Hi Becky

 

Really interesting discussion.  My immediate thought is that this sounds as though the training course is a resource – the ways in which people respond to it and use it to self manage (ie the mechanism) is shaped by context – that is the individual’s history, their learning stlye, coping style etc?  So it's the mechanism through which the intervention works that might vary, depending on context?  There is often not a ‘single way’ in which interventions work – even though those who design them often think there is .  Interventions are often designed in a contextual vacuum – its assumed everyone will respond in the same way.  Here it sounds as though  in a context-dependency is built into the intervention – with the recognition that it will work in different ways for different people and there are multiple pathways to recovery.

 

Sorry – I’ve dodged the epistemological/ontological question though!

J

 

 

 

From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hardwick, Rebecca
Sent: 27 January 2017 10:26
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Post modernism and realism

 

Morning RAMESES,

 

All your responses have been immensely helpful and mind-stretching (and encouraging!).  My study is interested in how voluntary and community organisations construct knowledge and how that knowledge is shared, with particular reference in my case studies to the ‘knowledge’ that goes into the courses which they run on self-management and recovery in mental health.   

 

What I’m grasping at is whether or not it is possible to claim that the independent reality is post-modern… what I mean is, the reality of these self-management courses is that, in one of my cases at least, there is a curriculum for the course, but how that is adapted and applied by those that go to learn, and those that train is very much a ‘there is no ultimate way of doing this, but here are somethings which may help’ – so all knowledge is of equal value, and as such, could it be said that there isn’t an objective truth/reality of what “works”?  So from a realist stance on this then could it be said that the independent reality is of the nature that there isn’t one?  (Rabbit hole here we come!)

 

Thanks for the reference suggestions too – was wondering whether Archer would be a useful person to turn to, and I’ve not come across Deely. 

 

Best wishes

Becky

 

Ps Also thinking how tiresome it would be to either be, live with or know a post modernist…”did you do the recycling?” “No, the recycling is just another form of meta-narrative and oppression of which I will play no part.  Scientists tell us that recycling is an important part of saving our planet, but that’s their truth…”! 

 

 

Rebecca Hardwick
PhD Student

01392 727408

Email:  [log in to unmask]

 

From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Daniel Hind
Sent: 26 January 2017 22:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Post modernism and realism

 

I agree with Bill. Compare the following characteristics of postmodern philosophy[1] to Margaret Archer's recent description of critical realism [2] (or Ch 3 of P&T if you prefer) and the differences are fairly clear (refs at the base). However, kick out 3 and 17, treat 6 with a pinch of salt, and you've got a passable approximation of the new pragmatism as represented by Rorty and Putnam.

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN PHILOSOPHY
1. A putative anti/post-epistemological standpoint (one that avoids giving priority to the study and establishment, of the nature of knowledge);
2. Antiessentialism (opposition to the assumption that certain things have properties that can be identified as constitutive of their identity);
3. Anti-realism (the idea that there is a way things really are, independently of any of out conceptions of them, is regarded as disposable or incoherent);
4. Opposition to transcendental arguments and viewpoints;
5. Rejection of the picture of knowledge as accurate representation;
6. Rejection of truth as correspondence to reality;
7. Rejection of final vocabularies (denial that certain words have the final philosophical say on important matters);
8. Rejection of canonical descriptions (any description can be improved upon or replaced by one more useful or otherwise appropriate);
9. Denial that any of the above characteristics implies relativism, scepticism or nihilism;
10. Suspicion of grand narratives or meta-narratives;
11. Rejection of the 'metaphysics of presence';
12. Rejection of the typical binary oppositions that tend to play a constitutve role in philosophical thinking (e.g. mind=body and fact-value).
13. Rejection of the notion of the neutrality and sovreignty of reason (and a recognition of its gendered, historical and ethnocentric features);
14. A conception of 'world-world' mappings as social constructions;
15. Historicism;
16. Dissolution of the concept of the autonous, rational subject;
17. Ambivalence towards the Enlightenment and its ideology;
18. Rejection of standard accounts of the division of labour in knowledge acquisition and production.

Refs:

1. Magnus B. Postmodern Pragmatism: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Rorty. In Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism., R. Hollinger & D. Depew (eds), 256-83. Westport, Ct. Praeger.
2. Archer, M. et al. What is Critical Realism. Perspectives: a newsletter of the theory section. Fall 2016. http://www.asatheory.org/current-newsletter-online/what-is-critical-realism

 

On 26 January 2017 at 17:56, Hardwick, Rebecca <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Good afternoon,

 

I am thinking about post modernism and realism and how they relate/negate to each other.

 

In some of my work in mental health user involvement in recovery work, people with lived experience of mental health conditions are encouraged to find out for themselves what works for them – the idea that there is an objective reality of mental health recovery, and that there are absolute truths about what works is shied away from in favour of a ‘if it feels good do it’ mentality. 

 

Thinking about this today, it’s making me wonder if the recovery movement in mental health is post-modern?  That they wouldn’t agree there was an absolute truth about ‘what works’, or an objective reality of what a ‘recovery journey’ looks like, but that all versions are equally valid, and ‘true’ if they work for the individual? 

 

This feels quite at odds with a realist stance, which would hold that there is one independent reality, which is knowable, and that we may not get close to knowing all of it all at once, we can make better and better educated guesses….

 

So here’s the question: I can’t believe I am the first person to wonder and want to write about how realism and post modernism relate, or not.  So – do any of you know who’s written about this before, or of any worthwhile pieces I could read? 

 

(I have an awful feeling no one is going to reply to this….!)

 

Yours faithfully

 

Becky

 

Ps I always found postmodernism ultimately unsatisfying for the fact that you end up saying ridiculous things like “It is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths”.  But it was a fun way to idle time in the 90s over drinks in The New Cross Inn.

 

Rebecca Hardwick PhD Student 01392 727408 email [log in to unmask] www.exeter.ac.uk/medicine Institute of Health Research, University of Exeter, South Cloisters, Room 1.41 St Luke's Campus Exeter EX1 2LU   http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/realisthive/
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