I haven't been blogging lately - sorry! The reasons are I have been quite ill and have only just gotten over it; I am overwhelmed at work; and I have been trying to write my PhD thesis. I have neglected the thesis for most of the year, and decided it was getting away from me, so my discipline is to write something every day, which means blogging takes a back seat. Today I thought I would share with you a concept I call the Philosophical Trinity.

Choosing an appropriate research strategy is difficult. It requires a deep and honest reflection of one's own beliefs. It requires commitment to the relationship between the philosophical trinity, the research paradigm, and the research methodology or methodologies. The philosophical trinity answers the questions ‘What exists?', ‘How do I know?', and ‘What is valuable? Each question is a discipline in its own right, respectively known as ontology, epistemology and axiology. The philosophical trinity is depicted below.

Ontology is the philosophy of the world view of reality. Sometimes, and in particular in the systems thinking schools, world view is called ‘weltanschauung'. The seminal ontological question for a researcher is - ‘Is there a "real" world out there that is independent of our knowledge of it?' The answer to this question firmly positions the researcher into one of two schools. The first school is often known as the essentialist or foundationalist school, and the second rather unimaginatively as the anti-foundationalist school.

The essentialist school argues that there are fundamental and enduring differences in social phenomena that exist in all contexts and across time. Such a position means that social phenomena can in essence be decomposed to constituent parts. On the other hand the anti-foundationalist school says that all social phenomena are socially constructed and as such must be positioned in time, space and culture.

Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge and justification. The researcher's epistemological stance is determined in part by their ontological position, even if this is not specified. This is because a theory of the nature of knowledge, or the world, is at the same time a theory about knowledge of the world; hence there are large overlaps between epistemology and ontology. The shaping epistemological question for a researcher is - ‘Can "real" or "objective" relations between social phenomena be identified, and if so how?' The answer to this compound question positions the researcher into one of three schools - idealists, empericists, or realists.

Idealists subscribe to the view that all knowledge refers to a human consciousness rather than an objective reality, and that reality does not exist independently of consciousness. Idealist epistemology takes many forms, the most common being rationalism, which tends to treat knowledge as the construct of the process of actually knowing.

On the other hand empericists suggest knowledge is derived through sensation, and that the process of knowing is largely passive. In this sense knowledge is a photocopy of what exists outside consciousness, albeit an incomplete and somewhat distorted photocopy. For an empericist ontology and epistemology are virtually identical, because what is known is the same as what is.

Realists hold the middle ground. They believe that knowledge is gained from our senses and the use of reason. Reason makes use of principles and categories that do not emanate from the object of knowledge, but rather are derived from experience and reflection. Further they maintain that perception is mediated by social and cultural factors, and therefore is not an independent phenomenon as posited by empericists. In this sense a realist epistemology sees knowledge as both created and constructed, and that the result is more or less an accurate depiction of the object or phenomena as it exists.

Ontology and epistemology deal with truth, however axiology is about values and ethics. Axiology is also called value theory, and includes the disciplines of ethics, pragmatics, and aesthetics. Values provide the standard for the evaluation of epistemological and ontological claims. So the crucial axiological question for a researcher is - ‘What is the ultimate purpose of the inquiry?'

The literature is much less clear about schools of axiological thought, however broadly there are two positions. The first position is valuing knowledge for its own sake and as an end in itself: this is the Aristotelian School. Simple understanding is valued above all else. The second position values knowledge as a means to inform, transform, or enable positive change: this might be called the ‘Applied School'.

The philosophical trinity is the essence that makes the quantitative and qualitative research paradigms quite different. The quantitative research paradigm typically has an essentialist ontology, empericist epistemology, and either an Aristotelian or applied axiology. Often this is called the positivist tradition.

On the other hand the qualitative research paradigm characteristically has an anti-foundationalist ontology, a realist or idealist epistemology, and an applied or Aristotelian axiology. The realist epistemology in this approach gives rise to the constructivist research tradition, and the idealist epistemology results in the subjectivist tradition of inquiry.

Clearly then it is important that the researcher understands their own philosophical posture and enunciates it to their audience. What the researcher is seeking is the ‘sweet spot' where the overlap between ontological, epistemological and axiological positions is maximised - this I call philosophical alignment.

For me the philosophical trinity and philosophical alignment matter. What do you think?

Regards, Graham