Avis Mark
Nottingham University, United Kingdom.
Qual Health Res. 2003 Sep;13(7):995-1004. doi: 10.1177/1049732303253298.
Positivism is frequently used to stand for the epistemological assumption that empirical science based on principles of verificationism, objectivity, and reproducibility is the foundation of all genuine knowledge. Qualitative researchers sometimes feel obliged to provide methodological alternatives to positivism that recognize their different ethical, ontological, and epistemological commitments and have provided three theories: phenomenology, grounded theory, and ethnography. The author argues that positivism was a doomed attempt to define empirical foundations for knowledge through a rigorous separation of theory and evidence; offers a pragmatic, coherent view of knowledge; and suggests that rigorous, rational empirical investigation does not need methodological theory. Therefore, qualitative methodological theory is unnecessary and counterproductive because it hinders critical reflection on the relation between methodological theory and empirical evidence.
实证主义常被用来代表一种认识论假设，即基于证实主义、客观性和可重复性原则的经验科学是所有真正知识的基础。定性研究人员有时觉得有必要提供实证主义的方法论替代方案，这些方案要认识到他们不同的伦理、本体论和认识论承诺，并提出了三种理论：现象学、扎根理论和民族志。作者认为，实证主义是一次注定要失败的尝试，试图通过严格区分理论与证据来界定知识的经验基础；提出了一种实用、连贯的知识观；并表明严谨、理性的实证研究不需要方法论理论。因此，定性方法论理论是不必要的，而且会适得其反，因为它阻碍了对方法论理论与经验证据之间关系的批判性反思。
