ‘power’ – understood differently in different ontological and epistemological traditions resulting in different methods of studying it. A sound comprehension of this relationship would help to be clear about the aims of our research, comprehend and indulge in theoretical debates and different approaches to social phenomena in our writings, and better understand internal inconsistencies in arguments of our own research and that of others.
Keyword(s)
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