Louis Cohen, Laurence Mannion and Keth Maurrison said quoting Burrel and Morgan that social reality can be viewed depending
on two views. Ontologically speaking, focus is laid on the nature of the essence of the social phenomena through investigation. Among the questions that could be set within the nominalist-realist debate framork are the following: "Is social reality external to individuals imposing itself on their consciousness from without or is it the product of individual consciousness?". "Is it a given out there or is it created by one1s own mind?" Three views emerge as a response to these questions: The first view says that "objects of thoughts are merely words. There is no accessible thing constituting the meaning of words". Burrel and Morgam (1979) air the subject-matter of the second view, being of an epistemological kind:" Knowledge is hard, objective and tangible. So, researchers should play an observer role and be alleged to the methods of natural science".Two attitudes emerge from these two views: that of a positivist adopting and encouraging the ways of a natural scientist and an antipositive view whereby it is believed that knowledge is "personal, subjective and unique, rejecting the ways of a natural scientist". A third view dealing with the approach to reality encompasses two contrasted images portraying human beings holding either the principle of determinism or that of voluntarism ( Burrel and Morgan 1979). The first image portrays Man as one that responds mechanically and deterministically to the environment. He is perceived like a puppet being a mere product of the environment where he is situated. The second image portrays Man as initiator of his his own actions, and as endowed with free wii and with the capability of producing his own environment ( Burrel and Morgan 1979). The three views demand, in fact, different researching methods made by at least two categories of researchers: positivists and antipositivists. Positivists adopt an objective approach to the social world, describing it as similar to the natural world, "hard, real, external to the individual. So, their investigation is scientific and is directed at analysing relationships, regularities between selected factors in that world". Thus, "their research is predominantly quantitative"Their investigation evolves around universal laws governing that which is observed ( Burrel and Morgan 1979). This is part of nomothetic research and it relies upon "procedures and methods so as to discover general laws"In their attempt to deal with the social reality, they resort to traditional means like surveys. Contrary to that, antipsitivists opt for the subject approach. Their view is that the social worls is soft, personal and humanly created. They select recent techniques during the investigation of the social reality like participant observation, accounts and personal constructs....
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