To know not what I do
There are two opposing schools of philosophical thought – Realism & Idealism. The Realists’ ontology (bring-in-the-world view) is that material things exist independently of anyone’s thought. That is, if a tree falls down in the forest, and no one hears it, it has still fallen down and that fall may have consequences for other life-world creatures who encounter the tree, whether or not they had time to think about it. On the other hand the Idealists might argue that the life-world does not actually exist at all (Berkley was famous for this). Nothing really exists, we just think it does – hence Descarte’s profound, “I think therefore I am (as opposed to MontePython’s, “I drink therefore I am”, which is quite realistic when you think about it). Descarte thought a lot about these things, and so when we refer to the ‘Cartesian dilemma’ we are getting on to this sort of stuff.
A lot of qualitative and phenomenological (bless their socks) researchers make a methodological distinction between Objectivism (a research position that accepts the notion of real, out-there objects), Subjectivism (one that doesn’t care whether anything’s out there because only my inner world is of interest to me anyway), and Constructionism (where the researcher says, ‘OK, the worldly stuff is out there, but I will make sense of it in my own way, which may or may not be similar to how you put it together. So our realities are different, but they are both based on independent, life-world components).
I prefer Husserl’s notion of apperception – the idea that two contradictory ideas may co-exist alongside of each other, and as a philosopher, I am able to believe in them both. After all, if you think about it, the only thing that gets in the way of this harmonic dualism is the concept of time – and Husserl tackled that as well.
But ontology in research is so overrated. What really matters is epistemology. (Yes, yes, I’m getting to the difference.) Ontology has become the alpha framework tag because we are still hung over with the excesses of modernism. Modernism – the mental mode, scientific obsession of the twentieth century. Gebser reminds us that this was/is an age that would not tolerate any other thinking that positivist realism. It was an arrogant age with a defence mechanism as far flung as infinity. If it wasn’t scientific and quantifiable, then it wasn’t worth studying. This is why psychology had such a hard time being accepted as a science, and had to sell out with Behaviourism before it was taken seriously.
Anyway – Epistemology. This, of course is about Knowing, while ontology is about being. I rather like the idea of idealism, in the Berkeley sense, which claims that nothing exists. Now plenty of us would protest that things do exist, and quickly site falling-over-log sorts of examples. But come with me, just for fun, on this little epistemological mind bender….
Let us focus for a moment on how we KNOW WHAT WE KNOW (EPISTEMOLOGY).Forget about living and breathing and going about in the world (ontology) – so base! Let us turn our mind to higher things – the manifestation of knowledge:
Imagine – there are three of us sitting about a round table, at the centre of which is a crystal ball. If we look at the crystal ball, each from our own perspective, what do we see? The crystal ball? No. We think that’s what we see, but actually, each of us sees something different. I see the flower vase reflected and misshapen with colour, you see your own reflection and the doorway around your head like a halo, someone else – what do they see? The future? So each of us actually sees something different. Even if I sat close to you, I would see things from a perspective that would not be exactly the same as yours. So what exists for me is a reality that no one else can share – not exactly, even if they tried. My reality is unique. And my reality exists only in my mind, because it is inaccessible to anyone else. Outside of my knowledge of it, my reality does not exist at all. So nothing exists, as far as I can know, except in my mind.
Have a good weekend.
