I'm not sure what your question is.  Your main question seems to be about the connection between philosophical assumptions and research paradigms.   Philosophical assumptions are distinct from theories about phenomenon.  Philosophical assumptions generally have to do with beliefs.  Does someone believe in God, for example.   Generally philosophical beliefs, values, ethics cannot be answered through scientific methods.  We can scientifically explore attitudes toward them but not the core belief.   Is abortion, for example, morally OK?  That's an ethical dilemma that can be answered by philosophical inquiry but not with a research paradigm.

Epistemological refers to the ways we acquire the knowledge.  Ontological assumptions concern the nature of what is being studied. 

Here's a simple concrete example.  I have studied the deathbed communications observed by hospice nurses.  Previously these deathbed occurrences were called deathbed visions.  The assumption was the nature of this phenomenon was visual only.  What we know now is dying patients can perceive seeing, hearing or feeling communication from deceased loved ones.  

 When I did the research, it was through the observations of hospice nurses.  Following that research, other researchers observed the patients directly because it was seen to be more accurate.  Which I agree to be true. 

Both of us used quantitative and qualitative research methods. 

Hope that helps. 

@ Madelaine Lawrence. Thank you for your explanation.Yes, you got my question which was "  the connection between philosophical assumptions and research paradigms". I also understand the standpoint you used in responding to the question. That is fine as well. 

My confusion was basically to understand what I could call paradigms like Positivism, interpretivism. Are these paradigms, the way knowledge is acquired or the nature of knowledge. Or are would someone say that in each philosophical paradigm, there is the nature of knowledge as well as the way knowledge is acquired.

If I am not mistaken, your answer points to the latter. Do correct me if I am wrong. 

Unfortunately, I am not a philosopher, hence I have to ask in order to understand the foundations and how these philosophies work with each other.

@ Sayed Zaheen Alam. Thank you for your answer. It is also very insightful and give me room for more reflections

There is much discussion about the definition of a paradigm.   There are disagreements about what it means. If you are uncertain how it all fits together, you are not alone. A wonderful book on the topic is by Thomas Kuhn, The structure of scientific revolution. 

Most of the time a paradigm is considered to be acceptable set of practices.  In science that includes perspectives, theories, facts, assumptions.  Paradigms set up guidelines for scientific endeavors as well as everyday activities.  Positivism and the other isms are part of our current scientific paradigm.

when I was a child, only men drove buses, trucks and other large vehicles.  Only men were part of the police force.  Those notions fit into the paradigm that guided behaviors for men and women.  Most of the time, we are not aware of the paradigm we live under.  We accept it as the norm.

Kuhn says normal science grows slowly by increasing knowledge within the current paradigm.  Major leaps in science occur when our current paradigm cannot explain anomalies even though we try to make that happen.   In my area millions of individuals claim to have transpersonal experiences, like near-death experiences, after death communication and so forth.  Our current medical paradigm does not include explanations for these events.  One theory is oxygen deprivation.  Unfortunately, that doesn't explain these events.  We are searching for another explanation that may cause a paradigm shift in our understanding of human biology but maybe not.

Another current area that will cause a major shift in medicine is the genetic research.  I live near a Duke University research center that is recruiting 50,000 people for genetic studies on illnesses and aging.  They claim this will eventually cause a revolution where we throw out a lot of current medical approaches.

As paradigms shift we get a new set of assumptions, theories etc.  Many times the skills we had in the past don't help much in the new paradigm.   Engravers from the 1800s lost a lot of business when it was learned how to duplicate photographs

Hope that helps. 

Yes, it does help. Thank you, Madelaine :)

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Williams, 

One reason that philosophy often seems very complicated is that it contains its own history as an important component. Some people in philosophy are centrally concerned with history of philosophy or even history of some branch or historical tradition. All the "-isms" help mark out the historical territory --such as "positivism," "pragmatism," "realism." But on the other hand, there are people working on contemporary problems and issues, who, at the same time may see some positive or negative relationship between their own work and the historical schools, traditions, scholars and directions of philosophical thought. Terms get adapted and modified in usage. Sometimes, what was first put forward as a more substantial philosophical position will later be converted to some more limited or methodological stance.   

You ask about how to classify:

[How] does one group any of these paradigms either as ontological assumption or as epistemological assumptions. In some cases, I see postitivism and antipositivism as ontologies while realism and pragmatism are regarded as epistemologies and vice versa.

Can anyone clarify these relationships?

--end quotation

Positivism is primarily an epistemological philosophy, which none the less tends to limit ontological claims--those incapable of strict verification, e.g. Historically, positivism was a kind of philosophical revolt against expansive philosophical systems and claims. While historical positivism and its strict verificationism is usually regarded as having expired, during the 20th century, you will surely find many contemporary philosophers with related or modified views and theses. Verificationism is strictly a doctrine of meaning, or this is a central aspect of it, and as a theory of meaning it is largely rejected. The meaning of a statement was identified with "its method of verification," among other similar formulas, and thus, large-scale ontological claims of traditional, systematic philosophy (say, 19th century idealism) were ruled "nonsense." But if they are not nonsense, they may still be very unappealing on other grounds. 

"Realism" has a very long history and their are many historical forms--e.g., Platonic realism, Aristotelian realism, etc. These are usually regarded as primarily historical systems of metaphysics--to which the topic of ontology belongs. But traditional metaphysical systems will often have or apparently have epistemological doctrines associated --or argumentatively assigned to them. If Plato's "forms" or Aristotle's "essences" exist, one may ask, then how could we know this?  "Realism" is perhaps most strongly associated with epistemological themes, though, in relation to early modern philosophy, and the thesis of "direct" realism concerning perception--as in debates concerning the theory of perception of John Locke. Locke had many critics and detractors. But the epistemological alternatives to realism about the objects or perception are often regarded as even more problematic. A professed "realist" may adapt or modify a particular tradition of realist thought.  

So, I would say, generally, that epistemological and ontological claims tend to get strongly associated, both in historical studies and regarding contemporary developments. It is often more important to consider what a particular author or group of authors mean by terms like "realism," "pragmatism, "positivism," and etc. 

I hope some of this may be useful. This may strongly depend on exactly what you are trying to do in your research. 

H.G. Callaway

@ Callaway. Thank you for the response. you somehow have read the driving thoughts to my question. As I confessed earlier, I am not a philosopher, hence taking these concepts from a very shallow point of view was academically dangerous for me. So I had to understand the foundations of what I was trying to understand.

Like Madelaine mentioned earlier, there are lots of disagreements out there. What entrenches these disagreements is when arguments are made on why Positivism, for example, is and Epistemology and Realism is an Ontology or vice versa!

As you have mentioned, the approach of philosophers to these "paradigms," is from the historical perspective. While, in other fields, there is an attempt to create methodologies out of these schools of thoughts "-isms". 

From my perspective, one would say that Epistemologies and Ontologies can be seen in these worldviews. Each of these paradigms consists of their nature of knowledge and how that knowledge can be acquired. However, the measure of the Epistemology with respect to the Ontology in each worldview are not equal. One would say that "Idealism" is more of an Ontology than an Epistemology. As your rightly put it, this is contextual to specific research and their aims. And it may not necessarily be an overarching case for a field of study.

However, this is my view and I may be wrong. But I am really learning from the responses here.

Thank you