Hi Paul
The implication of your final statement being that therapy isn't
constructive? :-)
I found it so... Not least because it suggests to me that we should include
at least one reading, and perhaps a discussion topic / exercise in the
professional training to come out of RAMESES, on retroduction - or perhaps
more broadly the various kinds of logic we use at various stages of the
analytic process in realist evaluation and realist synthesis.
Certainly you're in good company in discussing the use of
abduction/retroduction in realist work... but your post started me
re-pondering exactly at what points we do or should use retroductive
reasoning. My favourite quote from the Commens Peirce dictionary where he's
discussing how he intended the term
(http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/retroduction.html ): "By the
third class of reasonings one only infers that a certain state of things may
be true and that the indications of its being so are sufficient to warrant
further examination."
I.e. my argument here is: one makes the inferential leap and then
investigates the evidence to 'support, refute or refine' it (I think that
latter is a Pawson and Tilley quote btw). Which suggests that retroduction
is not the only form of logic or reasoning in use - it's just a step in the
process. Which suggests that it would be useful to map the kinds of
reasoning we should use at different steps the process...
And I'm with you: I can't for the life of me understand how any scientist,
social or otherwise, can have a problem with this!
I'd welcome references for good readings on retroduction by the way - found
them hard to come by when doing my PhD, but perhaps I was looking in the
wrong places.
I'd also be interested to hear from the meta-narrative reviewers amongst us
about whether the kinds of reasoning in use are the same or different in
MNR. Because from my position of ignorance about the latter, I'm now
wondering whether this is one of the significant differences between the
methods...
Cheers
Gill
-----Original Message-----
From: Realist and Meta-narrative Evidence Synthesis: Evolving Standards
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Ward
Sent: Wednesday, 10 August 2011 7:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interim summary - How much should we impugn....
Hi Geoff
In my field of research (a sociologist in public health), I'm constantly
being asked to account for and explain my 'leaps of faith', which I think is
fair enough to ask. This is most obvious in my research on the sociology of
trust, where researchers, often implicitly and unknowingly, assume Simmel's
position of trust being a leap of faith (which still held sway with Giddens
and Luhmann too). Whilst such a 'leap' (i.e. to invest trust) may occur in
the absence of conscious/rationalistic thought, one can still use
retroductive reasoning (from critical realism) as a way of transparently
'laying bare' how you made the decision. Similarly, retroductive reasoning
or logic seems to be a formal process for what you're talking about in terms
of interpolating from the evidence in a RR. All scientists (natural,
social, biomedical, physical etc) use all forms of inductive, deductive,
abductive and retroductive logic in their research (often implicitly), so
maybe we need to be clear (and have a 'name' for our reasoning)?
Whilst this all sounds great, retroduction still isn't always viewed as
'scientific' within sociology - I submitted a paper to a very good sociology
journal recently using retroductive logic to make a distinction between
trust and dependence (patients in our study said they trusted their doctors
but also said they had 'no choice' etc, which for us does not constitute
trust, but a form of dependence) - one of the reviewers loved it but the
other just couldn't get his/her head around the 'logical process' we had
used to make this 'semantic leap' - this may in part be my lack of clarity
in laying bare the retroductive process, but may also be continual problems
between the supposed value free nature of 'proper' science (it apparently
involves facts, not reasoning or argument - I wish some of my biomedical
colleagues would read Kuhn) and the 'value laden' notion of reasoning.
Sorry if this seems like a rant...... it was meant to be constructive but
ended up like therapy:)
Cheers
Paul
******************************
Professor Paul Ward
Discipline of Public Health
Flinders University
On 10/08/2011, at 3:13 AM, "Geoff Wong" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> This thread could be boiled down to two important questions:
>
> 1) In a realist synthesis (RS) should reviewers infer/make
assumptions/interpret beyond what is reported in the included studies?
>
> 2) If we do make these 'leaps' how do we know these are 'true'?
>
>
> GOING 'BEYOND' THE REPORTED DATA
> There was agreement that this was in fact almost a requirement of RS. One
argument was that there would rarely ever be enough data to banish all
uncetainties and so staying too close to the data would result in a RS
ending with the cliched phrase of 'more research is needed'.
> One strength of RS was that it is specifically geared at requiring this
leap to be made - for example in working out what a mechansims might be that
is generating the outcome of interest. Such leaps were seen as being the
value that RS adds.
> Reviewers were in a good position to make such leaps as they would be
immersed in the literature on the topic and had the advantages of being able
to look beyond just the topic and/or across studies and "critical distance".
The key was to be explicit and explain that
inferences/assumptions/extrapolations/interpretations were being made.
>
> THE 'TRUTH'
> If you are a realist you would not expect to ever get to the 'truth'
> but you might expect to get closer and closer :-) There are many
challenges associated with making
inferences/assumptions/extrapolations/interpretations.
> How do you or others know if you haven't just "hijacked" the data for your
own ends?
> How do you know is your 'leap' is 'true'?
> etc.
> These questions raise issues about 'quality' and 'rigour' and so on. As a
secondary researcher (unlike in primary research such as realist
evaluation), you can't go back and ask participants what they think about
your leaps. However, you can be TRANSPARENT about what you did and why. This
should allow others to see for themselves that your 'leap' was COHERENT and
PLAUSIBLE. As one contributer put it "... this is what I think is going on,
and this is the way I came to that decision...". Briefly, any judgement of
coherence and plausibility would rest on how well your explanation fits in
with not only what we already know, but also with the reported data in
included studies.
> Transparency might involve reporting revelant detail and also processes -
such as searching was designed to get the 'right' kind of data, that the
review team was reflextive etc.
> Others can then judge for themselves the coherence and plausibility of
your inferences/assumptions/extrapolations/interpretations. If they don't
like it, then it's up to them to provide an alternative coherent and
plausible inferences/assumptions/extrapolations/interpretations.
>
> This thread came up with two pther points which I hav just noted here but
not explored further.
> - Is there such a thing as "interpretation free" research?
> - Any outputs for a review should think about who the audience might be
and tailor their output to their needs - and if possible make them think!
>
> A final point arose which was about how do you come up with theories...
this will be covered in another Interim summary.
>
> Geoff
>
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