The philosophy of personal epistemology (original) (raw)
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Personal Epistemology and Philosophical Epistemology
Recently it has been suggested that there is a need for a conceptual clarification of the relation between personal epistemology (PE) and philosophical epistemology. I attempt to do this in this essay. First, I clarify the task of traditional epistemology as understood by philosophers and point out how it is different from epistemology as understood by PE researchers: epistemology is not post-modernist; it has a normative goal, which is different from empirical research; subfields of epistemology are briefly mentioned and implications for PE research suggested. Second, I point out the existence of several conceptual pitfalls that should be avoided by individuals working in this area: epistemic versus epistemological, 1 st person versus 3 rd person perspectives, and an important ambiguity in the concept of cognition. Thirdly, the concept of cognitive flexibility in relation to epistemology needs to be carefully discussed, especially in relation to the issue of domain-specificity and domain-generality. This is discussed in the context of an epistemology of pragmatism. Finally, I mentioned the recent revolution produced by naturalistic epistemology and the implications of this challenge for understanding the relation between PE and traditional epistemology One needs this, they claim, in order to have a sound theoretical foundation for the study of epistemological beliefs. This is because of the vague use of the term epistemology (2001, p. 415). Hence, if PE is going to be a well defined area of study, the central concept of that field -epistemology -must be clearly specified. Apparently, many individuals believe this has not yet been done. If the concept epistemology has not been specified in a clear way, conceptual confusion may result, with a variety of pitfalls awaiting the investigator of PE. In this paper I discuss the concept of epistemology in relation to PE and I advance the following theses: (I) Traditional philosophical epistemology is different from PE: historically epistemology is not post-modernist; its goal, which is normative, is different from task of studying PE, which is empirical; the subfields of epistemology are briefly described and suggestions are made concerning Personal Epistemology and Philosophical Epistemology implications for additional work in PE. (II) There are several conceptual pitfalls PE researchers are advised to avoid: the epistemic vs. the epistemological, the 1 st person from the 3 rd person point of view, and ambiguities of cognition. (III) The concept of cognitive flexibility needs careful delineation, especially in relation to the question of domain-specificity and domain-generality. If the function of cognition is biological usefulness (adaptation) as the pragmatists maintain, then one can argue there is both domain-specific methods of inquiry and domaingeneral ones, with the domain-general ones being the testing one's ideas.
This review synthesizes and critically examines 19 empirical studies that have addressed the domain-specificity/domain-generality issue in personal epistemology. We present an overview of traditional and more contemporary epistemological stances from philosophical perspectives to offer another basis from which to examine this issue. Explicit examples of academic domains are described and epistemological comparisons are made based on our synthesized definition. Given the epistemological similarities and differences across domains that we identified from empirical and philosophical considerations, we propose that beliefs are both domain general and domain specific. Accordingly, we present a theoretical framework of personal epistemology that incorporates both positions and hypothesize how the belief systems might interact in terms of the development of personal epistemology and relations to various facets of cognition, motivation, and achievement. The article ends with a discussion of educational implications.
Students’ Metacognition and Personal Epistemology: View on Family
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 229, 2019
Personal epistemology refers to personal theories of knowledge and how knowledge is justified. The trajectory of intellectual and moral development proceeds in three major stages. Firstly, simplistic or black and white thinking; secondly, relativistic thinking which considers different perspectives as equally valid; and finally, the attainment of evaluative thinking, which is characterized by a commitment to a particular standpoint that organizes other possible perspectives. Apart from these developmental characteristics, current studies have emphasized the multi-dimensionality of personal epistemology. Recently, as these two features have become reconciled, proponents have stressed the need to relate epistemological development to constructs such as metacognition, which is deemed a pre-requisite for epistemological sophistication. In response to the need for concurrently studying metacognition and personal epistemology, this study investigates the dimensions of personal epistemology and metacognition of students on a philosophy course about the family offered within a liberal education program at a University in Metro Manila, Philippines. There were at least 13 respondents who enrolled during the second semester of school year 2017-2018. The study utilized pre- and post-test course evaluations to measure the students’ metacognitive level. Reported changes versus the actual discrepant answers were then compared and the results tabulated. The study also used an actual assessment of students’ learning to measure dimensions of personal epistemology. The students’ reasoning in the final exam, which required them to express their personal beliefs or manifesto, was thematically analyzed using the personal epistemology dimensions’ framework, tabulated, and then compared with their other scores. The results suggested that most students (11 out of 13) failed to identify the exact topics or issues where their views had changed. However, the students’ awareness of their changing views about selected topics could serve as an indicator of the magnitude of their learning. Some of these students even declared a personal commitment to transcendent values; which suggested that they had reached the most sophisticated level of personal epistemology through taking the course.
Constructing Personal Epistemologies: Cultural and Methodological Considerations
Human Development
As humans, we can become aware of ourselves as knowers. We can identify sources of our knowledge, how knowledge is constructed in the mind, and how knowledge changes. Enlightenment principles of reason, science, humanism, and progress brought forth in the 18th century help us to organize explorations of our own minds and to interrogate our own knowledge, changing our ideas when confronted with new information or frames of mind. Epistemologies are influenced by language and culture, and, as with all phenomena affected by cultural processes, epistemologies are also affected by macrolevel factors like historical time and microlevel factors like gender. How Do People Think about Their Own Knowledge and Ways of Knowing? Asking people how they think about knowledge gives insights into how their minds work, adding to the discussion of what knowledge and the mind entail in a general sense. Asking people questions about where their knowledge comes from tells us something about how they know their own minds. The question of how epistemologies develop is a compelling one, and exploring personal epistemologies (PEs) as ways of knowing adds to the story about how people develop a knowledge base and use that knowledge in interactions. The ability to articulate where our knowledge comes from appears to be uniquely human, and it is worth understanding how personal epistemologies develop and are used because they are tied to learning strategies, dispositions for learning, and cognitive reasoning (Hofer, 2001; Kuhn, 1999). PEs also have implications for assessing knowledge we come into contact with in society, af
Personal epistemology in academic agency
The aim was to identify what epistemological beliefs typify students with Low and High Academic Performance when their beliefs are reflexive or naive. Taha Mohamed and El-Habbal (2013) provided conflicting data: students with high academic performance showed more naive epistemological beliefs than their peers with lower performance .381 participants from across the country were selected. Four extreme samples were created: a) students of reflexive epistemology and high academic performance (N = 95), b) reflexive epistemology with low academic performance (N = 94), c) naive epistemology with high academic performance (N = 96) and d) naive epistemology with low academic performance (N = 96). Academic achievement tests were applied, and an introductory course in perception and learning, and self-report inventories of Cognitive and self-regulatory Study Strategies and of Personal Epistemology. Theoretical models were tested by SEM. The results showed that empirical models fitted with theoretical models, both statistically and practically. An interesting result shows that even if the reflexive epistemological beliefs are necessary components, they are not sufficient to support a successful academic performance. In models with naive beliefs is possible to find cases with high academic achievement and reflexive models may have low performance. The importance of cognitive and self-regulatory strategies as a differential factor in academic performance is confirmed and the contradictory effect is explained. Keywords: academic agency components, cognitive and self-regulatory strategies, personal epistemology.
Contemporary Epistemological Research In Education
Theory & …, 2008
In this article the authors challenge contemporary epistemological research within educational settings. After a reconciliation of the current models which treat epistemological beliefs as static and mechanical, the authors present a teaching experience to illustrate their enactivist view that epistemological beliefs should be conceptualized as fluid and dynamic constructs, emerging in web-like configurations. Answers to epistemological questions unfold within the interstices and mutual interactions between people and their environment. Boundaries between student–teacher, individual–community, cognition–bodily experience are becoming blurred. From this enactivist perspective the researcher’s role changes considerably. Instead of determining teachers’ personal traits and epistemological make-up, the researcher should sensitize teachers to the subtle ways epistemological beliefs are enmeshed within their day-to-day professional lives, focusing on the complex fabric of the teaching practice.
It has been a privilege to have been asked to edit this series of papers on education and epistemology. While philosophy of education is often considered an applied discipline, it has made contributions across the philosophical spectrum. For example, there has been a significant body of work on aesthetics and education. There have been occasional incursions into debates about ontology and even, albeit rarely, metaphysics. However, the majority of work has always been concerned with epistemology (questions of knowing) and ethics (questions of right action). Traditionally, much of this work, particularly in epistemology, has had a highly individualistic tendency. The assumption of the knowing mind as key characteristic of the rational autonomous agent is at the heart of the liberal educational tradition and takes root in Descartes' cogito: even if I doubt who I am, there is an 'I' that doubts, and this 'I' is the fundamental characteristic of the autonomous rational agent, the fully human being. Of course, heirs to this Cartesian legacy need not be solipsists: it is easy to argue that the individual has duties towards, and needs relating to others, and it is in consideration of such issues that ethics takes its place in the modern philosophical canon. In terms of social policy, the liberal tradition tends to think in terms of various construals of the social contract, whereby, at least in its early forms, the individual trades in certain aspects of his or her freedom in return for the benefits and security afforded by an ordered society. For many educationalists, at least, the key thinkers at the start of this tradition are those who conceived of the human as potentially dwelling in one of two states, that of nature or that of society. To Hobbes, the state of nature was competitive and dangerous, so only rule by a benevolent sovereign could stop people effectively tearing each other apart; to Locke, the state of nature was more benevolent, but social training, in tune with natural inclinations, would produce the best outcomes in terms of human flourishing; to Rousseau, nature was essentially good and society (in all its existing forms) was not to be trusted, even though ultimately human growth depends on social action. The Lockean view provides the perfect justification for educational intervention, insofar as the child benefits from training that builds on her natural inclinations; the Rousseauian view provides the perfect justification for delaying formal schooling and allowing children to learn through play so that they can develop healthy self-confidence before entering the bitter and competitive social world. Both these views are more empirical than idealist, in the sense that mind and knowledge are construed as developing through direct sensory experience rather than the exercise of pure reason. Nevertheless, there remains a strong sense of dualism in many of these accounts: between nature and society, between self and others, and between mind and body. Philosophers of education—indeed, philosophers generally—have found many grounds for wishing to depart from the individualistic and dualistic tendencies of modern epistemology. At the same time, questions of professional identity and genuine scepticism have combined to make many philosophers of education wary of embracing theoretical perspectives that seem radically anti-rationalist, relativist, sociological or collectivist. Thus much of the work done on the social nature of mind has been conducted outside mainstream Western philosophy, as practised in university
An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense
Science & Education, 2007
What is truth?'' Pontius Pilot asked Jesus of Nazareth. For many educators today this question seems quaintly passé. Rejection of ''truth'' goes hand-in-hand with the rejection of epistemological realism. Educational thought over the last decade has instead been dominated by empiricist, anti-realist, instrumentalist epistemologies of two types: first by psychological constructivism and later by social constructivism. Social constructivism subsequently has been pressed to its logical conclusion in the form of relativistic multiculturalism. Proponents of both psychological constructivism and social constructivism value knowledge for its utility and eschew as irrelevant speculation any notion that knowledge is actually about reality. The arguments are largely grounded in the discourse of science and science education where science is ''western'' science; neither universal nor about what is really real. The authors defended the notion of science as universal in a previous article. The present purpose is to offer a commonsense argument in defense of critical realism as an epistemology and the epistemically distinguished position of science (rather than privileged) within a framework of epistemological pluralism. The paper begins with a brief cultural survey of events during the thirty-year period from 1960-1990 that brought many educators to break with epistemological realism and concludes with comments on the pedagogical importance of realism. Understanding the cultural milieu of the past forty years is critical to understanding why traditional philosophical attacks on social constructivist ideas have proved impotent defenders of scientific realism.