Ways of Knowing

It can be reassuring to know that the issues one studies in the classroom bear some degree of resemblance to everyday life. As a graduate student preparing for a career in the academy, I am taking the first in a series of qualitative research courses. In our most recent class, we were introduced to different research paradigms. A theme that emerged in our weekly readings suggested that the “stories” we tell, or the theories that we weave, are influenced by the epistemological, ontological, and methodological beliefs to which we subscribe. Each paradigm essentially represents a different way of "knowing." Those who doubt the existence of multiple realties need only consult today’s edition of the on-line The New York Times.

"Seeing Evolution and Creation,” a news article, documents two rafting trips taken by two different parties through the Grand Canyon at a similar point in time. The purpose? To better understand the earth’s geological past. Despite this shared objective, each group approached the task through a radically different set of interpretive lenses. The first, a collection of scientists, half of whom held Ph.D’s in science, understood the Canyon’s history in terms of evolution. The second, comprised of vacationing tourists who shared strongly held religious beliefs, wore the lenses of Creationism. As such they were able to see in the Canyon’s walls evidence of a biblical flood. The same trip…the same stopping points… the same objective. Nevertheless, each party arrived upon a radically different explanation. To make things more problematic, I had the good fortune to work on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations in northern Arizona where I made several friends. On those occasions when we hiked the Canyon together, yet another theory emerged, one that saw the Canyon’s past in still different terms. For the Hopis, the Canyon marked the location of a “sipapu,” or hole in the earth, through which their ancestors had emerged (for more on this see The World of Myth by David Adams Leeming). Is such an explanation any more or less valid?

“Like They See ‘Em,”an op-ed piece written by Robert Schwartz, addresses a similar issue. Its author questions the ability of so-called constructionist judges to stringently adhere to (and apply) the laws outlined in the U.S. Constitution. The problem? According to Schwartz, judges, like umpires in a baseball game, must interpret laws prior to applying them. He writes,

Even though the rule book is clear in its definition of a strike, some umpires presume a pitch to be a strike unless there is a reason to call it a ball; others presume the pitch to be a ball unless they deem it to be a strike; and some appear to have no regular approach at all to making ball-strike decisions.

In other words, judgments are never free of the paradigmatic beliefs that inform them. As Schwartz so eloquently notes,

The myth of the neutral umpire is no more tenable than that of the neutral justice.

So what do we do with all of this? Does positivism represent one set of lenses through which problems can be seen and understood? Does it deserve to be more (or less) privileged than another paradigm? As an individual reared in Western society, it is difficult for me to argue against the prowess of science. I am, after all, a product of the environment in which I was raised. At the same time, however, I consider myself an open-minded adult, one who embraces the notion of relativity. As such, I have to question the legitimacy of my beliefs. In the end, they are representative of a particular way of knowing. I suppose that the issues I am wrestling with constitute a part of being human. Oh, that it were easier.