EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology usually refers to a theory of knowledge. Epistemologies are usuall distinguished by the unit of appraisal - what is being judged; their standards of judgement - how is the validity of a claim to knowledge being judged and their logic which is the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprending the claim to knowledge as rational.
In living Educational Theory Research:
The unit of appraisal is the individual's or community's explanation of their educational influences in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of the social formations within which the practice is located.
The standards of judgement are the values used as explanatory principles in the explanations of educational influence in learning. Each individual or community has its own unique constellation of values that it uses as explanatory principles.
The living logic of a living-educational-theory is the mode of thought that is appropriate for comprehending the theory as rational.
Readers interested in logic may wish to understand why Popper rejected dialectical logic:
In answering his question, ‘What is Dialectic?’, Popper (1963) rejects dialectical claims to knowledge as, ‘without the slightest foundation. Indeed, they are based on nothing better than a loose and woolly way of speaking’ (p.316).
In his embrace of dialectica logic Marchse says that in the classical logic, the judgement which constituted the original core of dialectical thought was formalized in the propositional form, ‘S is p.’ But this form conceals rather than reveals the basic dialectical proposition, which states the negative character of the empirical reality.” (Marcuse, 1964, p. 111).
Ilyenkov (1977) states clearly the problem of contradiction in the the 2,500 history of argument between dialectical and formal logicians;
Contradiction as the concrete unity of mutually exclusive opposites is the real nucleus of dialectics, its central category. On that score there cannot be two views among Marxists; but no small difficulty immediately arises as soon as matters touch on ‘subjective dialectics’, on dialectics as the logic of thinking. If any object is a living contradiction, what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it? Can and should an objective contradiction find reflection in thought? And if so, in what form?Contradiction as the concrete unity of mutually exclusive opposites is the real nucleus of dialectics, its central category. On that score there cannot be two views among Marxists; but no small difficulty immediately arises as soon as matters touch on ‘subjective dialectics’, on dialectics as the logic of thinking. If any object is a living contradiction, what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it? Can and should an objective contradiction find reflection in thought? And if so, in what form? (p.313)
Ilyenkov, E. (1977) Dialectical Logic. Moscow; Progress Publishers
Marcuse, H. (1964) One Dimensional Man, London; Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Popper, K. (1963) Conjectures and Refutations, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
