1. TOPIC 1: RE-APPROACHING
POLITICS: ONTOLOGY （本體論） &
EPISTEMOLOGY （認識論）
BPAM 311

2. BRAINSTORMING [1]
Consider the following statements:
1. Dictators are the strong leaders (e.g. Adolf Hitler,
Kim Jong-il)
2. Women like fashion; men prefer functions.
3. A “prosperous” city ensures that everyone lives
happily and that there is no poverty.
4. Prosperity ensures stability and social harmony.
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3. BRAINSTORMING [2]
 Two points to be pondered:
1. How to testify the above statements?
2. How to understand
 How are our knowledge and understanding defined
and re-defined?
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4. ONTOLOG
 A theory of “being” (existence): whether there is a ‘real’
world ‘out there’, that is independent of our knowledge
 e.g., essential/fundamental differences between genders,
classes, or religions existing in all contexts and at all times?
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5. EPISTEMOLOGY [1]
 A theory of knowledge
 Address 2 questions:
1. Can an observer identify ‘real’ or ‘objective’ relations between
social phenomena?
2. If so, how?
 Our social world is affected by the social construction of
reality/double hermeneutic:
1. 1st
hermeneutic level: the actors interpret the social world
2. 2nd
hermeneutic level: their interpretation is interpreted by the
observer
 E.g.,
 Mr. Tsang: “Hong Kong is a city with stability and prosperity because of
the full support from the central authorities”
 Mr. Wong: “Mr. Tsang holds pro-establishment stance.”
 Mr. Li: “Mr. Tsang is patriotic.”
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6. EPISTEMOLOGY [2]
 It can be a case that the establishment of real
relationships between phenomena can be known through
direct observation, or cannot be directly observable.
E.g.,
 The relationships between Donald Tsang and the central
authorities (We can directly observe through which the
central authorities support economically Hong Kong like
CEPA, free visit, etc.)
 The relationships between Democratic Alliance for the
Betterment of HK and Virginia Ip (friends?, enemies?, or
both, as shown in Ip contested in the Legislative Council By-
election in December 2007)
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7. SCIENTIFIC (POSITIVE) VS.
HERMENEUTIC (INTERPRETIST)
APPROACHES [1]
 The empiricist tradition played a crucial role in the
development of social science
1. Scientific approach:
 Knowledge starts from our 5 senses  develop
generalizations about the relationships between physical
phenomena  develop a casual statements with a given set of
conditions  regular and predictable outcomes
 Identify the causes of social behavior, focusing on
explanation.
 Use the rigorous ‘scientific’ methods that allow social
scientists to develop laws, which would hold across the time
and space (e.g., surveys).
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9. SCIENTIFIC (POSITIVE) VS.
HERMENEUTIC (INTERPRETIST)
APPROACHES [2]
 Positive position: Establish casual relationships between
social phenomena  develop explanatory and predictive
models (focus on quantitative analysis)
 Realist position: Deep structural relationships between social
phenomena that cannot be directly observed (use both
qualitative and quantitative data)
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10. SCIENTIFIC (POSITIVE) VS.
HERMENEUTIC (INTERPRETIST)
APPROACHES [1]
2. Interpretist approach:
 The world is socially constructed, focusing on the meaning of
behavior
 The emphasis is upon understanding
 Such an understanding tends to use qualitative evidence that
offers their results as one interpretation of the relationship
between social phenomena studied.
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11. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [1]
1. Positivism:
 Assertions:
a) the world exists independently of our knowledge of it
b) natural science and social science are broadly analogous
(similar): can establish the regular relationships, use theory to
generate hypotheses which can be tested by direct
observation. Hence, direct observation can serve as an
independent test of the validity of a theory
c) aim to make causal statement / establish casual relationships
between social phenomena
d) separate empirical questions (question about what is) from
normative questions (question about what should be)
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12. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [2]
e) introduce the scientific method into the study of society:
social ‘science’ can be possible in case of following the
scientific methods; deriving hypotheses from theory and then
testing them in an attempt to falsify them
f) to achieve objective measures, we need ‘hard data’ – from
government statistics, election results
- E.g., in studying political participation: interested in
measuring the level of voting, party or pressure group
membership, direct action or whatever, and relating it to
demographic variables (e.g., class, gender, race, age,
education, religion)
g) aim to establish the precise nature of the relationships
between these variables and participation in order to produce
casual models
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13. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [3]
 Criticisms:
a) Misinterpret how science really proceed
i) pragmatist position
 knowledge is mediated by the concept we use to analyze it, so there
is no way of classifying, or even describing, experience without
interpreting them
 theory affects both facts we focus on and how we interpret them,
thereby affecting the conclusions we draw if the facts appear to
falsify the theory: theory and experiment (e.g., survey, case
studies) are not simply separable
ii) domination of a particular paradigm that is unquestioned and which
affect he questions scientists ask and how they interpret what they
observe
 scientific investigation is ‘not open’, certain conclusions are
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14. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [4]
b) obvious differences between social science and physical
science
 social structures do not exist independently of the activities
they shape (e.g., marriage is a social institution/structure +
lived experience)
 social structures do not exist independently of agents’ views
of what they are doing in the activity: people are reflexive
and changeable (e.g., voting behaviors)
 social structures change as a result of the actions of agents,
social world varies across time and space
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15. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [5]
2. Interpretist position
 Assertions
a) the world is socially or discursively constructed
b) interpretation/understanding of social phenomena affects
outcomes; and that can only be established and
understood within discourses or traditions  focus on
identifying those discourses/traditions + establishing the
attached interpretations and meanings to social
phenomena
c) knowledge is theoretically or discursively laden 
double hermeneutic
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16. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [6]
d) there is no objective truth, the world is socially constructed,
role of social scientists is to study those social constructions
e) use qualitative methods: interviews, focus groups, vignettes,
etc. to help us establish how people understand their world
(e.g., the understanding of ‘the political’ and ‘political’
participation help us study the nature of political participation
in a given setting)
f) use ethnographic techniques (participant observation,
transcribing texts, keeping diaries, etc.) to produce “thick
description” (Geertz, 1973),
 aim to establish ‘our own constructions of other people’s
constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to.
 They generalize and develop a narrative about the past based upon
the meanings which the actions had for social actors.
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17. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [6]
g) Michael Foucault argues that experience is acquired
within a prior discourse  language is crucial because
institutions and actions only acquire a meaning through
language  to understand the object or action, political
scientists have to interpret it in the wider discourse of
which it is part (social discourse) so as to structure
meanings
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18. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [7]
3. Realism
 Assertions
a) the world exists independently of our knowledge of it.
b) social phenomena/structures do have casual powers
(casual statements)
c) not all social phenomena are directly observable, so we
are involved in “inference to the best explanation”
d) a dichotomy between reality and appearance
e) might use both quantitative and qualitative methods to
deal with the issue in different aspects
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19. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO
ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY [8]
 quantitative: use findings through surveys to measure the
level of a certain trend
 qualitative: how the people perceive such a certain trend
 Criticisms
a) positivists: due to the fact that they denied the existence
of unobservable structures, they disagree with the
realists’ assertions
b) interpretists: no structures that are independent of social
action, and no “objective” basis on which to observe the
actions or infer the deep structures
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20. CONCLUSION
 This topic is not aimed to let you decide which approach
is the best, but to let you know the existence of different
approaches to see things, as well as such differences are
based on epistemological and methodological
assumptions.
 There is no perfect and the best method to all of the
questions.
 Based on the nature of question, try and choose an
appropriate and a feasible way/s to conduct your
research and then collect and analyze your data.
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