Positivism and Interpretivism
Before we begin the discussion of behaviorist and cognitivist perspectives it is important to provide a brief description of two contrasting philosophical perspectives. We include this information because it helps explain how many people come to understand how people think and learn.
Positivism and interpretivism are often seen as a dichotomy for describing individual approaches to how knowledge is generated and verified. Positivism presumes that there are only two sources of knowledge—logical reasoning and empirical experience. Logical knowledge includes mathematics, which is reducible to formal logic. Empirical knowledge includes such areas as physics, biology, and psychology. Experience is the only judge of scientific theories (and therefore knowledge). Interpretivism is based upon the view that knowledge is a matter of perspective. To understand the world, an individual must interpret it. Schwandt wrote, “what we take to be objective knowledge and the truth is the result of perspective. Knowledge and truth are created, not discovered by the mind”.
