Empiricism, realism and rationalism: A summary of the philosophy

Using the notion of equivalence from the first session, we now have, potentially, four ways to think about how software might be developed. The session will address the questions categories actually exist in practice, and if so, are there any theoretical explanations for these categories?

Empiricism, realism and rationalism - a summary

We begin by revisiting the terms Reality, Representations and Descriptions introduced in the previous session and identifying some candidate methodologies for each of them. Having done so we move on to look at the theoretical underpinning of these categories. We do this by considering and epistemological dimension (Rationalism vs Empiricism) and an ontological dimension (Realism vs Anti Realism) which we link to the four categories identified earlier.

Following this we examine the practical implications of our theoretical and conclude with a brief consideration of how well the examples we have looked at match the theory.

Reading

Books

• See any of the books from the SDM books section

Articles

• Chapter 26 in D . Avison and G Fitzgerald, Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools (3rd Edition), McGraw-Hill Publishing, 2002
• Galliers, R. D. (1985) In search of a paradigm for information systems research, in Research methods in information systems, E. Mumford et al (eds.) Elsevier Science Publications, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp 291- 295.
• Agresti, W. (1986). The Conventional Software Life-cycle Model: Its Evolution and Assumptions. In Agresti, W. (Ed.). New Paradigms for Software Development, Tutorial, IEEE Computer Society Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 2-5.
• Avgerou, C. and Cornford, T. (1993). A Review of the Methodologies Movement. Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 277-286.

On-line Articles

• A taxonomy of software development methods Blum, B. I. (1994). Commun. ACM, 37(11), pp 82-94.
  This paper develops a four way classification of software design methods based on whether the design is product or process oriented and whether the method is conceptual or formal.

• Exploring the assumptions underlying information systems methodologies: Their impact on past, present and future. Russo, N. L. and Stolterman, E. (2000). Information Technology and People, 13(4), pp 313 - 327.
  This paper identifies and analyzes a number of assumptions regarding information systems methodology (ISM) research. The impact of these assumptions on ISM research is examined for the purpose of highlighting limitations of past research and identifying more promising directions for the future.

• Information systems development methodologies: a classification according to problem situation Avison, D. E. and Taylor, V (1997). Journal of Information Technology, 12, pp 73 - 81.
  This paper classifies Information Systems Development Methodologies according to five types of "problem situation": (1) well-structured problem situations with a well defined problem and clear requirements, (2) well-structured problem situations with clear objectives but uncertain user requirements, (3) unstructured problem situations with unclear objectives, (4) situations where there is a high user interaction with the system and (5) complex problem situations.

• A framework for understanding the integration of design methodologies. Song, X. (1995). SIGSOFT Softw. Eng. Notes, 20(1), pp 46-54.
  A short article which outlines a framework which the author argues could be used to aid the integration and customization of existing SDM support tools.

Web pages

Systems

• Systems Development Methodologies from Wikipedia.
• Programming paradigms from Wikipedia.

Philosophy

• Realism, Rationalism and Empiricism From Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (See also Semantic Challenges to Realism from the same source.)
• Realism, Anti-Realism, Rationalism and Empiricism from Wikipedia.

Lecture notes

The notes for this session are available as a presentation (in pdf format) - lecture notes for session 3