Dear RAMESES members ,
It was great to meet many of you in Liverpool at what was a great conference.
The reason for this post centres upon a philosophical muddle I am currently in trying to make sense and gain clarity around the philosophical groundings of my PhD. Apologies if this comes across as a stupid message !
In my MPHil viva just over a month ago I was asked to clarify the philosophical groundings of my PhD which involves training practitioners to elicit RE in their own projects and then me testing my training framework through an RE methodology. Immediately I moved towards realism or more specifically critical realism where I covered that there is a reality independent of our knowledge of it yet there are hidden mechanisms / generative causality etc etc. For me, as I am training practitioners to carry out RE on their own social change interventions , and thus using RE myself to test my framework with the practitioners, I highlighted that my take on things was to explore how individuals (for whom) impact on and are impacted by external structures (contexts) and then reason against resources provided (mechanisms) which lead to certain behaviours and outcomes. I felt I had done a decent job in explaining that individuals have the capacity to change only through navigating their own internal dispositions and within the structural dynamics external to them (eg structure and agency).
Then I was then asked to explain how my position (critical realist) was different to realist and I started to feel hot and uneasy! I basically did not feel comfortable with the question.
Since then (and at the conference) I have been trying to establish the difference between realism and critical realism. I still cannot get to a position where I can fully distinguish between the two. In some text books realism is an ontological position and then an epistemological position.
I have just started reading Ray's new book which actually states in the opening pages the fact that he is not critical realist per se, and that in the following chapter 'the seven pillars' applies different takes (from my interpretation) of realist thinkers / greats. Does that mean Pawson and Tilley's take on realistic evaluation draws upon a variety of different realist positions that drives their approach?
Can anyone help? Am I not the only one new to this field having the same troubles? I think the key question is : is there anyone who could advise how to answer these questions in a VIVA and be able to firmly state what the philosophical foundations (ontological and epistemological) of their PhD are which then leads to the methodology of RE?
Apologies again if this comes across as an 'idiots' email but that's certainly how I feel right now 'philosophically'!
Kind Regards
Kevin Harris
Senior Fellow : Higher Education Academy
Senior Lecturer Sport Development and Sport Policy
Course Leader, BA Hons Sport Coaching and Development
Southampton Solent University
East Park Terrace
02380 319520
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