It seems on
face value, perfectly reasonable to conceive of asking questions to get at the
truth. When reading or watching TV I often think ‘is that true?’ ‘what is the
truth behind that?’ and I’m sure you probably do to.
But what do we
mean when we seek the truth in something? Does truth equate to Factualness? Or
authenticity? Or righteousness? Or
other measures?
I pretty much
think the notion of ‘truth’ is very difficult to handle in research that has a
social basis (like a professional enquiry that seeks insights relating to
professional practice as a social entity). This may be because truth is partly founded
in the notion that something can be understood as factually correct. Now that
is fine in the natural sciences (e.g. physics, biology, chemistry etc.) because
the natural sciences seek to test empirically the basis of any fact statements.
So for example, from a natural science perspective, we can be completely positive
in stating that the Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection is true. It is
established, scientific fact. But it is important to note that it may be true
as a scientific fact, yet fail as a theological (social) truth. Within
particular theological conceptions, Natural Selection is not true because it
does not agree with particular theological teachings. Illogical as it might
seem, when operating within certain religious contexts, Natural Selection is
untrue.
Within
professional practice, we seek to use social scientific methods to explain the
human condition and experience. In doing so we recognise that any explanation
is contingent on the particular social, cultural, political, economic,
geographical and historical context that the experience exists within. To say
there are underpinning ‘truths’ is to grip the experiences too tightly,
squeezing out the relevance and meaning that comes from the situations in which
the experiences occur.
So perhaps we
should not ask whether something is ‘true’. But rather ask ‘what different
possible accounts can we give for a particular phenomena?’ and ‘to what extent
do we think one or more of these explanations is useable or worthwhile within a
specific context?’ In making these assertions, we may seek underlying features
(we call these generalisations) however in a great deal of social science research,
absolute generalisable rules have to live alongside other features such as
relevance of knowledge in a particular context.
The tighter
and more specific the focus of our questions, the more we can block out the noise
from all the different situations and contexts in which our questions could be
posed and that would lead to different responses.
When we ask ‘What
is the best way to teach Ballet’ we carry notions of absolute truths. The
question starts with the premise that there is actually only one ‘best way’.
The question ignores the range of situations, places, times, cultures, age
groups etc. in which ballet may be taught.
Better perhaps
to ask ‘In this very specific given situation, what different approaches to teaching
Ballet produce what effects?’
You may like
to view my previous Blog on
the-art-of-asking that relates to this post.
