This elephant is about the question, what is knowledge and
how do we actually gain knowledge?
So if there's a reality out there,
as we would discuss in ontology, we now pose the second question and
the second question is, how can we understand reality?
Or can we understand reality or do we need to measure reality?
And usually in text books, there's a distinction made between
either a positive view or a more interpretivist view.
And this is one way of putting it.
The core of it at least is that we can apply natural science methods
to social sciences, and it starts with the pretty empiricist point of view.
Which means all the knowledge we gain, we gain it through the senses.
So everything should be observable and measurable.
A second element of positivism is that it's usually deductivist
which means that we are testing theories and I will explain a bit about that later.
But some would say that positivism also means inductivist.
So, its focused on theory building, and
there are different strands of positivism, logical positivism.
One is mainly focusing on theory building, inductively, whereas hypothetical
deductivists, positivists are focusing much more on deductivism.
A fourth element of positivism is the focus on objectivity or
at least value free researcher.
As a researcher you do not try to pose your subjective view of the world,
no, you try to establish an objective view of the world.
And then lastly.
But related is that there is a huge distinction between
scientific and normative statements.
So, as scientists,
we try to do scientific statements rather than normative statements.
Positivism in quality research is quite often used not only
as a label to apply to these elements of positivism.
But it's very often used as a terrible nickname.
Actually, you can curse someone saying oh, that's quite positivist.
And people wouldn't like that.
No one calls him or herself a positivist in qualitative research.