Empirical Tradition Research Articles

Traditional Empiricism, the Myth of the Given, and Self-Knowledge

Traditional Empiricism, the Myth of the Given, and Self-Knowledge

Causalité et pensée médicale : un cas en controverse

Questions of method in medicine are always posed in situations that are empirically difficult. The etiological model, undoubtedly still the dominant model in medicine, including in psychiatry, finds its justifications in the method, which proceeds from causality. The author recalls the history of the concept of causality, which, from the time of the Aristotelian and Arabic traditions (astrology and mathematics), was founded on the idea of a necessary order of the world, an order in which all events are linked. This conception was taken up by Renaissance philosophers and integrated into the epistemology of modern sciences since Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, along with some notions of neoplatonic and medieval schools, that is, that of order and first cause. In the history of philosophy, it may be acknowledged that two traditions distinguish themselves on these questions: that of the rationalist and analytic tradition (according to the terms used by Descartes), and the empirical tradition. The rationalist principle becomes, with the Romantic movement, the inspiration for a priori and idealist doctrines; leading the way in medicine are Laplace and Claude Bernard. The empirical current of causality found its bases in the philosophy of Al Ghazali in the 11th century. However, it is to Hume that we owe a theory of causality that excludes an a priori deductibility of things and affirms the method of the proof of the link. Contemporary scientific epistemology is dominated by a neo-Humean conception of causality. The empirical method of causality significantly influenced the evolution of medicine and neurological and psychiatric conceptions of the brain. Suffice it to evoke, among others, pioneers such as Gall, and also Broca and Wernicke. The author articulates these historical considerations with neurological and psychological clinical data of a particular case. A controversial case, Parkinson's disease, illustrates the limits of the causality method in clinical practice. The author shows the value of considering the contradiction between the interpretation of clinical signs and technical investigations and the diagnostic certainly represented by an autopsy. The latter permits the establishment of a linear explanation of cause and effect, that is, a precise lesion corresponding to a known disease. The etiological model is thus confirmed thanks to the autopsy model; hence the need to reconsider clinical practice, its epistemology, and the validity of causal reasoning. We may observe that the debate between “topographical” and “functional” diagnoses arises, doubtless, from an old medical quarrel, which remains open despite the present finesse of tools at our disposal. We would be permitted to think that, without agreement between “topographical” and “functional” diagnoses, the interpretation of data should make these two fields interact in some other way. The author supports her argument by a phenomenological and psychoanalytical approach and identifies a clinical humanist episteme founded on indeterminism and which therefore takes into account that the observer and the observed define a field of experience that is limited and relative, always subject to double inference. The epistemological proposition, which follows, suggests leaving behind reasoning according to diagnostic categories and rather basing clinical practice on the understanding of the “course of the particular case through the disease”. The categorical method in medicine could give way to the more qualitative concept of the patient's experience and of his condition of being-in-the-world in its intersubjectivity. This would lead the clinician to leave behind etiology in favour of quantum, that is, probabilist, causality.

'A tradition of empire': Fernando Pessoa and Germany

'A tradition ofempire': FernandoPessoaand Germany ANTÓNIO SOUSA RIBEIRO Letusstart with whatisapparently themostobvious. Álvarode Campos's invective againstGermany in his'Ultimatum' of 1917 iswellknownand scarcely needsquotation: Tu, cultura alemã, Sparta podre comazeite decristismo evinagre denietzschização, colmeia delata, transbordamento imperialóide deservilismo engatado!1 In a fragment in themannerofa preface,probably written in 1919 or 1920, and attributed byRichardZenithto Thomas Crosse,Pessoa's maskforthe putativeauthorof a neverrealized Englishtranslation of 'Ultimatum', Campos's manifesto, qualifiedas 'quite the cleverest piece of literature called into being by the GreatWar',is specifically described, Originaland magnificent as itis',as 'notpro-German (being anti-everything, Allied and German)'.2 In fact,the satiric-apocalyptic references to theextensive rangeofEuropeannationsand rulerslisted byPessoa'sheteronym in hismanifesto allowforno exceptionand are extremely violentin tone.A fewparagraphs beforethepassagequoted above,the emperorWilhelmII, 'canhoto manetado braço esquerdo, Bismarck sem tampaa estorvar o lume',had alreadyreceivedhisshare of abuse.3 The veryimmoderatenatureof the rhetoricof Campos's manifesto could easilylead thereadersof'Ultimatum' - thoseof 1917 as wellas thoseoftoday- to understand thediatribeagainst'German culture'asjustanotherelementin an ultimately gratuitous and aleatory satiric game- thesamegamethatgenerates, forexample,theimageofa 'batente de portatipoK' foranAustria apostrophized asa 'mistura de subra ças'.4Summarized in threeshortlines- 'Spartapodrecom azeitede 1Álvarode Campos,'Ultimatum', Portugal Futurista, reprint edition(Lisbon: ContextoEditora, 1981), p. 30. TheSelected Prose ofFernando Pessoa,ed. and trans, byRichardZenith(NewYork:GrovePress, 2001),p. 70. ûPortugal futurista, p.30.Itshouldbenoted, asevidence that Campos isnottiring atrandom, that theKaiser's left arm, as many contemporary readers wouldcertainly be aware, wasindeed almost paralysed duetotheincompetence ofthedoctors that hadassisted athisbirth. 'Canhoto maneta do braçoesquerdo'thusconveys as a cruelparadox a caricature imageoftheKaiser's innate incapacity. 4 Portugal Futurista, p. 30. Zenithis right in pointing outthattheimageofthedoorjamb seemstoevoke Austria's subservience towards theGerman Kaiser, Selected Prose, p. 327.The 'K' couldalsobe an allusion totheinitials 'k.u.k,'('kaiserlich undköniglich', imperial androyal) that qualified theAustro-Hungarian Empire inallofficial references anddocuments andthat provided thesource for Robert Musil's pun'Kakanien' inThe ManWithout Qualities - oritcould simply bea random association derived from somesalescatalogue. 2O2 ANTÓNIO SOUSA RIBEIRO cristismo e vinagrede nietzschização, colmeiade lata,transbordamento imperialóide de servilismo engatado!'- Campos'sdiatribe rests, however, upon a numberof substantial assumptions the ambiguouscontoursof whichcouldnotbe adequately tracedbeforetherevelation ofthebulkof unpublished texts and fragments brought tolight overthelasttwenty-five years. In thosetexts and fragments, inparticular theonessituated within thecontextoftheFirst WorldWar,one can find,as I willshow,a much morepositive imageofGermany. This cannotcome as a surprise to us ifwe bear in mindhowmuchtheelementofcontradiction is a central component ofPessoa'saesthetics. Asthepoethimself repeatedly reminds us,onlythosewhorestrict themselves toopinionscanmaintain a constant position;thosewhothink, thinkalso through contradiction.5 The issue, however, is notsimply theomnipresence ofcontradiction in hiswritings and the consciousplaywithdifferent, oftenoppositeperspectives; as a matter offact,an adequate reconstruction of contextshowsthatthe characterization ofGermanculturein theshortlinesof 'Ultimatum' is also markedbyan elementofdisappointment, thatis,itsperspective is notapodictically negative, buthasas itscounterpoint a frustrated positive horizonofexpectation. In fact, thevisionof'Germany' expressed byÁlvarode Campossimply represents theextreme pole ofan amplespectrum ranging from utterly negativeviewsto a predominantseries of positiveevaluations.The analogy with Sparta,forexample,canbe easily understood inthelight of a passagesuchas thefollowing, written immediately after thewar, where PessoasignalsthatGermany's comparative advantage was: serna guerra o que era na paz,e na disciplina particular da vidaguerreira o que erana geralde todaa suavida- umanaçãoplenamente organizada, coerindo dinamicamente emvirtude deumaaplicação inteligente e estudada dos princípios deorganização. Unlike this passage, the 'Ultimatum'incorporates,however,the chargeofdecadence - 'Spartapodre' - a chargealso vividly present in theadjective'imperialóide'.Leavingaside otheraspectsofCampos's characterization, I willcentremyanalysison the richimplications of thisadjective.'Imperialóide',as a matterof fact,is notjust a wordof abuse. The diagnosisof decadence has nothingin commonwiththe motif ofthebetrayal ofthehumanistic legacyofGermanphilosophical and culturaltradition, a motifthatreverberates in the epoch in the 5Incidentally, exactly thesameview isexpressed alsoinan aphorism byKarlKraus, thegreat Viennese satirist with whom Pessoainsomeaspects presents striking, asyetalmost unexplored analogies. Fora first attempt at a comparison see my'Metamorphoses oftheFlâneur. From Ringstrasse to Rua dosDouradores', NewComparison, 21 (Spring1997), 65-77. Fernando Pessoa, Sobre Portugal: Introdução ao problema nacional,ed. byJoel Serrão (Lisbon: Ática, 1978),p.98. FERNANDO PESSOA AND GERMANY 203 anti-Germanism of, among others,GuerraJunqueiroor Teixeirade Pascoaes.7The depreciatory senseof'imperialóide'has tobe measured, instead, in relationto Pessoa'stheory ofimperialism and to thepositive notionofempireitimplies.In thiscontext, 'imperialóide'does notjust meanan impotent mimicry ofempire, itpointsalso tothebetrayal ofan original imperial...

Comparative Labour History in Britain and Australia

The comparative method is a valuable tool for understanding labour history in Australia and the UK. This paper defines comparative labour history and examines the various benefits and problems of comparative research. The article then looks at the use of comparative labour history in Australia and UK. It argues that comparative analysis plays a marginal role in both labour historiographies due to a strong empiricist tradition. This tradition also mitigates against a sophisticated discussion of both concepts and comparative method. Where comparative method is used, there is a bias towards 'Anglo-Saxon' countries partially due to limited non-English language skills. Among UK historians who focus on the UK, academic links with many parts of the former British Empire, including the USA, are stronger than they are with Europe. When Australian labour historians have adopted a comparative approach, it focuses on 'settler societies' such as Canada and the USA, where there is a common interest in general questions such as the 'frontier' and more specific issues such as scientific management and the Industrial Workers of the World. The article concludes by arguing that comparative labour history has to take into account the streams of cultural transfer between nationally constituted labour movements to produce better results.

III. The Social Construction of Lesbianism: Resistance and Reconstruction

For many of us the appearance of Celia Kitzinger’s The Social Construction of Lesbianism (1987) was a signal event in the struggle to develop a viable alternative to traditional empiricist psychology. The work was particularly significant because of its multiple and simultaneous accomplishments. First, it went beyond many of the meta-theoretical and philosophic critiques of the empiricist paradigm by offering an alternative form of inquiry. Where others had criticized past traditions, Kitzinger was exploring new futures. Second, and equally important, Kitzinger’s book demonstrated the ways in which significant social inquiry could be coupled with political passion. Abandoning the flawed assumptions of ‘scientific neutrality’, Kitzinger set out on a responsible course of ideological critique. Finally, her book demonstrated that, even with a constructionist sensitivity to the limits of methods, it was still possible to employ methodology to add rhetorical force to one’s scholarly views. And, rendering support to many other critics of mainstream methods of experimentation, Kitzinger provided a powerful case for qualitative methodology. In her work, social constructionist inquiry began to acquire a life of its own. Her volume formed the first contribution to the Sage series in social construction, for which one of us (KJG) served as editor. The series ultimately formed a corpus of 22 books, and was abandoned only because social constructionist ideas had become so prevalent across the social sciences that a specialized publishing venue was no longer required. Yet, while the publication of Kitzinger’s volume was a pivotal contribution to post-empiricist psychology, it is also interesting to consider the vicissitudes of history since publication. Our particular concern is the case of psychology related to lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) issues in the USA. Here we confront a decidedly mixed picture, but a context that lends special appreciation to the existence of Kitzinger’s work.

The ‘architecture of colour-form’: Adrian Stokes and Venice

Adrian Stokes (1902–72) — aesthete, critic, painter and poet — is linked to John Ruskin and Walter Pater as one of the greatest aesthetic thinkers in this English empirical tradition. This paper explores his insights on the reciprocity of colour and form in relation to architecture.

The Rashness of Traditional Rationalism and Empiricism

I was brought up to believe that, in the “great debate” with the Rationalists, the Empiricists had largely won, particularly in view of Quine's holistic conception of justification, whereby even the claims of logic, though remote from experience, are indirectly tested by it. But some years ago I awoke to the possibility that there was something fishy in all this, and that the fallibilistic banalities that have played such a large role in driving the Quinean conception couldn't plausibly have such dramatic consequences. “Everything can be revised in the light of experience” is good advice for someone who hasn't noticed just how rich, complex and indirect our reasonings about any issue, including logic and mathematics, can be; but does it really tell against what Kant and the others had in mind when they believed that there were some claims whose justification needn't appeal to experience (which, it's crucial to remember, is how he and others thought of it, until the Positivists and Quine revised it to “unrevisability“)?

Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: PsychotherapyFull AccessSchema Therapy: A Practitioner’s GuideSCOTT D. TEMPLE, Ph.D., SCOTT D. TEMPLESearch for more papers by this author, Ph.D., Iowa City, IowaPublished Online:1 Nov 2003https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.160.11.2074-aAboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail In this highly engaging volume, Young and colleagues offer a robust clinical model and a compelling treatment protocol for the whole spectrum of personality disorders. Young’s work has its roots in Aaron T. Beck’s model of cognitive behavior therapy. Yet Schema Therapy is an integrative approach, one that contains intriguing possibilities for integrating cognitive behavioral, psychoanalytic, and experiential approaches to treatment. Striving to develop “the bible” of schema therapy (p. vii), Young and colleagues have written a rich and important addition to the psychotherapy literature. But it is an addition that is not without its controversial elements.At its heart, the book takes a developmental perspective on the formation and treatment of personality disorders. The lack of a developmental theory in cognitive behavior therapy has long been problematic when cognitive behavior therapy has left the confines of theory and treatment of axis I disorders. Young and his colleagues argue that the core beliefs, affects, and problematic interpersonal and coping patterns that characterize personality disorders frequently have at their center developmental difficulties.Young draws heavily on psychoanalytic developmental models in Schema Therapy. In particular, he develops a theory of “modes” as central to understanding the development and maintenance of maladaptive personality patterns. This theory, and its clinical applications, will look familiar to those with a psychoanalytic background, particularly those acquainted with Paul Federn’s theory of ego states and with Federn’s student Eric Berne, who developed transactional analysis during the 1950s and 1960s. If this derivation is intriguing, there is at least one potentially disturbing implication in basing an ostensibly empirically supported treatment on earlier, psychoanalytically derived models. Young and colleagues make frequent reference to “offending parents” in the etiology of personality disorders, particularly for borderline personality. Although Young speaks of temperament as creating a vulnerability to developing borderline personality, he and his coauthors come close to making parental neglect and abuse an a priori cause of borderline pathology. One is reminded of Fromm-Reichmann’s unfortunate term “the schizophrenogenic mother.” Those steeped in an empirical tradition, and Young is among them, must be vigilant to avoid the excesses of earlier, punitive, and erroneous causal attributions.In terms of treatment, the shortcomings of brief cognitive behavior therapy with personality disorders are addressed through an eclectic blend of standard cognitive therapy, psychoanalytic, experiential, guided imagery, and Gestalt techniques. In addition, the therapy relationship is deemed paramount in creating a climate of safety, in which enduring change becomes possible. Young and colleagues generally maintain the collaborative and respectful stance toward patients that characterizes standard cognitive therapy, as developed by Aaron T. Beck. Young argues that “limited reparenting” may be advised in some cases, a contention that may spark debate within the field. But the volume deals with this issue in a manner that is respectful of patient autonomy and dignity.This is a must-read book for all those interested in personality disorders and in psychotherapy integration. Its strengths are legion, and its controversial contentions should spur much-needed debate and even more-needed research.By Jeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Klosko, and Marjorie E. Weishaar. New York, Guilford Publications, 2003, 407 pp., $45.00. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByLimited reparenting as a corrective emotional experience in schema therapy: A preliminary task analysis29 April 2021 | Psychotherapy Research, Vol. 32, No. 2 Volume 160Issue 11 November 2003Pages 2074-a-2075 Metrics History Published online 1 November 2003 Published in print 1 November 2003

The Justification of Concepts in Carnap's Aufbau

This paper concerns the recent debate on the nature and motivations of the epistemological project advanced in Rudolf Carnap's (1891–1970) Aufbau. Much of this debate has been initiated by Michael Friedman and Alan Richardson who argue (against the received view of the Aufbau as a foundationalist defense of empiricism) that Carnap's epistemological project is located in the tradition of neo-Kantian epistemology. On this revisionist reading of the Aufbau, Carnap's project is not motivated to address traditional empiricist problems regarding the justification of knowledge, but rather to show how objective knowledge is possible. A central aspect of the Aufbau that is neglected in the revisionists' analysis is the role of epistemic justification in Carnap's project. The aim of the present study is to argue that although the general epistemology in the Aufbau can be cast as neo-Kantian, Carnap's method of construction theory (or rational reconstruction) is formulated precisely as an empiricist method for the justification of conceptual knowledge. Construction theory radically redefines ‘empirical justification’ into a formal-conventional notion, and is part of Carnap's more general agenda of redefining epistemology as a purely formal discipline.

A decade of debate

The present issue marks the tenth birthday of Archaeological dialogues as an international academic journal. What once began as an English-language periodical established by a small group of Dutch graduate students has now evolved into a leading international journal for debating interpretative, theoretical, methodological, historical and political issues in archaeology. This development has taken us as much by surprise as it has far exceeded original intentions and expectations. When the journal was set up in Leiden in the early 1990s, the key aim of Archaeological dialogues was to promote and, indeed, provoke theoretical discussion in Dutch archaeology. Inspired by the fascinating theoretical developments in Anglo-American archaeology and anthropology of that time, the editors sought to reconcile these exciting new ideas with the long-standing empirical traditions of continental European archaeology. This ambition was readily evident from the subtitle that was carried on the cover for the first four years: ‘Dutch perspectives on current issues in archaeology’.

Unified science as political philosophy: positivism, pluralism and liberalism

Logical positivism is widely associated with an illiberal technocratic view of politics. This view is a caricature. Some members of the left Vienna circle were explicit in their criticism of this conception of politics. In particular, Neurath’s work attempted to link the internal epistemological pluralism and tolerance of logical empiricism with political pluralism and the rejection of a technocratic politics. This paper examines the role that unified science played in Neurath’s defence of political and social pluralism. Neurath’s project of unified science addressed problems that lie at the centre of recent debates around liberalism concerning the possibility of social co-operation in conditions of pluralism. His response is distinctive in calling upon an empiricist tradition that differs from Kantian proceduralist approaches that have predominated in recent liberalism. While Neurath’s position has problems, it deserves reconsideration, especially in so far as it questions the Kantian assumption that a thin language of abstract rights provides the best basis for the cosmopolital lingua franca required by conditions of social pluralism. An investigation of the role that unified science plays in Neurath’s politics also gives reasons for revising common misconceptions about the nature of the unity of science programme itself.

On McMullin's Appreciation of Realism Concerning the Sciences

Constructive empiricism is indeed set squarely within a common sense realism that was foreign to much of the empiricist tradition. But I do not see this common sense realism, which I take myself to share with many scientific realists, as harboring or leading to scientific realism. That is in part because of the way I separate the opposition between empiricist and realist understanding of science from other issues that divide us in epistemology. This discussion brought to light our quite different conceptions of what is at issue between empiricists and realists in this area. After a response to McMullin's critique, however, I will be especially concerned to respond to his challenging proposal for a shift in the debate over realism concerning the sciences.

El Campaniforme en la región cantábrica: un fenómeno arqueológico en el seno de las sociedades calcolíticas del norte de la Península Ibérica

The aim of this article is to approach the Bell-Beaker phenomenon not as an isolated manifestation but as a cultural element integrated into the socio-economic dynamics of the Chalcolithic societies. We discard here the descriptive study of material culture, i.e. the typological-comparative approach, highly developed in an eminently empiricist tradition of research and furthermore unnecessary for the progress of this work. First, we examine the archaeological evidence focusing on find contexts in order to adequately characterize the Bell-Beaker presence in Cantabria. Subsequently, a consideration on the involvement of the Bell Beaker components in the exchange models and the funerary practices of the Cantabrian Chalcolithic allows us to suggest several hypotheses concerning its participation in the socio-economic change processes documented in this spatial- temporal realm. The aim is to offer an alternative interpretation of this archaeological reality, that, despite its undeniable distinctiveness, when regarded in this way loses that phenomenal character and turns out to be a part of the interacting elements within a socio-economic formation immersed in a process of change.

Furnishing the mind: concepts and their perceptual basis

Western philosophy has long been divided between empiricists, who argue that human understanding has its basis in experience, and rationalists, who argue that reason is the source of knowledge. A central issue in the debate is the nature of concepts, the internal representations we use to think about the world. The traditional empiricist thesis that concepts are built up from sensory input has fallen out of favor. Mainstream cognitive science tends to echo the rationalist tradition, with its emphasis on innateness. In Furnishing the Mind, Jesse Prinz attempts to swing the pendulum back toward empiricism. Prinz provides a critical survey of leading theories of concepts, including imagism, definitionism, prototype theory, exemplar theory, the theory theory, and informational atomism. He sets forth a new defense of concept empiricism that draws on philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology and introduces a new version of concept empiricism called proxytype theory. He also provides accounts of abstract concepts, intentionality, narrow content, and concept combination. In an extended discussion of innateness, he covers Noam Chomsky's arguments for the innateness of grammar, developmental psychologists' arguments for innate cognitive domains, and Jerry Fodor's argument for radical concept nativism.

Cross-modal recognition of shape from hand to eyes in human newborns

The hypothesis that the ability to coordinate information between tactual and visual modalities is present at birth and dependent on perceptual inherent structures was tested in human newborns. Using an intersensory paired-preference procedure, we showed that newborns can visually recognize the shape of an object that they have previously manipulated with their right hand, out of sight. This is an experimental evidence that newborns can extract shape information in a tactual format and transform it in a visual format before they have had the opportunity to learn from the pairings of visual and tactual experience. This is contrary to a host of theories and models of perceptual learning, both traditional (empiricist philosophers) and modern (connectionist).

Scaling Theory: Application to Marine Ornithology

The problem of scale has three components: (a) direct measurement is usually confined to small areas and brief periods, (b) the most pressing issues occur at the scale of ecosystems and decades, but (c) direct scale-up fails when pattern and process at small scales differ from those at larger scales. Recognition of this dilemma has grown exponentially since around 1980. The problem of scale is particularly acute for seabirds, which inhabit one of the most extensive habitats on the planet—the surface of the ocean. The application of power laws is a promising solution to the problem. Power laws have a long empirical tradition, are readily estimated from data, and now have a theoretical basis. Power law behavior (with nonintegral exponents) appears in systems with episodically warring exponential rates. In marine ornithology, examples of areas where power laws can be applied include patchy spatial distributions, the association of predator with prey, the scaling of food intake to body size, and fractal habitat structure. Scaling theory and power laws are applicable to a wide variety of ecosystem phenomena and dynamics, including fluxes of material and energy.

The People's Doctors: Samuel Thomson and the American Botanical Movement, 1790-1860 (review)

The most famous American medical practitioner from the 1820s to mid-century was the botanical healer Samuel Thomson (1769-1843). Yet today he is considered a minor figure, partly because no significant botanical movement survived past the nineteenth century. Thomson was also part of the empirical rather than the learned tradition in medicine. He characterized his philosophy as "the study of patients, not books--experience, not reading" (p. 92). Many historians of medicine, like historians of science and technology, downplay the empirical tradition.

Poverty Naturalized: Implications for Gender

The article illustrates how philosophical assumptions affect the theory, practice, and results of poverty analysis, to the potential detriment of women and girls. It links the income/consumption approach to poverty with naturalist normative theory, which developed historically from the moral theory of David Hume. It then traces the historical development of naturalist normative theory from Hume to modern utility theory and examines its links with the British empiricist tradition. Finally, it reviews some of the practical consequences for gender and argues that the philosophical baggage of the income/consumption poverty approach may ignore important issues for women and girls, thereby creating significant gender "gaps" in the analysis of deprivation.

Beyond the mundane: reconciling breadth and depth in futures enquiry

For some time there has been a need within Futures Studies (FS) to develop methods which go beyond the dominant empirical tradition. For many years there has been a near-exclusive emphasis on understanding the external world ‘out there’. But as time has gone by, so it has become clear that our ability to understand the world ‘out there’ crucially depends on an underlying world of reference that is ‘in here’. Understanding the near-future environment calls for a combination of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ views which, for example, give as much credence to judgment as to calculation. This paper considers a way of considering these very different ‘ways of knowing’. Overall, the aim is to go beyond what might be termed ‘mundane’ analysis, i.e. that which is preoccupied with surfaces, and to open out a broader arena for futures enquiry.

Central states outstanding teaching award winners reflecting on the relationship between instructional communication theory and teaching practices

At his retirement dinner, a professor once said that he wished he could gather all of his students from the first ten years of teaching into one large auditorium. He would then stand out in the middle of that auditorium looking into the faces of those to whom he had imparted his knowledge and say ... I'm sorry! Unfortunately, it is not until we have influenced many lives that we begin to realize the mistakes we make in those early years. I remember during my first few years of teaching feeling like a fraud. What was I doing there? How could I possibly make a difference in my student's lives, let alone their learning? I was confident that my four years of undergraduate education had prepared me with the knowledge of the content that I was teaching, but I was less sure that it had prepared me to teach. Perhaps only teaching could do that which is why those first few years can be so tumultuous. Hurt, Scott, and McCroskey (1978), aptly state that the difference between knowing and teaching is communication. That is, a teacher can be an expert in his or her field, but if he or she cannot communicate that knowledge in a way that students understand, learning is not achieved. As an Instructional Communication scholar, I now find myself in the fortunate position of conducting research on the thing that I practice everyday--teaching. My teaching gives me fodder for research and my research serves to guide my teaching practices. In this essay, I will address how theory and research have informed my philosophy of teaching which, in turn, has influenced my practices. Instructional Communication Theory Instructional Communication is a field of study that informs educators of all disciplines about the communication skills necessary to function competently in the classroom. Research into issues such as teacher immediacy, teacher clarity, power and compliance-gaining, interpersonal relationships with students, colleagues, and administrators, listening and feedback, nonverbal communication; and effective teaching strategies (i.e., lecturing, leading discussions, and processing activities) highlight the central role that communication takes in the learning process. Three methodological traditions that have been used to guide such research have been the empirical, interpretive, and critical perspectives. The empirical tradition, or positivism, aims to provide systematic explanation for observed phenomena (Berger, 1977), and attempts to explain and predict outcomes. For instance, instructional scholars from this tradition are interested in determining why some interactions between teachers and student are successful, but others are not. Through systematic investigation of the classroom, the most effective techniques for conducting classroom interaction can be identified for future use. Many scholars have studied the link between teacher immediacy (behaviors that signal approach, availability, and warmth) and student learning (cognitive, affective, and behavioral) from this paradigm (Gorham, 1988; Gorham & Zakahi, 1990; McCroskey & Richmond, 1992). Whereas the objective of positivism is explanation and prediction, the goal of the interpretive tradition is understanding. For instructional communication scholars this goal translates into an understanding of the meaning of classroom process. In this tradition, the classroom represents a social entity where communication is essential for both instruction and social-organization rule maintenance (Daly & Korinek, 1980, p. 522). Thus, reality is negotiated through the interactions of teachers and students. Instructional scholars viewing the classroom from the interpretive tradition believe that classrooms are communicative environments where the meaning of interaction is constructed by the interactants (Greene, 1983). Research in the area of teachers' and students' socialization provides an example of the interpretive tradition. For instance, Staton and Hunt (1992) describe a model of teacher socialization, which includes biography, agents, changes, and context. …