Session Information
Session 8A, Educational Research Methodology: Philosophical Questions
Symposium
Time:
2005-09-09
11:00-12:30
Room:
ENG
Chair:
Volker Kraft
Contribution
In The Idea of a Social Science (1958) Peter Winch argues that, rather than concentrating on analyzing concepts and facts, we need to focus on meaning. He takes issue with the position that claims that genuine new knowledge is acquired by scientists by experimental and observational methods and that the only task for philosophy is to be found in what he calls the underlabourer position, i.e., a particular kind of concept clarification. But this is all wrong, so he argues: "'What is real?' involves the problem of man's relation to reality, which takes us beyond pure science" (Winch, 1958, p. 9), and in discussing language philosophically we are in fact discussing what counts as belonging to the world (Ibid., p. 15). And he continues: "The question of what constitutes social behaviour is a demand for an elucidation of the concept of social behaviour. In dealing with questions of this sort there should be no question of 'waiting to see' what empirical research will show us; it is a matter of tracing the implications of the concepts we use." (Ibid., p. 18) To grasp the meaning of the concept of 'understanding' itself, it is necessary to show how it plays a central role in the activities which are characteristic of human societies. And as a man's social relations with his fellows are permeated with his ideas about reality, an enquiry into the nature of man's knowledge of reality and into the difference which the possibility of such knowledge makes to human life, always presupposes taking into account the ideas around which one's life revolves. Following Wittgenstein he argues for the centrality of the ideas of 'practice' and 'rule following' which always imply a relation to a social context. To understand social institutions we need to understand the 'rules' which carry human activities, which means "… that any more reflective understanding must necessarily presuppose, if it is to count as genuine understanding at all, the participant's unreflective understanding (Ibid., p. 89). His conclusion is therefore "… that social relations really exist only in and through the ideas which are current in society; or alternatively; that social relations fall into the same logical category as do relations between ideas. It follows that social relations must be an equally unsuitable subject for generalizations and theories of the scientific sort to be formulated about them" (Ibid. p. 133). This paper will critically analyze Winch's position. It will argue that educational research is necessarily to some extent indeed always philosophical. But this requires no blind following of Winch. His understanding of 'facts' and 'concepts' needs to be placed within a realistic yet at the same time utopian stance concerning educational research that takes fully into account the nature of education itself.
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