Nigel - I did enjoy reading your posting, especially your point:
"This is an approach to epistemology that focuses not on the processes by
which one arrives at truth, but the qualities of the person necessary to
arrive at truth. Some moral qualities necessary are e.g. sincerity, some
epistemological ones are, e.g. knowledge and prudence. The practitioner
researcher thus has to balance the demands of different virtues, e.g. the 'research'
virtue of commitment to truth, with the teaching virtues of justice or
compassion. Describing the problems of validity/rigour in this way may not resolve
the disagreements, but it does allow one to pick one's way through the
minefield, identifying the particular tensions and how they can be resolved. I am
interested in the current discussion, but feel that a lot of assumptions are
being made about the priority of certain virtues over others, e.g. a
particular view of social justice over a commitment to epistemological rigour."
I'm wondering about the desirability of focusing both on the processes by which one
arrives at 'truth' and the qualities of the practitioner-researcher necessary to arrive at
their truth? James Finnegan in his Ph.D. at http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/fin.shtml
explored his explicit commitment to social justtice, democracy and epistemological
rigour.
In the living theories of practitioner-researchers at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/living.shtml I think that you will find that each
practitioner-researcher has done what you suggest. Marian Naidoo graduates this
coming Tuesday for her thesis with a focus on a passion for compassion. I''m hoping
that this will be available before the end of the seminar.
Love Jack.
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