ABSTRACT
There are many research methodologies which quite well correspond to the philosophies of knowledge that we have presented before. The Lockean epistemology, for instance, is not only important as a basis for understanding databases but gives a foundation for descriptive empirical research as well. The Leibnizian epistemology is not only a foundation for (decision) support modeling, but it is important for scientists in the positivist and formal logical traditions, which both aim(ed) at finding law-like statements about the world. The Kantian epistemology tried to integrate the Lockean and Leibnizian ideas and aimed at a multi-view integration. This is also consistent with the use of multiple research methodologies in one study (Mingers, 2001). Hegel’s work on understanding the motives behind informative expressions and dialectic logic is consistent with so-called interpretive and critical approaches in the social sciences and management information systems (MIS) field (e.g. Klein and Myers, 1999; Walsham, 2005). For information systems research, interpretive and critical research has an important place in its ambitions of realizing solutions which can be well understood and accepted by its user organization.
