Karl Popper and the Social Sciences
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The Philosophical Underpinnings of Educational Research
The Philosophical Underpinnings of Educational Research Lindsay Mack Abstract This article traces the underlying theoretical framework of educational research. It outlines the definitions of epistemology, ontology and paradigm and the origins, main tenets, and key thinkers of the 3 paradigms; positivist, interpetivist and critical. By closely analyzing each paradigm, the literature review focuses on the ontological and epistemological assumptions of each paradigm. Finally the author analyzes not only the paradigm’s weakness but also the author’s own construct of reality and knowledge which align with the critical paradigm. Key terms: Paradigm, Ontology, Epistemology, Positivism, Interpretivism The English Language Teaching (ELT) field has moved from an ad hoc field with amateurish research to a much more serious enterprise of professionalism. More teachers are conducting research to not only inform their teaching in the classroom but also to bridge the gap between the external researcher dictating policy and the teacher negotiating that policy with the practical demands of their classroom. I was a layperson, not an educational researcher. Determined to emancipate myself from my layperson identity, I began to analyze the different philosophical underpinnings of each paradigm, reading about the great thinkers’ theories and the evolution of social science research. Through this process I began to examine how I view the world, thus realizing my own construction of knowledge and social reality, which is actually quite loose and chaotic. Most importantly, I realized that I identify most with the critical paradigm assumptions and that my future desired role as an educational researcher is to affect change and challenge dominant social and political discourses in ELT. -
Legal Interpretivism by Ronald Dworkin
Legal Interpretivism by Ronald Dworkin (1931-2013): He is the greatest legal philosopher ever and is among the most influential moral and political philosopher of our time. He developed an original legal theory, which not only has transcended the Natural Law and Legal Positivism dichotomy, but also has reintegrated law into a branch of political morality. Interpretivism views law as being interpreted by the practice of lawyers and jurists, and claims this is the nature of law itself. Unlike other schools of legal philosophy, interpretivism views law not as something imposed from outside, but as a product of the practice of law. Interpretivists claim law has a relationship with ethics and morality, but that they are not the same. Legal interpretivism was developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It emerged into a legal world dominated by two ways of thinking about the philosophy of law namely legal positivism and natural law theory. Interpretivism has some similarities to both schools of thought and some important differences. It has sometimes been thought of as a middle ground between the two. Natural law theory is the older of the two schools of thought. But there is an underlying natural law that serves as the foundation for manmade law. Natural law consists of basic principles of fairness, justice, and equity that transcend cultural boundaries, and manmade or "positive" law should respect these. In some traditions, natural law is believed to proceed from divine or supernatural sources, while others see it as inherent in human nature. Dworkin integrates morality both into the choice of legal theory and into the legal argument itself. -
Foucault's Darwinian Genealogy
genealogy Article Foucault’s Darwinian Genealogy Marco Solinas Political Philosophy, University of Florence and Deutsches Institut Florenz, Via dei Pecori 1, 50123 Florence, Italy; [email protected] Academic Editor: Philip Kretsedemas Received: 10 March 2017; Accepted: 16 May 2017; Published: 23 May 2017 Abstract: This paper outlines Darwin’s theory of descent with modification in order to show that it is genealogical in a narrow sense, and that from this point of view, it can be understood as one of the basic models and sources—also indirectly via Nietzsche—of Foucault’s conception of genealogy. Therefore, this essay aims to overcome the impression of a strong opposition to Darwin that arises from Foucault’s critique of the “evolutionistic” research of “origin”—understood as Ursprung and not as Entstehung. By highlighting Darwin’s interpretation of the principles of extinction, divergence of character, and of the many complex contingencies and slight modifications in the becoming of species, this essay shows how his genealogical framework demonstrates an affinity, even if only partially, with Foucault’s genealogy. Keywords: Darwin; Foucault; genealogy; natural genealogies; teleology; evolution; extinction; origin; Entstehung; rudimentary organs “Our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies; and will then truly give what may be called the plan of creation. The rules for classifying will no doubt become simpler when we have a definite object in view. We possess no pedigrees or armorial bearings; and we have to discover and trace the many diverging lines of descent in our natural genealogies, by characters of any kind which have long been inherited. -
Evolutionary Epistemology in James' Pragmatism J
35 THE ORIGIN OF AN INQUIRY: EVOLUTIONARY EPISTEMOLOGY IN JAMES' PRAGMATISM J. Ellis Perry IV University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth "Much struck." That was Darwin's way of saying that something he observed fascinated him, arrested his attention, surprised or puzzled him. The words "much struck" riddle the pages of bothhis Voyage ofthe Beagle and his The Origin of Species, and their appearance should alert the reader that Darwin was saying something important. Most of the time, the reader caninfer that something Darwin had observed was at variance with what he had expected, and that his fai th in some alleged law or general principle hadbeen shaken, and this happened repeat edly throughout his five year sojourn on the H.M.S. Beagle. The "irritation" of his doubting the theretofore necessary truths of natu ral history was Darwin's stimulus to inquiry, to creative and thor oughly original abductions. "The influence of Darwinupon philosophy resides inhis ha ving conquered the phenomena of life for the principle of transi tion, and thereby freed the new logic for application to mind and morals and life" (Dewey p. 1). While it would be an odd fellow who would disagree with the claim of Dewey and others that the American pragmatist philosophers were to no small extent influenced by the Darwinian corpus,! few have been willing to make the case for Darwin's influence on the pragmatic philosophy of William James. Philip Wiener, in his well known work, reports that Thanks to Professor Perry's remarks in his definitive work on James, "the influence of Darwin was both early and profound, and its effects crop up in unex pected quarters." Perry is a senior at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmoltth. -
Perspectives on Ethical Leadership: an Overview Drs Ir Sophia Viet MTD
Perspectives on ethical leadership: an overview drs ir Sophia Viet MTD Paper submitted to the International Congress on Public and Political Leadership 2016 Draft version. Do not site or quote without the author’s permission Abstract There is a growing scientific interest in ethical leadership of organizations as public confidence in organizational leaders continues to decline. Among scholarly communities there is considerable disagreement on the appropriate way to conceptualize, define and study ethical leadership. This disagreement is partly due to the ontological and epistemological differences between the scholarly communities, resulting in different views of organizations, on the role of organizational leadership in general, and on ethical leadership of organizations in particular. Because of the differences in their ontological and epistemological assumptions scholars endlessly debate the concept of ethical leadership. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the academic concepts of ethical leadership by classifying these concepts in terms of their ontological and epistemological assumptions and views of organizations into the modern, symbolic and the critical perspectives of postmodernism and communitarianism. Each category represents a particular set of perspectives on organizations, business ethics, and ethical leadership. The overview can serve as a guide to decode the academic debate and to determine the positions of the scholars participating in the debate. In addition it can serve as a multi-perspective-framework to study lay concepts of ethical leadership of (executive) directors of contemporary organizations. In this article the overview serves as a guide of how to classify some of the most common concepts in the debate on ethical leadership. Introduction There is a growing scientific interest in ethical leadership of organizations as public confidence in organizational leaders continues to decline. -
How Does Context Shape Comedy As a Successful Social Criticism As Demonstrated by Eddie Murphy’S SNL Sketch “White Like Me?”
The University of Maine DigitalCommons@UMaine Honors College 5-2012 How Does Context Shape Comedy as a Successful Social Criticism as Demonstrated by Eddie Murphy’s SNL Sketch “White Like Me?” Abigail Jones Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors Part of the Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons Recommended Citation Jones, Abigail, "How Does Context Shape Comedy as a Successful Social Criticism as Demonstrated by Eddie Murphy’s SNL Sketch “White Like Me?”" (2012). Honors College. 58. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors/58 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOW DOES CONTEXT SHAPE COMEDY AS A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL CRITICISM AS DEMONSTRATED BY EDDIE MURPHY’S SNL SKETCH “WHITE LIKE ME?” by Abigail Jones A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Degree with Honors (Communications) The Honors College University of Maine May 2012 Advisory Committee: Nathan E. Stormer, Professor of Communication, Advisor Kristin M. Langellier, Professor of Communication Sandra Hardy, Associate Professor of Theater Mimi Killinger, Honors College Rezendes Preceptor for the Arts Adam Kuykendall, Marketing Manager for the School of Performing Arts Abstract This thesis explores the theory of comedy as social criticism through an interpretive investigation. For comedy to be a potent criticism it is important for the audience to understand the context surrounding the sketch. Without understanding the context the sketch still has the ability to be humorous, but the critique is harder to acknowledge. -
Our Knowledge of the External World As a Field for Scientific Method In
Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy By Bertrand Russell 1 PREFACE The following lectures[1] are an attempt to show, by means of examples, the nature, capacity, and limitations of the logical-analytic method in philosophy. This method, of which the first complete example is to be found in the writings of Frege, has gradually, in the course of actual research, increasingly forced itself upon me as something perfectly definite, capable of embodiment in maxims, and adequate, in all branches of philosophy, to yield whatever objective scientific knowledge it is possible to obtain. Most of the methods hitherto practised have professed to lead to more ambitious results than any that logical analysis can claim to reach, but unfortunately these results have always been such as many competent philosophers considered inadmissible. Regarded merely as hypotheses and as aids to imagination, the great systems of the past serve a very useful purpose, and are abundantly worthy of study. But something different is required if philosophy is to become a science, and to aim at results independent of the tastes and temperament of the philosopher who advocates them. In what follows, I have endeavoured to show, however imperfectly, the way by which I believe that this desideratum is to be found. [1] Delivered as Lowell Lectures in Boston, in March and April 1914. The central problem by which I have sought to illustrate method is the problem of the relation between the crude data of sense and the space, 2 time, and matter of mathematical physics. -
A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Scripps Senior Theses Scripps Student Scholarship 2019 A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry Karina Bucciarelli Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses Part of the Epistemology Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Recommended Citation Bucciarelli, Karina, "A Feminist Epistemological Framework: Preventing Knowledge Distortions in Scientific Inquiry" (2019). Scripps Senior Theses. 1365. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1365 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Scripps Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Scripps Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK: PREVENTING KNOWLEDGE DISTORTIONS IN SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY by KARINA MARTINS BUCCIARELLI SUBMITTED TO SCRIPPS COLLEGE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS PROFESSOR SUSAN CASTAGNETTO PROFESSOR RIMA BASU APRIL 26, 2019 Bucciarelli 2 Acknowledgements First off, I would like to thank my wonderful family for supporting me every step of the way. Mamãe e Papai, obrigada pelo amor e carinho, mil telefonemas, conversas e risadas. Obrigada por não só proporcionar essa educação incrível, mas também me dar um exemplo de como viver. Rafa, thanks for the jokes, the editing help and the spontaneous phone calls. Bela, thank you for the endless time you give to me, for your patience and for your support (even through WhatsApp audios). To my dear friends, thank you for the late study nights, the wild dance parties, the laughs and the endless support. -
Objectivity in the Feminist Philosophy of Science
OBJECTIVITY IN THE FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requisites for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Karen Cordrick Haely, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Louise M. Antony, Adviser Professor Donald C. Hubin _______________________ Professor George Pappas Adviser Philosophy Graduate Program ABSTRACT According to a familiar though naïve conception, science is a rigorously neutral enterprise, free from social and cultural influence, but more sophisticated philosophical views about science have revealed that cultural and personal interests and values are ubiquitous in scientific practice, and thus ought not be ignored when attempting to understand, describe and prescribe proper behavior for the practice of science. Indeed, many theorists have argued that cultural and personal interests and values must be present in science (and knowledge gathering in general) in order to make sense of the world. The concept of objectivity has been utilized in the philosophy of science (as well as in epistemology) as a way to discuss and explore the various types of social and cultural influence that operate in science. The concept has also served as the focus of debates about just how much neutrality we can or should expect in science. This thesis examines feminist ideas regarding how to revise and enrich the concept of objectivity, and how these suggestions help achieve both feminist and scientific goals. Feminists offer us warnings about “idealized” concepts of objectivity, and suggest that power can play a crucial role in determining which research programs get labeled “objective”. -
The Polarisation Between Individual and Social Entrironment, from the Viowpoint of an Assertivo Individualism, Is One of the Commonplaces of Orwell Criticism
-62- THE INDIVIDUALISM OF ORWELL'S THINKING Cleusa Vieira de Aguiar - UFMG - The polarisation between individual and social entrironment, from the viowpoint of an assertivo individualism, is one of the commonplaces of Orwell criticism. In its own terms it appears as a valuable and 'rugged individualism' , but more criticaily it can be seen as a limiting 'bourgeois indivi duali sm . Caudwell describes the essentially illusory nature of this mode of thought and the associated conception of freedom: "The bourgeois believes that liberty consists in absence of social organiaation; that liberty is a negative quality, a deprivation of existing obstacles to it; and not a positive quality, the reward of endeavour and wisdom. This belief is itself the result of bourgeois social .-o lations. As a result of it, the bourgeois intellectual is unconscious of the causaiity that makes his consciousness what it is... He refuses to see that his own limited liberty; the captivity of the worker, and ali the contradictions of developing bourgeois relations — pacifism, fascism, war, hate, cruclty, ... are bound in one net of causality, that each is influenced by each, and that thereForo it is fallacious to suppose a simple effort of the will of the free man, without knowledge of the -63- causes, will banish fascism, war and slumps ... we have shown that the individual is never free. He can only attain frcedom by social cooperation ... If, therefore, he wi alies to stop poverty, war, and misery, he must do it, not by passive resistance, but by using social relations. But in ordcr to use social relations he must understand them." This account both reminds us of Orwell's anarchist sympathies 4 and explains how in a particular historical situation an assertive individualism turns into a deterministic view of social forces and a pessimistic attitude to the possibility of social change. -
Notes for Our Seminar: Objectivity and Subjectivity
Notes for our seminar: Objectivity and Subjectivity B.M. December 14, 2019 Contents I A preview and overview of the topics we may cover 2 1 The nature of our seminar-course 3 II Readings and Notes for the sessions of Sept 11, Oct 2, Oct 30, and part of Dec 4 13 2 Readings for the September 11 session 13 2.1 Excerpt from [9] . 14 3 Some notes for Sep 11: Subjectivity, Universal Subjectivity, Objectivity 15 3.1 Objective . 16 4 Readings for October 2: 25 5 Notes for Oct 21 session: Objectivity and Subjectivity in Mathematics 36 5.1 What is the number `A thousand and one'?....................... 37 5.2 Plato ............................................ 38 5.3 `Tower Pound' definition ................................ 39 1 5.4 J.S. Mill .......................................... 39 5.5 Georg Cantor: ...................................... 40 5.6 Gottlob Frege (∼ 1900) ................................ 41 5.7 Foundations::: or Constitutions ............................. 43 5.8 David Hilbert ....................................... 43 5.9 L.E.J. Brouwer ...................................... 46 5.10 The simple phrase \and so on::: "............................ 48 6 Readings for October 30, 2019: (Shades of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Epistemology, Probability, and Physics) 50 7 Notes for October 30, 2019:(Shades of Objectivity and Subjectivity in Epistemology, Probability, and Physics) 51 8 Subjectivity and Objectivity in Statistics: `Educating your beliefs' versus `Test- ing your Hypotheses' 55 8.1 Predesignation versus the self-corrective nature of inductive reasoning . 57 8.2 Priors as `Meta-probabilities' . 59 8.3 Back to our three steps . 61 8.4 A numerical example and a question . 62 9 Issues of Subjectivity and Objectivity in Physics 63 10 Consequentialism of Meaning|notes for part of session of December 4 65 11 Dealing with nonexistent objects 69 2 Part I A preview and overview of the topics we may cover 1 The nature of our seminar-course Phil273O (Objectivity and Subjectivity) will be the fourth seminar- course I've taught with Amartya Sen and Eric Maskin. -
Interpretivism, Freedom of Expression, and Equal Protection
Interpretivism, Freedom of Expression, and Equal Protection MICHAEL J. PERRY* I. A. We in the United States are philosophically committed to the political prin- ciple that governmental policymaking-by which I mean simply decisions as to which values among competing values shall prevail, and as to how those values shall be implemented'-ought to be subject to control by persons accountable to the electorate.2 As a general matter, a person is accountable to © Michael J. Perry 1981. * Professor of Law, The Ohio State University. A.B., 1968, Georgetown University; J.D., 1973, Columbia University. This Article is part of a larger work-in-progress, which will be published as a book by the Yale University Press in 1982, and which is tentatively titled THE CONSTITUTION, THE COURTS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGITIMACY OF CONSTITUTIONAL POLICYMAKING BY THE JUDICIARY. Another part will be published in another symposium on judicial review. See Perry, Noninterpretive Review in Human Rights Cases: A Functional Justification, 56 N.Y.U.L. REV. - (1981). I. Cf. Hazard, The Supreme Court as a Legislature, 64 CORNELL L. REV. 1, 2 (1978): By a -legislature," I mean a body whose chief function in government is to formulate general rules of law that primarily reflect the notions of utility and value held by its members. Such a body is to be distinguished from a trial court, which applies law received from legally superior sources; from an administrative agency, which, in its rule-making capacity, formulates policy only within the limits of its organic statute; and from a "traditional" appellate court, which, in formulating law, is guided primarily by precedent.