When I first started working with doctoral candidates, I thought they were actually curious about Epistemology, Ontology and Axiology, and wanted to have deep, thoughtful conversations about those ancient philosophies. I was wrong.
So, every time I host a session like last week’s free webinar on Epistemology, Ontology and Axiology for the Desperate, I’m quite relieved to find out that the participants—from every discipline except Philosophy—are not interested in gaining mastery of those philosophies. PhD candidates just want to find out how to employ those philosophies to inform their research.
And that’s exactly what I like to discuss. I don’t, myself, hold a major in Philosophy (with a capital P), and don’t pretend to understand all the deep and complex dimensions over those three “ologies”. But I have very definite views on how to introduce them in a thesis, because they enrich the analysis of the data.
I like to see the growing understanding in the candidates, as we discuss the application of the philosophies. I hope that they appreciate that it's best to use a minimalist approach for this part of the thesis, which is what I encourage in any case. For me, less is always more.