Hi, Rosan.
I like your question very much. I find that questions like that often
end up revealing a great deal.
I do not believe that personal exploration is unique to doctoral
inquiry, and I don't believe I said that. It is the other part of my
note that perhaps explains the paradox of serious inquiry--and your
instinct for this is important. Inquiry begins in a personal desire to
know and understand. But along the way, the subjective element achieves
a kind of objectivity in the world. What is particularly important is
how we ground our inquiry, moving it from something quite subjective and
not open to challenge by anyone toward something that is or could be
shared by others.
I hope you will be equally cautious about the term "objectivity." It
seems to me that many people make assumptions about what it means to be
"objective," but not many people think really hard about that word.
What I liked a great deal in Norm's message was the implied idea that we
may find, at the end of our inquiries, what is truly significant in the
world. I hope that a sound education in a Ph.D. program will help us to
understand and judge what is significant.
Please note that I have not said what is grounded. I just said that we
need a grounding of some kind in order to be someone. One of the
fascinating things about serious inquiry is that we may discover a
principle that explains things for us. I suspect that there are many
such principles in the world, and that this accounts for the pluralism
of visions and inquiries we see all around us.
For me, all of education is a passage from subjective existence to a
well-grounded state of being. At each stage along the way, I think we
retain what is personally meaningful to us, as individuals, but we
gradually learn where we are in the world.
I'm sorry if this seems cryptic. I am often accused of being so. I
don't mind, so long as what I say makes someone puzzled enough to keep
thinking.
Good luck in your work! I'll be in Telluride, Colorado for a few days
at the big Interaction Design meeting. I will look forward to comparing
the Alps and the Rockies.
Dick
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