1. Assumptions about the Nature of Social Science
This exerpt focuses more on the basic sociological questions that underlie the various theories of organizations.
The first set of assumptions are ontological -- is reality external from conscious or a product of individual conciousnesses. Is reality given or a product of the mind?
The second set of assumptions is epistemological -- what forms of knowledge can be obtained, how to sort truth from falsehood. Can knowledge be acquired, or must it be experienced?
A third set are assumptions of human nature. Are humans determined by their environment, or do humans create their environment? (Determinism vs voluntarism)
Each of the assumptions have important methodological implications. Two camps are objectivist and subjectivist. Obejectivists examine relationships and regularities between the elements. They search for concepts and universal laws to explain reality. Subjectivists focus on how individuals create, modify, and interpret the world, and see things as more relativistic.
There are four main socio-philisophical debates: