Ontological Tenets Of Constructivism
Ontologically, epistemologically, and methodologically, the present study fits most comfortably within the constructivist approach. On the ontological front, the formal model proposed in the previous chapter reflects the acceptance in the present study of the core ontological tenets of constructivism. Namely, I modeled constructivism’s two core ontological tenets: (1) that “social reality is constructed” and social agents are the “social constructors of their own practices and structures;” and (2) that the agent-constructed social world informs agents’ interests and thereby circumscribes what they see as possible and morally appropriate courses of action. Building on the first core ontological tenet of constructivism, the exogenously given