Classical epistemological concepts: their application in the construction of theses and dissertations in social and human sciences

Abstract

This article addresses some of the main concepts of the epistemological discussions that occurred during the 20th century. In the Vienna circle, in Popper's falsificationist doctrine, and in the New Philosophy of Science, interesting discussions and controversies develop successively about the nature of scientific knowledge, its method to test hypotheses, the criteria to distinguish scientific knowledge of which it is not, the differences or similarities between natural and social sciences, etc. In these discussions, various perspectives and epistemological concepts are proposed to try to answer the questions asked about scientific knowledge. These controversies have a high theoretical level and are usually addressed in epistemology, methodology or philosophy of science courses. In this work we intend to approach some of these concepts from a novel perspective, attending not only to their theoretical or explanatory value, but especially to their pragmatic usefulness when constructing a master's thesis or a doctoral thesis in the area of social sciences and human. With this aim in mind, the article selects some of the classic concepts used in the indicated discussions and approaches them from the proposed perspective, that is, attending to and pointing out the practical utility of these concepts at the time of the construction of a thesis. Particularly the selected concepts are those of: reasoning, problem, hypothesis, test, and division of schools in the field of human and social sciences.