Philip Snelders; An Essentially Contesting Philosopher: a reply to John Wilson, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 17–22.

Deviant forms of human thought may provide insight into epistemic standards, such as rationality. A comparative analysis of paranoia and reinforced dogmatism suggests that reinforced dogmatism, such as pseudo-science a-la-Popper, demonstrates a primary epistemic lack of critical rationality, that is, of testability, whereas paranoia demonstrates a lack of range of alternative statements leading secondarily to a lack of testability. This reflects the importance to both epistemology and psychiatry of epistemic standards in addition to testability, such as relevance to problems, and (...) emphasizes the distinction of the context of introduction from the contexts of discovery and of justification. Key Words: context of introduction • paranoia • reinforced dogmatism • relevance • testability. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of the general methodology of qualitative research, such as that used in some health research, has been inductivist or relativist to date, ignoring critical rationalism as a philosophical approach with which to discuss the general methodology of qualitative research. This paper presents a discussion of the general methodology of qualitative research from a critical rationalist perspective (inspired by Popper), using as an example mental health research. The widespread endorsement of induction in qualitative research is positivist and is suspect, (...) if not false, particularly in relation to the context of justification (or rather theory testing) as compared to the context of discovery (or rather theory generation). Relativism is riddled with philosophical weaknesses and hence it is suspect if not false too. Theory testing is compatible with qualitative research, contrary to much writing about and in qualitative research, as theory testing involves learning from trial and error, which is part of qualitative research, and which may be the form of learning most conducive to generalization. Generalization involves comparison, which is a fundamental methodological requirement of any type of research (qualitative or other); hence the traditional grounding of quantitative and experimental research in generalization. Comparison—rather than generalization—is necessary for, and hence compatible with, qualitative research; hence, the common opposition to generalization in qualitative research is misdirected, disregarding whether this opposition’s claims are true or false. In conclusion, qualitative research, similar to quantitative and experimental research, assumes comparison as a general methodological requirement, which is necessary for health research. (shrink)

Michael Naish; Education and Essential Contestability Revisited, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 18, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 141–153, https://doi.

Philip Cam has been an inspiration to me in his approach to Philosophy for Children, and I have tried to follow the trail he blazed. He is a master of developing what I call ‘practitioner theories’ of Philosophy for Children. These are practical theories designed to be useful for practitioners of Philosophy for Children, rather than abstract theories designed to contribute to the scholarship of Philosophy for Children. I first explain what I mean by a practitioner theory, using Cam’s Question (...) Quadrant as an illustration. Then, for the rest of the article I give a more detailed analysis and elaboration of Cam’s practitioner theory about assessing thinking. This theory first appears in Thinking Together in the form of a table that teachers can use to assess how frequently their students perform different thinking moves. For example, we can assess student thinking based on how often they ask questions, or build on what someone else has said. I will show how this seemingly simple theory captures a great deal of theoretical complexity, combining themes about thinking moves from Splitter and Sharp, making thinking visible from Perkins and Richhart, and habits of mind from Costa and Kallick. I will also show how we can develop Cam’s practitioner theory into a sharper tool for assessing thinking if we incorporate further insights about learning to think, and assessing thinking, from Perkins, Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky and Bloom. (shrink)

There is no consensus about appropriate philosophical method that can be relied on to settle philosophical questions and instead of established findings, there are multiple conflicting arguments and positions, and widespread disagreement and debate. Given this feature of philosophy, it might seem that philosophy has proven to be a worthless endeavour, with no possibility of philosophical progress. The challenge then is to develop a conception of philosophy that reconciles the lack of general or lasting agreement with the possibility of philosophical (...) progress. I present such a conception in this paper. I argue that the aim of philosophy is to resolve philosophical problems, which is different from establishing settled and final answers or positions. Philosophical problems involve inadequate or incongruous conceptions that cannot be settled once and for all but can be resolved by transforming our conceptions so they are now congruous and adequate. There is philosophical progress every time a warranted, defensible position is developed that resolves a philosophical problem, even if there are competing resolutions and further problems to resolve, as there always are in philosophy. (shrink)