Dear Norm,
Good questions.
These past few days, I have been working to structure some of the
issues in this thread into well defined questions.
Your questions are a new stimulus.
Please let me respond once I post the questions that have held my
attention these past few weeks.
There are subtle issues here. I suspect some will yield their meaning
on careful reflection, ot - at least - I suspect that if I reflect
carefully, I can state clearly what I mean to say in attempting to
answer.
Yours,
Ken
Norm Sheehan wrote:
-snip-
You said some science (must/needs to be) is inhuman & then
trans-human using the example of mathematics and I am having
difficulty with the meaning of this.
Are you suggesting (when describing inhuman science) that mathematics
etc. are features of the world? From your example are you saying that
the information in the world has an informational correspondence
(exists in the same formation) as the human-social knowledge-thing we
know as maths-science etc?
Are you suggesting when you say trans-human that science through the
mathematics example is a 'held in common' feature of mind or mankind?
Or that it presents immutable 'truths' that all must accept?
I know that you realise where I am going with this but please let us
follow this track because I believe Terry's question is so vital for
my postgrads also.
Bunge, M. (1983) stated that (epistemological) methodologies should
not be confused with methodics - they are not only about what we do
in knowledge 'finding' they are also about how one should best
proceed in/through our (version of) 'searching' intent - so that
knowledge is 'reliable'; 'valid' etc
Thus there are values and hence humanity at all levels - are there not?
What follows from a measurement which is seen to be apart from
humanity & thus from error?...(surely this is a human value that
denies human value as a source of its own validity).
Another question that i am compelled to ask is why does the question
of false consciousness only apply to self-referential studies...are
some researchers immune from false consciousness because their
methodology does not require them to refer to self (is that possible)
... are some research methods also a kind of cultural-normative
vaccine against error?
An excellent text available in my area is Linda T. Smith's (1999)
Decolonising Methodologies it presents a Maori context Indiegenous
approach to the idea of research.
Thanks to Jan and Klauss - I will read the text over the weekend
Apologies for my pointy questions
Norm
-snip-
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