An alternative paradigm dialog

Egon C. Guba (1990). In E.G. Guba (Ed.), The paradigm dialog (pp. 17-30). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

In this chapter, Guba proposed as the generic definition of paradigm "a basic set of belief that guides action" (p. 17), in particular, disciplined inquiry as the action in our concern. Such paradigms respond to three questions: ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions.

1) Ontological: What is the nature of reality?
2) Epistemological: What is the nature of the relationship between the knower (researcher) and the known (researched)?
3) Methodological: what is the process of finding out knowledge or research?

Positivism
The positivist paradigm is rooted in a realist ontology, the belief that "there exists a reality out there driven by immutable natural laws" (p. 19). The purpose of science is to discover the true nature of reality and how it truly works.

From this ground, positivists practice an objectivist epistemology, in which they put questions directly to nature and wait for its answer without altering it. Since the inquirer can be positioned far away from nature, research outcomes are value free. Within this paradigm, experimental/manipulative methodology is the most appropriate in such a way that questions and hypotheses are stated in advance and subjected to empirical tests under carefully controlled conditions.

Postpositivism
It is a modified/less naïve version of positivism. It is based on critical realism: postpositivists believe that reality exists out there, yet because of human sensory/intellectual limitations, it is impossible for humans truly to perceive it. Thus, they emphasize the need for being critical about what researchers find.
Epistemologically, postpositivists recognize the absurdity of the separation of inquirers from the inquired; thus they take on a modified objectivist epistemology in the sense that objectivity is a regulatory ideal to adhere, yet in reality, can be achieved reasonably closely (approximated) only by cleaning up one's preposition, relying on the tradition of the field to report the inquiry, and seeking judgment from peers in the disciplinary community. Guba criticized that the latter two requirements virtually make is impossible for new paradigm to assert themselves.
Methodologically, it put forth critical multiplism (modified experimentalism/manipulatism), which was also articulated as triangulation by Denzin (1978). Because of limited human sensory, it seeks as many sources as possible to draw findings. They often calls for more qualitative methods, depending more on grounded theory, and reintroducing discovery into the inquiry process.

Critical Theory
Guba proposed the label of "ideologically oriented inquiry" instead of critical theory, which encompasses feminism, neo-Marxism, Frerieism, participatory inquiry, and critical theory. The shared quality in this family is rejecting the claim of "value freedom" made by positivism (and postpositivism to an extent). They believe that values do enter into every inquiry; inquiry thereby becomes a political act.

Guba criticizes an ontological juncture that critical theorists (ideologists) adhere to:

But, for whatever reason, critical theorists (ideologists) have elected to believe in an objective reality--as the phrase commonly used by them, "false consciousness," readily demonstrates (because it implies that there is a "true consciousness" somewhere "out there," or, more likely, possessed by the inquirer or some better informed elite). The task of inquiry is, by definition, to raise people (the oppressed) to a level of "true consciousness." Once they appreciate how oppressed they are, they can act to transform the world. The close parallel between transforming the world and predicting and controlling it should not be lost. (p. 24)

Critical theorists undertake subjectivist epistemology, regarding inquiry acts as a process intimately related to the inquirer's values. Yet, Guba points out a logical disjunction a "realist ontology coupled with a subjectivist epistemology" (p. 24).

Guba asserted that critical theorists' methodology is more consistent and framed it as transformative and dialogic one. It seeks to eliminate false consciousness and to facilitate transformation.

Constructivism
Constructivist calls for a completely different paradigm. It acknowledge value-laden facts and furthermore, the interaction of inquirer and inquired into that shapes outcomes of an inquiry. Therefore, constructivists state that:

It [constructivism] renders the distinction between ontology and epistemology obsolete; what can be known and the individual who comes to know it are fused into a coherent whole. Further, it makes the findings of an inquiry not a report of what is "out there" but the residue of a process that literally creates them. Finally, it depicts knowledge as the outcome or consequence of human activity; knowledge is a human construction, never certifiable as ultimately true but problematic and ever changing. (p. 26)

From this perspective, ontologically, it takes a position of relativism in that "realities are multiple, and they exist in people's minds" (p. 26). Guba argued that relativism is "the key to openness and the continuing search for ever more informed and sophisticated constructions" (p. 26).

Epistemologically, the constructivist takes a subjectivist position, not because of the limited human conditions but because of its ontological assumptions: if realities exist only in people's minds, subjectivist interaction is the only way to accessing them.

Methodologically, the constructivist takes hermeneutics and dialectics: it attempts to depict individual constructions as accurately as possible, and simultaneously, contrast and compare dialectically to generate informed constructions on which there is substantial consensus.