Abstract

STINCER-GOMEZ, Dení; COULO, Ana Claudia  and  MONROY NASR, Zuraya. The ontogenetic, psychological, and epistemological nature of errors and obstacles in the construction of scientific hypotheses: a case study. Nova scientia [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.26, 00024.  Epub Aug 30, 2021. ISSN 2007-0705.  https://doi.org/10.21640/ns.v13i26.2691.

An analysis of the argumentative discourse of postgraduate students of six different cohorts of the Faculty of Psychology of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, shows us a set of obstacles and systematic errors in the process of construction of a hypothesis (the latter being the hypothesis to defend in their thesis). In this paper, we argue that the nature of these errors and obstacles is ontogenetic, psychological, and epistemological. Ontogenetic obstacles are related to the primacy, reinforced through evolution, of natural logic over formal logic in problem solving. . The arbitrariness of language exacerbates difficulties in communicating a hypothesis. The psychological nature of errors has to do with a position of the individual towards evidence and scientific activity. The content of the evidence may be repressed or rejected because it constitutes a destabilization of the subject’s identity or of beliefs that have a function of ego support. We also perceive the subject's epistemic dependence on their thesis advisors that prevents them from affirming their own work. We observe there is a belief that academic work, rather than a process of knowledge building, is an evaluative activity of the self. Other errors and obstacles are related to questions specific to scientific activity. A hypothesis generally manifests causal relationships. The notion of cause and its nature, from the philosophy of science, is debatable. In the present article, we propose these explanations regarding the difficulties in the process of constructing a scientific hypothesis.

Keywords : hypothesis; argumentative discourse; systematic errors; epistemological obstacles; thesis; ontogenesis; psychology; science; epistemology; discourse.