Arquivo para June 22nd, 2022
Path and method
22
Jun
Every path requires a path, a path traced and directed to a 
scientific object is a method, there are more complex definitions, but in general they are already linked to a methodology.
A widely used definition is “scientific method refers to an agglomeration of ground rules of procedures that produce scientific knowledge, whether new knowledge or a correction or an increase in the given area”.
This type of general rule can fall either into logical positivism, a determinism about the sciences, or into an empiricist reductionism that sees the object under certain parameters.
Both Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn would argue against this view of method, Popper sees it as provisional knowledge, with successive falsifications, whereas Thomas Kuhn elaborated the idea of changing paradigms that he calls scientific revolutions, either by one or the other science must have theories that evolve over time.
Just as the path itself can lead to falsifications or new discoveries, we prefer the term path, but in order not to fall into sophistry (theories that deny an episteme) it is necessary both to focus on the investigated object and to be open to the new, as in philosophy not it must begin with a hypothesis, but with a question that one seeks to resolve.
Looking at an object imagining something similar to the Other helps, but it does not solve the problem, it is necessary to investigate its variants and its pitfalls, in short, always questioning.
Both ontology and phenomenology, both are philosophically interconnected, and both admit metaphysics, have this reference in relation to the method and its object, as well as reject any methodological and theoretical dogmatism about the investigated object.
Also the historical path is not deterministic, in this respect Hans Georg Gadamer wrote questioning Wilhem Dilthey’s romantic historicism and retracing Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle, thus changing Dilthey’s methodological hermeneutics to which hermeneutics leads the interpretation of cultural changes within a historical context,
Both Gadamer, Antony Giddens and Boaventura de Souza Santos are concerned theorists concerned with developing a methodological approach to verify the fundamental conditions under which paradigm shifts occur.
For this, one must observe the “path”, understand the path and be open to a new horizon.
References:
GADAMER, H-G. (1998) Verdade e método: traços fundamentais de uma hermenêutica filosófica. Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes, Brazil.
GIDDENS, Anthony. (1984) Structuration theory, empirical research and social critique. In: _____. The constitution of society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
SANTOS, Boaventura de Souza. (1989) Introdução a uma Ciência Pós-Moderna. Rio de Janeiro: Graal.
