I always love to reflect on my behaviour and character. Understanding your own strength and weaknesses is the hardest thing anyone can do … well to do it honestly at least. So what I am? Am I a positivist or a interpretist. My take on this question follows.
A good definition of positivism is;
“a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and therefore rejecting metaphysics and theism.”
, so how does that apply to me? Do I look at research and try to objectively find the scientific basis for the theories discussed? Do I try and experiment with theories through empirical testing? Probably.
So looking at a definition of intrepretism, someone also known as an interpretivist, involves researchers interpreting elements of the study, thus interpretivism integrates human interest into a study. Is that me? As a hard core programmer that loves binary based acceptance criteria do I fall into this category?
For me the answer is my nature will always lean towards positivism. I need to understand my weaknesses and work harder adopting a interpretivist approach. The challenge of learning both approaches though perhaps is the best journey of all. Learning in any form is only as good as you want to make it.
What approach does your nature lean towards?