I am starting to design my research question at the moment, and am keen to frame it with pragmatism as an ontology. My question is, can a person use pragmatism as both an ontology and epistemology in a research design?
Even though you didn't specify your field of study, I'll try to answer your question. In short, you can have a pragmatic view both on epistemology and ontology. Blatter (2016), writing on qualitative methodologies in social sciences, affirms that a pragmatic view on epistemology has three main components:
the research goal, precisely expressed in a research question and translated into a coherent research design (truth-seeking vs. sense-making);
the type of knowledge pursued when answering the research question (confirmed thesis/model vs. convincing theory/paradigm);
the procedures and the quality criteria guiding the process of construction of this knowledge (neutrality/replicability vs. positionality/reflexivity).
Equally, still following Blatter, a pragmatic approach to ontology is worried about the type of explanation that is adequate for a given research question, being connected to:
the basic entities of the social world (material vs. ideational factors);
and the relationship among this entities (elementaristic vs. holistic presumptions).
Pratt (2016) reviews the role of pragmatism in IR theory, and even though your field of study may not be IR (just as it isn't mine), it helps us understand how pragmatism was adopted in that context. I also strongly recommend Morgan's (2014) work on the importance of pragmatism as a philosophy for social science research, beyond the practicality it may offer.
I hope this helps a bit. Happy research!
Best,
Breno
References:
Blatter, J. (2016). Aligning Methodologies to Epistemologies and Ontologies in Qualitative Research: An Ideal-Typical Approach. In APSA Annual Conference.
Frankel Pratt, S. (2016). Pragmatism as ontology, not (just) epistemology: Exploring the full horizon of pragmatism as an approach to IR theory. International Studies Review, 18(3), 508-527.
Morgan, D. L. (2014). Pragmatism as a paradigm for social research. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(8), 1045-1053.
Both classical pragmatism (e.g., Dewey) and more recent versions (e.g. Rorty) reject the traditional notions ontology and epistemology. Instead of questions about the nature of reality and the possibility of truth, pragmatists place an emphasis on action and its outcomes.
I have attached one of my articles that deals with these issues in terms of classical pragmatism.
The epistemology (criteria of relevance or adequacy regarding the questions you ask and the answers you'll get) will determine your ontology (the nature of your ontological commitment to the underlying questions of what truly exists or what constitutes reality).
In other words, you need to acknowledge the way your epistemology will shape your ontology. I'd suggest you look at the notion of ontological commitment - the relation between epistemological questions and ontological questions - to get a better idea of the relation.
Have a look at the following to better orient your thinking
Or you could also read chapter 1 of my thesis to see an overview of the problems from a critical perspective (posted here). I won't post a direct link to thesis because I don't wont to appear self promoting.
Perhaps this answer is coming too late for you...but I do see pragmatism as offering an epistemological framework (as much as I would defer to David on this!) We perhaps provide a slightly different view in this paper Article Three principles of pragmatism for research on organizationa...