I was spent after my meeting with the teachers of Ateneo de Naga High School. It was my ninth session of presenting the results of the epistemological survey, so I didn’t really expect to learn anything new. But to my surprise, I still did. It might have been the engagement and interest of the teachers in the discussion that did it. I guess there’s always more where it comes from.
While talking about the four epistemological beliefs, I realized that what was true of epistemological word views is also true about the epistemological beliefs. When I was discussing the beliefs on the role of authority and the nature of knowledge, I felt that I should have nuanced my discussion in terms of the disciplines. In short, just as the world views differed from field to field, so one’ beliefs about the role of authority and the nature of knowledge changed. Scientific knowledge, for example, would have a different way of using authority as basis for the justification of knowledge compared to religious knowledge or aesthetic knowledge.
However, the domain-dependence of these two core beliefs about knowing would not apply to the more peripheral beliefs about learning (process and ability). In plainer language: Whether we believe that learning requires effort (process) or that intelligence is inborn and fixed is probably the same across disciplines.
More importantly, I stumbled over a clearer connection between epistemological world views and beliefs. The world views had to do with one’s beliefs on the justification of knowledge per domain, which had for its basis the role of authority and the nature of knowledge. Only those who view knowledge as complex and uncertain (Gottlieb‘s term for this is perspectivist as distinguished from realist) would be able to move from an absolutist world view to a relativist or evaluativist world view.
Moreover, only those who can be more critical about what authority says can likewise shift to the two more sophisticated world views. Depending on their disposition towards authority, they would be either relativist or evaluativist: Relativist referring to a stance that altogether overthrows authority and installs one’s own opinion on the pedestal, and evaluativist pertaining to a less radical, but more critical disposition that assesses expert claims in the light of other available evidences.
strugglingSCHOLAR 