Methodology of Social Sciences and Humanities
Year:2022 | Volume:28 | Issue:112|Papers Count:6

Various methodologies have been proposed for phenomenology as a qualitative research method. This diversity can be divided into two main approaches: descriptive phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology. In this article, while emphasizing the inseparable link between philosophy and method in phenomenology, an attempt is made to explore the philosophical foundations of hermeneutic phenomenology and to trace this link in the research process. Accordingly, we first refer to the historical contexts of the emergence of phenomenology, and clarify the relationship between hermeneutic phenomenology and descriptive phenomenology, then Through the discussion of the views of Heidegger and Gadamer, it is shown that philosophical foundations in the method of hermeneutic phenomenology play an active role throughout the research process and give structure and direction to how we deal with issues and problems in research. Openness to the phenomenon and being in constant dialogue with it, is the most important feature of this method that as a praxis, from the moment of choosing the subject and encountering the research literature and theories to collecting and analyzing data and writing the research, it is always present and guides in the research

Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that, as an interdisciplinary field, implements the applications of pure mathematics in other sciences. Political science, as a field of humanities and social sciences, has resorted to mathematical tools to achieve goals such as increasing the accuracy of analyses, creating a combined view on issues with diverse branches and effectively displaying data and information as well. This trend has become more intense and rapid in the current era. One of the broad subsystems of applied mathematics is modeling. This interdisciplinary research, in response to the question that how a mathematical model can be designed to calculate and represent the stability or decline of political ideologies, has provided an efficient and suitable mathematical model based on algebraic and geometric components to calculate and display the stability or decline of political ideologies while creating a bridge between the two fields of mathematics and political science. Besides expressing and proving calculations related to this model, it has also shown its advantages over other existing models so as to eliminate part of the existing gap in political researches. As a practical example, the consistency of the ideology of Kemalism in recent decades has been estimated. This research has been done using computational and analytical method and its findings estimate the stability of Kemalism in the political system of Turkey more than a half.

One of the legacies of logical positivists is the value-free ideal of science that implies, inter alia, that facts and values are dichotomous, the fact-value dichotomy thesis. Both of the doctrines have been criticized by philosophers and sociologists of science during the last decades, and many case studies have been carried out to undermine them. There have been serious objections raised against the doctrines in social sciences. Some of the objections have been posed by James Bohman and Charles Taylor. Bohman believes that all theories in social sciences have critical aspects as well as explanatory ones, and so, they are evaluative as well as descriptive. Taylor, too, believes that any theory in political science has two inter-related parts: an explanatory framework and a set of some value positions. In this paper, by criticizing Bohman’s and Taylor’s arguments, I aim to show that criticism may not be a part of science qua science. I also suggest that those values that are considered to be the critical part of a social scientific theory may be regarded as its technological products.

Researchers in the field of organization and management, generally conduct research with the aim of describing or explaining a phenomenon. Clearly, in researches aimed at explanation, it is important to identify the causal chains that create a phenomenon. Since the discovery of correlations between two variables, which is a common method in quantitative research, cannot indicate the existence or absence of causal relationships, taking a qualitative approach and, in particular, the case study method is recommended to researchers. In this research, while introducing the process tracing method, which is one of the most important tools of causal inference in qualitative research and case study, an attempt is made to describe its various techniques and the capacities resulting from the application of this method. Since, the executive mechanism of the process tracing method, unlike statistical models or even other issues related to qualitative methods, has not been studied much, at the end of this study, the method of applying and implementing this method is examined.

One of the most important theories of international relations is constructivism, which pays attention to both intellectual and cultural factors as well as material factors in the analysis of international relations and foreign policy. But is constructivism just a theory, or can a research method be derived from it? Some constructivists believe that this theory also has research method. Causal mechanisms are one of the research methods in constructivism. Some constructivists accept the causality and causal explanation, but do not offer a mechanical or positivist analysis of it. Rather, they combine it with constructivism and pay attention to a concept of causality that also considers the role of imaginary and invisible components. Thus, constructivism believes in causality, but does not consider the cause to be only material issues (such as force, power, war, etc. ), It also considers intellectual, cultural and ideological components (such as tradition, religion, society, etc. ) as the cause and considers them involved in explaining the cause.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate how to combine agency and structure in Archer theory. For this purpose, first the theoretical roots of integration are proposed, then Archer's theory of molding is presented with a comparative look at Giddens' theory. Finally, to the research question "What is the process of combining action and structure in Archer's theory? " Has been answered. She has formed her integrated theory by proposing the theory of morphology versus construction. The combination of agency and structure in morphology is as follows, First: pre-existing conditions (structures) that are the basis for social action. Second: the interaction that takes place in this context to achieve certain goals. Third, the consequences of social interaction that may lead to the structural cultivation of conditions of action, In other words, structures and agents are subject to change. Eventually, these agents and altered structures become the context and conditions for subsequent actions. Keywords: morphology, structuring, combination of agency and structure, critical realism, dialectic.