Can this be True? …

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.