What is Ontology, Phenomenology and other concepts are understood in the context of economics.

1. Research
Presentation by
Dr.K.Prabhakar,
CSIM

2. Objectives of
presentation
• Understand what is expected to be
done before starting research
• You will understand definition of
ontology, epistemology and
methodology.
• Economics is considered as an
example. However the analysis may be
applied for other branches of social
science.
Outcome expected:
You will have a basic understanding of
research process.
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3. I-Me-Myself
profkprabhakar@outlook.com
@profkprabhakar
• I am Dr.K.Prabhakar
• Scholar from Oxford University (HDCA)
• Student of three Nobel Prize laureates in Economics
• Always consider myself to be zero everyday and learn
from everyone every day.
• Purpose of Life: To influence as many learners as
possible and either learn or co-learn.
• To be recognized as a researcher in mixed methods.
• Qualifications
• Doctorate in Social Forecasting and interdisciplinary study
of economics, sociology, Management. (Aligarh Muslim
University)
• MBA ( Indira Gandhi National Open University)
• Teacher Training at IIM ( Calcutta)
• What I am is due to my teachers, however knowledge
nomad and autodidact.
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4. ONTOLOGY
• As a first approximation, ontology is the
study of "what is”. Ontological statements
are answers to questions of whether
something fundamentally exists or not
(e.g. numbers, institutions, or causal
relations).
• the most classical ontological question is
the following: "Is there a God?"
• Ontological questions and assumptions are
often determined prior to empirical
research.
• They represent a set of beliefs about the
nature of the world and to a certain extent
influence the questions researchers ask, as
well as the ways in which they do science.
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5. Conceptual
Clarity
• Numbers ( We will discuss in the
next class)
• Institutions or organizations
• Causal relationships.
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6. How we study
Economics?
Take the test.
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7. Which problems are
central to Economy?
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8. Central Problem
or Problems
addressed by
economy – SCDU
• Scarcity: Natural resources like land, capital, labour, and
energy are scarce and therefore the economic problem
lies in the processes of their distribution.
• Change: Economic organizations are constantly evolving,
the dynamics of this process are the distinctive
aspect of economics.
• Dominance: Power and domination of one group over
another in material as well as social terms is the driving
force of economic phenomena.
• Uncertainty: The future is uncertain and our knowledge
about it is fallible. Therefore, the beliefs we hold about
the future in order to deal with uncertainty, and changes
in these beliefs, are the central determinant of the
economy.
• These problems give rise to Volatility, Uncertainty,
Complexity and Ambiguity.
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9. Knowing this
what kind of
economics you
will generate?
• Please write in a paper and submit to
the coordinator.
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10. Research Methods 10

11. Where do we
start? The Map
of Things
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12. Things
• The "things" analysed range from the
small (individuals) to the very large
(systems). That does not mean that a
systemic perspective denies the existence
of individuals, but that according to such a
perspective systems are more important
when it comes to the economy.
• Micro: Individuals and their motivations,
relations, and actions.
• Meso: Groups and organisations (or
institutions such as embedded social
norms) like firms, sectors, specific markets,
as well as subsystems like the financial
system.
• Macro: Systems and structures like the
environment or capitalism.
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13. Individual and
Economy
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14. Do things have
independence
from the
surrounding?
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15. Atomist-
Middle-
Contexual
• Atomist: Things like individuals, groups or
institutions have an independent
existence. Their motivations and beliefs
come from within themselves and their
identity and essence does not change due
to environmental alterations.
• Middle: Actors exist as independent
entities. Yet there are mechanisms at
higher levels, like context, which influence
these actors. An abstract analysis
therefore has to respect both individual
essences and those contextual elements,
which can be identified as crucial.
• Contextual: Things are always relational
and interdependent, therefore there is no
way to conceive of them as independent of
their context, since without the
interactions with the structure and other
actors in which they exist they would be
fundamentally different
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16. How do we
consider time?
• This question asks whether it is more
appropriate to conceive time in terms
of states (e.g. time 1, time 2, …) and
then compare and relate them or
whether time is a continuous process,
which is not reversible and where there
is constant change and no convergence
to a fixed point.
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17. Static-Middle-Dynamic
Static-Middle-Dynamic
• Static: Time is a succession of
states, which can be identified.
• Middle: Both static and procedural
elements are present in time.
• Dynamic: It is of primary
importance to think in a procedural
way, things are constantly changing
and evolving in time.
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18. Epistemology
• Epistemology is the study of knowledge
and justified belief.
• It is concerned with questions like:
• What are the necessary and sufficient
conditions of knowledge?
• What are its sources?
• What is its structure, and what are its
limits?
• It addresses what we can know and how
we can arrive at knowledge.
• The way in which researchers answer
these and other epistemological questions
determines which assumptions they make
regarding the nature of their knowledge
claims about the world and the confidence
they assign to these statements.
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19. Realism -
Constructivist
• Realism: there is a real world independent
of human conceptions and we can observe
it. This definition of realism differs from
the realism-instrumentalism dichotomy
regarding assumptions that have been
debated in economics following Milton
Friedman's 1953 Essays in Positive
Economics.
• Middle: There is a real world, but also a
discursive world. It is the latter in
which scientific access to the real world
takes place. The relationship between the
two is interdependent and complex.
• Constructivist: What we can observe and
talk about in the (social) sciences are only
interpretations produced by ourselves.
These interpretations give meaning and
thereby create the world. Hence, the task
of science is to understand those realms
of meaning.
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20. How you are
going to drive
your
research?
• This question is concerned with whether a perspective
wants to apply a generalized theoretical framework on many
or all aspects of the economy or whether a specific issue or
phenomena is considered to be very important and thus has
to be analysed in depth while using different frameworks
and theories.
• Perspective Driven: a way of thinking about economic
interactions (e.g. in terms of incentives, equilibria or
relations of production) is deemed to be a good way of
getting insights about different objects. It is assumed that
this particular way of thinking is capable of yielding valuable
insights about all kinds of economic and social phenomena.
• Contested: Both tendencies are present. A particular object
is of interest but a certain way of thinking is thought to be
useful as well. There is a degree of conflict between those
who try to move the perspective (or the discipline as a
whole) to one of the two categories.
• Object Driven: A particular object is deemed to be very
interesting and decisive for economic understanding. Hence,
the object is analysed from a wide array of different ways of
thinking.
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21. Methodology
• Methodology refers to the question of
how to determine what counts as
justified knowledge.
• Often, methodological discussions
establish a set of rules or conditions
that have to be met in order for
something to be scientific.
• A certain methodological standpoint
often advocates specific research
methods over others, since they are
perceived to meet the requirements
for knowledge in a more satisfactory
and appropriate way than alternative
forms of inquiry.
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22. Research Methods 22

23. Which
Methodology to
use or what is
your research
design?
• Qualitative
• Quantitative
• Mixed methods
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24. Hypotheses
• Hypotheses are proposals for explaining or
understanding a certain phenomenon.
They can be derived from already existing
theory (logic, for example), from empirical
observations or from a combination of the
two.
• Deductive: New hypotheses are logically
derived from a set of axioms and
established laws.
• Middle: Axioms, empirical observations
and conceptualizations are intertwined
and the researcher goes back and forth
whilst developing the hypothesis
(associated concepts are abduction,
retroduction, dialectics).
• Inductive: Empirical observations and
generalizations based on observations lead
to new hypotheses.
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25. Abductive
reasoning and
Retroduction
• Abductive reasoning is to abduce (or
take away) a logical assumption,
explanation, inference, conclusion,
hypothesis, or best guess from an
observation or set of observations.
Because the conclusion is merely a best
guess, the conclusion that is drawn
may or may not be true.
• Retroduction is the provisional
adoption of a hypothesis, because
every possible consequence of it is
capable of experimental verification, so
that the persevering application of the
same method may be expected to
reveal its disagreement with facts, if it
does so disagree.
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26. How can we
generate and
evaluate a theory
or a hypothesis at
the abstract level
• Answers to this question illustrate the
importance different perspectives attach to
logical coherence, formalism and long chains of
reasoning when judging whether a hypothesis
is scientific or not. Perspectives that reject
these standards as criteria for science choose
to engage in a broad variety of practices and
reasoning, even though these might appear to
be contradictory in the light of classical logic.
• Formalistic: The hypothesis can be derived
from axioms in a logical way. There were no
logical mistakes made.
• Middle: Formalistic logic as well as other forms
of reasoning are applied.
• Broad reasoning: Non-formalistic techniques
such as counterfactuals, thought experiments,
deconstruction, (changing) conceptualizations
and fuzzy sets, heuristics, storytelling, etc. are
applied in order to assess the validity of a
hypothesis in a more crude and less exact
manner.
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27. How can we relate a theory or a hypothesis to
reality?
• This question assesses how empirical observation is conceptualized by different
perspectives. Some perspectives have very clear cut rules on how to collect and
make sense of empirical observations and data. Others use ways that are less
specified and may vary depending on the nature of the research.
• Standardised and prescriptive methodology: Empirical testing is carried out in a
standard and prescribed way, which can be justified by reference to both the
philosophy of science and scientific practice. A prominent example
is the scientific method.
• Middle: A combination of standardized ways of relating theory to the world and
non-standard instruments.
• Idiosyncratic: An adequate way of referring to reality depends on more research
and is always context dependent. This category refers to methods which are only
defined in very broad terms such as process tracing.
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28. Post Keynesian
Economics
• Effective demand
• Tendency to instability (e.g by animal
spirits)
• Capitalist monetary production
economy
• Macro economic paradoxes
• Fundamental uncertainty
• Hierarchy of markets
• Endogenous money creation
• Path dependency and historical time
• Non-neutrality of money
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