EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASES

EMPIRICISM

Interpretation and Projection

Theory and Practice

Knowledge Production

LOGICAL POSTPOSITIVISM

Intentional Modification and Values

is

empirist

  • Observation is the primary measure of knowledge, implying an absolutistic epistemology.
  • Empiricists aim for a value-free science, avoiding relativism associated with interpretative choices.
  • Human interpretation and unintentional modification of the object of study are seen as potential errors.
  • Intentional modification is deemed both an error and incompatible with true science due to the introduction of values.
  • Action research for empiricists is practical activity but is considered unrelated to scientific research.

Justification of Knowledge

Research Process

Action Research Rejection:

Scientific Knowledge Production

begins

  • Involves generating events and facts by applying concepts and theoretical presuppositions to a specific phenomenon.
  • Evaluation is based on the criteria of the mode of explanation.
  • Considered corrigible and tentative, allowing for different theories explaining the same phenomenon.

STRUCTURALISM

DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

PRAGMATISM

  • Logical Positivists reject action research, as practical activities should be independent of the scientific process

Experimental Situation:

-Transform reality

Theory and Practice Relationship

Rejection of Action Research

Generality Component

Althusser's Position

Knowledge Production

  • Transformation from abstract knowledge
  • Criteria is method; the mechanism by which knowledge is known is crucial.
  • Generality I: Elaborated abstractions from any source.
  • Generality II: Structured concepts defining problems.
  • Generality III: Concrete thought, producing the 'effect of knowledge.'
  • Distinction between knowledge and reality; they seek to 'appropriate' each other, but their developments are separate.
  • Unity of theory and practice in theoretical practice, debunking the dichotomy between them.
  • Structuralist epistemology separates theory and practice, leading to the rejection of action research.
  • Science has its own theoretical practice independent of other purposeful human activities.
  • Rejects Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, denying the opposition between changing and explaining the world.
  • Emphasizes the independence of scientific knowledge production within thought.

Theory and Practice Union

Action Research in Pragmatism

Pragmatist View of Reality

  • Rejects fixed objects or realities; knowledge is an outcome of human activity, not antecedent to it.
  • Objects of knowledge are created rather than pre-existent.
  • Experimental practice cancels the separation between knowing and doing in science.
  • Knowledge arises from human action, and practice is where problems originate and are finally accounted for.
  • Action research aligns with the pragmatist view of knowledge production and justification.
  • Only action research, as operationally defined, can truly produce scientific knowledge within the pragmatist position.

Critique of Traditional Though

  • Pragmatism critiques the divorce between theory and practice in both Idealist and Materialist philosophies
  • This theory and practice is attributed to the human search for security in a changing and uncertain universe.

Critique of Idealism and Classical Materialism


Justification of Knowledge

Epistemology

  • Relates to historical and social contexts, starting with socio-historically defined human needs.
  • Praxis involves the dialectical union of sense-based practice and active human intelligence.
  • Dialectical analysis, based on contradiction (unity of opposites), is the mode of explanation.
  • Is linked to specific social praxis. Knowledge continually adjusts through praxis for desired results.
  • The dialectical union of praxis highlights the interdependence of theory and practice. Theory guides practice, and vice versa.
  • Criticizes the division of reality into ideal and material realms by Idealism and Classical Materialism.
  • It rejects extra-natural ontological elements and views Idealism as reducing to solipsism.

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REFERENCE: The Epistemology of Action Research on JSTOR. (s. f.). www.jstor.org. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4194229

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Derived through direct, neutral observation.
.

justification is

Based on demonstrating correspondence to reality, resulting in universal laws

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  • Assert the independence of theory and practice.
  • The rigorous observation is deemed sufficient for knowledge creation.
  • The stance: facts speak independently, requiring no cognitive elaboration.
  • Begins with the postulation of a hypothesis, not necessarily rooted in scientific research.

involves

The confrontation between a theoretical framework and reality.

contains

Concepts, definitions, theoretical presuppositions, directive questions, and a mode of explanation

is based

  • On the method of knowledge production, not on correspondence to reality.
  • Methodological standards introduce relativism in Logical Positivism.

But should correspond exclusively to scientific interests, not practical ones and serve as reproductive action-research for maintaining existing social structures.