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THE INSEPARABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN SCIENCE, EPISTEMOLOGY
AND EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Paulo Gomes Lima*
ABSTRACT: The work investigates the inseparable connections between science,
epistemology and educational research, therefore the production of the knowledge happens
transversally of the keep aware of man, world and of himself historical production. Of
that manner, the educational research understands the education phenomenon how objects
in construction which parallel the contributions scientific and epistemological assembles
the idea of the unity in the diversity. This article explains that relationship and the necessity
of understands how a totality of the savoir-faire scientific.
Key words: science, epistemology, educational research, unity, diversity.
Introduction
The epistemological structures revelation of the educational research, articulated
with the social - historic conditions that it processes, constitutes the main problematic of
this work, requiring from the investigator a triadic delineation (science - epistemology research in education) as a conductive wire of the investigation process.
From the science, that is characterized as human knowledge register and that is
extended and remade, it makes possible and it corrects the new distinctive reading of a
world that needs to be rediscovered and rethought in every single meeting and scientific
discover that it has to be studied and comprehended to the light of its intrinsic and
extrinsically relations given to the extension of the “totality” that the term science
implicates on its own. So, the science is the mobilizing element of man who knows that his
knowledge is relative and that there is a lot to be discovered yet. In a different way we can
say, that science mobilizes man in his knowledge development and it mobilizes with man
through the history, considering and reconsidering its guiding to the light of a reflective
and systematical conscience as a procedural and dynamical object and that’s why is a
subject of possible transformations.
From epistemology because it provides the necessary instrumental for centering the
science and the philosophy as a study objects, guarantying the pertinent researches in its
basic principles or foundations, inter and extern epistemological structures, validity
*
PhD. by School Education by the UNESP- Campus de Araraquara/SP; Full Professor of the Graduate School
of Education of the Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados - MS/Brazil.
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conditions etc., in the same time that propitiates the critics and the recurrence of this
articulated elements to the social-historic reality of the studied object., its relations and
inter-relations. In the epistemological area is made clear, not only the guide lines that will
orientate the revelation of the studied object, but even the composing of how and why to do
it, and having a extensive scientific vision and comprehension of the influences that it
suffers and exercises, situating it in a paradigmatically perspective, if necessary. As a
starting point is needed the comprehension of epistemology as a reflective and critic
science so that revelation can occur effectively.
So, from the own definition of epistemology, its genesis and development, it will be
discoursed about its performance field evolving the analytical and theory pertinent aspects,
and in the same instant looking for nexus with the scientific production. That’s why is
necessary to rescue some tips of “epistemologies” that will serve as a support of the present
intention, being each one of them with its own conception of science and world vision.
And, finally, from the educational research, because, beyond constituting the main
point of this work, its study requires a critical and reflective vision about the social-historic
reality of the scientific production in the education field, articulated obviously, with the
triadic delineation as we mentioned before, of which it makes part and it’s an essential
element. In the other hand, the epistemological research in the educational field emerges
the concern of representing itself as an evaluative tool as well, having as a primordial
purpose going beyond of a simple reflection and criticizing, using this instruments,
composing guiding ways of the development process of scientific production in this
specific field, and detecting its course, evaluating the quality of this “production” and of the
main paradigmatic influences that suffers that it brings in the scientific world.
It is known that, while as an instrument of knowledge production, the scientific
research has to assume the responsibility for the zeal of the scientific severity in the
“searching of truth”, comprehended not like an enclosed object in an ivory tower in whose
foundation is centered in selling something sacred, but like a guiding, and mediation agent,
which its objective is to guarantee the necessary tools of the investigator for his reflection
about his researched object (text, context and intertext, relations and inter-relations), and in
the same time to care so that the scientific knowledge wont stop being, even if the modems
can be attractive in the importance given of “everything is possible”, a characteristic of the
non systematic knowledge and it doesn’t results in the benefit science development.
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The “searching of the truth” is a process, that justifies the science existence itself, as
well as the science study, whose birth was given concomitantly with it, is the investigators
responsibility to be imbued with such a scientific modesty, that can consider the truth
dimensions founded, as well as his purposes and limitations in the perspective that the
knowledge about any study object is relative, and, therefore, approached. Bachelard (apud
Japiassu, 1977, p. 69) emphasizes this assertive observing that “a scientific thought is not a
final system of evident dogmas, but a generalized uncertainty, an awaking doubt, in such a
way the scientist is, necessarily, a decentrated and divided person, connected on his
practice, but in the same time, keeping the distance from it”.
In his “Epistemology”, Bachelard (1990, p. 18) affirms that the science credibility in
the XIX century, it was accepted by the “real world” of the object, whose reading was made
by facts, experimenting, abandoning any pertinent hypothesis of the studied object if it was
founded any experimental difficulty in the conventionality of the rational character of that
time. But this would change. The author certifies that the reading irreducibility in the
scientific world should have its foundations seriously affected from the physical
contemporary, contrary of isolation and stagnation of the object, however, considering it in
its inter-relations and movements. So, in this way, the object consideration perspective
changes, its representation is made by metaphors and its organization is passed by the
"reality". With other words we could say, "the immediate captivation of reality acts like a
confused information, temporary, conventional...", consequently, “we can't have the prior
any credibility in the immediate information pretended to be given" (Ibidem, authors
underscore).
Like the perspective of the "truth" in the sciences field was changed by the different
and new readings of the mediate and immediate world as we could perceive in Bachelard, it
wasn't made in a different way in the educational field. That's why, is needed to be
considered some basic questions by science itself as a world and man revelation at the first
moment, at the second moment is proper emphasize the epistemological vision as a criticalreflective possibility about the knowledge object. And yet in the third moment, the
educational research as a continuing and systematical study in the educational field.
Sequent, some researches must be caste: what's the educational research ? which is its
principal study object ? which are its represented contributions in educational scientific
knowledge ? Why is needed to analyze the educational research of “research”? And finally,
in the fourth moment are established the necessary nexus between science, epistemology
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and educational research, providing analysis important elements, which are characteristics
of epistemological research constructed by the human experience. - The main text concern
is not to provide a final answer of these questions, but finding ways that could provide
possibilities of comprehending in a multidimensional universe which is the scientific
research - because "it's a mistake thinking that the investigative activity could be isolated
from the most extensive dimension where is inserted and can find its foundation" (Von
Zuben, 1995, p. 14).
Science: world and man revelation
Even being considered by its contemporary human benefits, science causes
disenchants in its pernicious way when its purpose is the life destruction and legitimating
benefits only for a hegemonic part of society. The science can be useful and/or prejudicial,
a kind of liberation and/or imprison, a way of searching the truth as a process and/or a
stumbling block itself. Created by the men for a systematization and knowledge
development, the science, uprooted from the heart of philosophy assumed ramifications in
several areas knowledge, generating, crises in its identity and purpose; and then the
doubtful nature and the inadequate use of this term. About these conflict points Chalmers
(1993) affirms that it has to be rescued the concrete and necessary conception of science
(therefore of its identity), as well as of its mission, function and authority in a world that
lives in constant transformation. So, from the title of his book “What is science, at last?”
he keeps weaving insight about the science nature and during this, he suggests
improvements for turning it a real instrument of mans liberation, making possible the
revelation of its own and of the world. Through the analyzes of these questions it is
searched the opportunity of reflecting about the science and its practice and situating it as
an object of human knowledge, consequently, critics susceptible, elaborations and
consonant re elaborations with the advances or reconsiderations of
(re)constructed
knowledge.
Conant (1958, p. 28) defines the science like a correlated series of concepts and
conceptual systems resultants of experimentations and observations, which are susceptible
of experimentations and posterior observations too. This kind of vision, according
Chalmers (1993, p. 23), it’s a characteristic of the XVII century, which appears as a
Scientific Revolution consequence and having like precursors Galilee, Newton and Bacon.
Thus, these studious used to proclaim the separation from the philosophy and the
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attachment to the nature as a guarantee of having a trustful scientific knowledge, been
classified as an objective proved knowledge. To the perception of science and scientific
method as generators of information observed results, able of experimentations and
generalizations, the author denominates as an ingenuous inductivity explication, emphasizes
that only through observing facts could be proceeded the elaborations of laws and pertinent
theories, and these in a deductive way would be proceeded in their previsions and
explications. (Ibidem, p. 28).
However, even in the end of the XVII century the science still remains linked to the
philosophy, but since the last century would begin having somehow “exact” outlines,
mainly with the “positivism gestation”. This science conception entered in the XX century
taking a new vision, denominated with the neopositivism and it was present in the scientific
researches in a predominant way till decades of 1970. For the neopositivists the science is
comprehended as the “searching of truth at its last signification” whose validity should be
submitted to the verification/experimentation as a basic scientific methodology, which is
characteristic of the logical mathematics and physics in which were based the science
conceptions. Therefore, the problems (any of them) were studied in the light of exclusively
technician slants (Ramos Lamar, 1998), characterized by the information analyzes
predominantly quantitative, whose influence is noted in a considerable level in the
scientific researches in a general way and in the educational research in a specific way. In
the opposite of this object reading perspective and the particular world vision Popper (apud
Chalmers, 1993, p. 65), proposes the falsification way. This conception “sees the science as
a conjoined hypotheses that, experimentally proposed, with the description purpose or to
accurately explain the behavior of any world and universe aspect”. On the other hand, the
sine qua non condition so that one of its hypotheses or conjunction may be founded as the
law and the scientific theory is based in the obligatory of these hypotheses that are shown
falsiable. The falsiable hypotheses to Popper are those susceptible of observations
“inconsistent with it, that means, if established as truths, would falsify the hypothesis”
(Ibidem, p.66).
The Marxism with its ruts in the materialistic dialectic determination, conceives
the science as a result of the material life production. And the material life production
conditioning the social, political, economical, and intellectual processes, provide the
necessary material conditions for the human knowledge development and its several ways
of representation.
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Therefore, the Marxist vision is about the concrete reality of production means that
make part of the basic scientific knowledge, having as a sustentation platform the following
ones:
1. The material conditions are the determinate agents of the knowledge development
and of men knowledge. (Marx & Engels, 1996, p. 36-37).
2. The knowledge productions happened from the material conditions it must be
guided by the empirical objective of knowledge conception, at the same time that by
interpretation and phenomenon comprehension, favoring the joint between the
abstract and the concrete, between the thought and the real (cf. Ramos Lamar, 1998,
p. 43; Marx & Engels, 1996, p. 12).
3. According to Marx, the main objection of science is adjusted on realities not being
“subjected of uniform and invariant laws”, in which the cause only admits the
“discovering of generals and absolutes laws, specifics and historical” (Fernandes,
1989, p. 110). In this way Gramsci (1978, p. 70) observes that “not even scientific
truths are fixed and definitive”, in the same way “the science is an historical
category, a movement in continual evolution.”
4. The knowledge production, as praxis, it has to provide men benefit in its social and
material relations, since “all science is connected to the necessities, to the life, to
the men activities”. So, Gramsci concludes that “for the praxis philosophy, the
being can’t be separated from the thoughts, the man from the nature, the activity
from the substance, the subject from the object”, for if it happens “ it takes in one of
many ways of religion or in the nonsense abstraction” (Ibidem).
5. The science must be conducted by the dialectic laws in the trilogy theses –
antitheses – synthesis.
6. The theory and the practice in the scientific knowledge has to be concerned with the
study of the reality and its production relations.
7. The sciences present relative truths that when submitted in dialectic laws, create
new concepts, new truths, attending temporarily the materials relations of a
determinate society.
For the phenomenology, the science must be the comprehension and interpretation
vehicle of phenomenon, not being its last objective the explication of the world in a
cumulative way, as the neopositivism or other similar do, however, the concern about the
phenomenon research and description, not for the extern vies, but as a conscience
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prerogative, that means by the attention, by the reflective perception and attitude that the
phenomenon causes. The phenomenological science, as the existentialism claim that the
world of facts must be "put between parentheses", according the reflective conscience is
projected. It doesn't mean that there is a dispensability of the material world, and what in
fact happens it's a perspective changing in the reading world direction, not being explained
any more but being lived (Lebenswelt), experimented in an intentional way. Abbagnano &
Visalberghi (1995, p. 625) comment that "the conscience is the intention in the sense that
all its manifestations, for example, all its thoughts, fantasies, emotions, volition, etc., are
refereed as something different of its own, that means an object thought, fantasized, felt,
wanted, etc." In a different way we could say that, starting from the contemplated
conscience,, the phenomenon is reveled in a transcendental way.
The knowledge possibility in this perspective must be oriented by the
"phenomenological reduction" characterized as the "objectivity of the essence", that means,
the signification that the conscience gives to the realized phenomenon.
It's important to emphasize that the phenomenon description, according to Triviños,
it's much more that a technical or mechanical act, but "it's a listener, for the real
phenomenology it stays quite in front of speaking facts"(Loubet, 1993, p. 19).
This signification of "things to the words" that the author presents it's a conscience
and object correlation, that are not two separated entities, because "if the conscience is
always 'a conscience of something' and if the object is always an ' object for the
conscience, it's inconceivable to get out of this correlation, since that, without it, it wouldn't
exist even the conscience, neither the object". (Dartigues, 1992, p. 19).
In the perspective of Bunge (1980a, p. 31), the science mustn't be confused with the
technique, since the first one is reveled as a human institution which the proposition is
characterized by discovering laws that "explain" the truth in its totality, while the second
one is a control instrument of determined sectors of the reality, so in this way, the author
concludes that the scientific problems are "purely known", in the other hand, the techniques
are practical and particulars, that means, they study the natural resources and facts instead
of studying the hole universe, for example: to the author, the science is a complex object
that is compound by independent units and that's why it must be considered as a conceptual
system compounded of subsystems that are inter - related (Ibidem, p.41-42). Consequently,
the science is "conducted by certain biologic, economic, cultural and political conditions,
that don't change so much, from one society to the other one" (Ibid., p. 49).
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Postman (1994, p. 47), based in Bacon affirms that the science is the " best arm of
humanity in the battle for better conditions and consequently without ever stooping to do
it", so, the science is considered as a power and progress source. According to the author,
this isn't the conception of Sigmund Freud when evaluates the human inventions, even the
development of the science, as "improved means that don't reach better results in the
end"(Ibid., p. 16). So, according to the presented counterfeits the science can't be other than
the "search for discovering the mutable and universal laws that rule the processes ,
supposing that there are relations of cause and effect between them"(Ibid., p. 155). The
author believes that this science conception it doesn't fit when the object is the observation
and the comprehension of the human behavior and feelings, because, according attests, if
that would happen, the scientific rigor would be susceptible of the missing congruence, as
the objectivity of any study object would be compromised with subjective interpretations
and vies.
Ziman (1979, p. 17), the same as Morin (1996) and Chalmers (1993, 1994),
emphasizes that trying to answer "what science is" is the same as "try to define the life
signification". For example, affirming that the science is the domination of the environment
it means its reduction or the identification with its own products, mixing science with
technology. The affirmation that the science is the study of the material world resulted
from the debate science X religion (substance X soul), considering the substance as the
exclusive subject of science, becoming, therefore, a partial vision of the scientific activity.
The definition of science as an experimental method, according to the author, is
incomplete, because it excludes the Pure Mathematics and it doesn't consider the value of
the theoretical and logical contribution necessaries of a maintenance and condition of
experiments and observations. And finally a pattern-definition conceived and used from the
majority of the philosophers, is that the "science reaches the truth throughout the logical
inferences based in empirical observations". This conception is founded in the induction
principle, that means, the fact or the phenomenon occurred a certain number of times is
probable of occurring regularly, serving as a direction line for founding the structure of a
theory. While, the author emphasizes, even this postulate being "plausible", it hasn't the
sufficient power to impose, for the simple reason that "many philosophers has came in the
melancholic conclusion that it doesn't exists any infallible process for eradicating in a
definitive way the last trace of doubt of the thing called by the scientists as
knowledge"(Ibid.,p.18-21).
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Ziman himself (1979, p. 36) emphasizes that the German word Wissenschaft that is
translated as Science, includes all the studies branches, even the literal and historical,
therefore, fragmenting it means "making a big misunderstanding", because basically the
science aim (its mission and function) must attend "predominantly to the production
interests of the human knowledge", more than of the "other class interests, ideologies or
personals"(Chalmers, 1994, p. 58). In that way, Chrétien (1994, p. 39) concludes that the
science must be comprehended as a social web of men and institutions, equipment,
publications, information and capital sources, etc., as a collective web of the truth
conquering, not imposing, but showing itself to the challenges that the social - historic
conditions provided. Therefore, the science must be conceived as a world revelation and at
the same time as a man revelation.
The epistemological vision
The epistemological vision about the scientific production pretends situating the
questioning focus and the critic not as an end of itself, but throughout it, providing ways
that can make possible a better reflection and comprehension about of what is produced,
how is produced, why and for what is produced. Therefore, since the epistemology, the
science and its production are gaining new outlines, new and distinctive world visions
distancing itself from the concept stagnation of the absolute truth and entrenching in the
searching of the truth as a process, where the "approximated", "the improvement ways" are
considered as orientations in the construction of a knowledge and its transformation and in
transformation. The comprehension itself that it comes being the epistemology and its
contribution to the science and to the scientific research it the main evidence of this
conception. From Greek episteme (knowledge, science) + logos (speech, theory, treaty,
study of) we have the etymology of the word epistemology, consisting in the theory about
the science or the knowledge theory. According to Wartfosky (1971, p. 416) in a scientific
literature level, this term was used at the first time by James F. Ferrier in his book
"Institutes of Metaphysics" in the year of 1854, but its emerging as neologism started on
1886 in the Vocabulary of the Philosophy of Lalande and in the supplement of Illustrated
Larousse, resultant of Bernardo Bolzano book (1837) "Wisseschaftslehre" and the Willian
Whewell book (1840) denominated "Philosophy of inductive sciences".
The Wissenschaftslehre word inspired in Greek means literally epistemology in the
German language, consisting in the science theory, that is not always distinguished from
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the term Erkenntnistheorie, that means the theory of knowledge in general presenting a
philosophic character. In the Bolzano work, Wissenschaftslehre is comprehended in an
exact sense, considering the scientific knowledge as the only trustful way of knowledge.
Starting from Whewell, with the inauguration of the historical-critic method, the
epistemology will have a systematical unfolding, that means, the object it comes to be
studied according to the historical focus, critical and philosophical in a interacting way, as
is described in the "Philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon history."
The Whewell work it was considered as an initiative one in this direction, followed
by Antoine Augustin Cournot (cen.. XIX) with its books "Essay about the human
knowledge foundations and about the philosophical critic characters"(1851) and his " pact
about the chaining of the fundamental ideas in the sciences and in the history"(1861) and
by E. Mach as well, Austrian philosopher with a historical-critic inspiration, in his book
Die Mechanik und ihrer Entwicklung (1883), had his big influence, with the Vienna circle,
the birth of one of the principal epistemological chains of this last half century (Blanché,
1975, p. 11-15). The history, for the epistemology, is a mediator element and it is not an
ending point. In this way, "it offers a good way of analyses separating, by the date and by
the circumstances of its appearing, the several elements that contributed to form little by
little the notions and the principles of our science", in a critic way, and in the same time
dynamical. (Ibid., p. 46-47).
Defying the epistemology or the "Philosophy of sciences" as preferred, as the
"Philosophy branch that studies the scientific investigation and its product, the scientific
knowledge", Bunge (1980b, p. 12-13) affirms that this one will not deserve the society
support if not constituted for a significant enrichment of the Philosophy and if is not useful
to the science. Aspiring the epistemology renovation, the author emphasizes that this will
only be useful and necessary if satisfies the following conditions:
1. Referring to the science itself, not to the puerile image and some times even the
mocking way of elementary books and texts;
2. Being occupied with philosophical problems that are presented in fact during the
scientific investigation or in the reflection about the problems, methods and
science theories, instead of little phantasm problems;
3. Propounding clear solutions for that kind of problems, in particular consistent
solutions in rigid and intelligible theories, as well as adequate to the reality of the
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scientific investigation, instead of confused theories or inadequate to the scientific
theories;
4. To be able of distinguishing the authentic science from the false science, the deep
investigation from the superficial, the truth searching from the searching of the
bread of each day;
5. To be able of criticizing programs and even the wrong results, as well as
suggesting promissory emphases.
Bunge (1980b, p. 17) differently of Piaget, doesn't conceive the epistemology
without being intrinsically associated to the Philosophy, because for him, in the study of
the logical, semantically, gnosiological, methodological, ontological, axiological, ethics
and esthetics problems, the Philosophy is the one who provides the necessary instruments
to the reflection and to the critic itself. According to the author, the person who studies
epistemology connected to the science, having as a support the formal tools of the
contemporary Philosophy can give innumerable contributions of the following tips:
1. To bringing on the surface the philosophic presuppositions ( in particular semantic,
gnosiological, and ontological) of planning, methods or scientific investigation results
of actuality;
2. To elucidate and systematize philosophic concepts occupied in the several sciences,
like the ones of the physic object, chemical system, social system, time, factors, chance,
prove, confirmation and explanation;
3. To help on the resolution of scientific – philosophical problems, such as to know if
life is distinguished by the teleonomy and the psyche by the missing space;
4. To reconstruct the scientific theories in an axiomatic way, taking the occasion vantage
discovering the philosophic presuppositions;
5. To participate on the discussions about the nature and the value of the pure and
applicable science, helping to clarify the ideas about it, and even elaborating culture
politics;
6. To serve as a model to the other philosophy branches – in a particular way to the
ontology and to the ethic – that could be benefited throughout a strait contact with the
formal techniques and with the sciences.
According to Wartofsky (1971, p. 416 – 417) the epistemology is oriented to know and
to work the nature and the action camp of the knowledge, as well as the sources and the
origin of the same, questioning how the knowledge is acquired, how is justified and by
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which authority, which are its knowledge objects and which are the knowledge limits. The
author observes that the epistemology executes and identifies itself with two central
activities: the analytical and the theoretical. As an analytical activity, the epistemology
submits the knowledge relation to the sensation, to the perception, to the memory, to the
imagination, to the conviction and judgement, recognizing and distinguishing the different
ways of knowledge. As a theoretical activity, generates systematic knowledge theories
which consider how it is given and processed the knowledge nature, its resources, its
acquisitions forms and its limits. These theories present concerning distinctions between
subject that knows and the object that it is known, and concomitantly, they establish their
own conviction foundation as a truth.
Mora (1993, p. 216) declares that since the ending of the XIX century and the
beginning of the XX century, many conceived the “epistemology” and the “gnoseology” as
synonyms, both having the same meaning as the knowledge theory. However, after some
time, as the “gnoseology” term was used very much by philosophical currents, it started to
be used in a general signification of the knowledge theory without their concerning to
specify what kind of knowledge was deal about, the term “epistemology” assumed the
status as the scientific knowledge theory, used for comprehending the sciences as much as
for studying its principal problems and implications. That’s why its utility became more
scattered and accepted in the scientific literature.
On the other hand Durozoi (1993, p. 158) says the epistemology isn’t properly a
“philosophy of the sciences” or even a “knowledge theory”, but it’s a discipline which its
object is the science, and the purpose is “to study in a critical way the principles, the
general hypotheses, the conclusions of several sciences so that can be appreciated its value
and the objective pursuit”.
The epistemology of Karl Popper is denominated as critic - rationalist , searching to
delimit the science field, establishing standards for its comprehension and activity field and
throughout it making a distinction between the scientific knowledge and the others
knowledge tips. The “falseness” propounded by Popper, as we could perceive in the last
topic, is focused in the possibility that the theory is empirically refuted, and following such
a direction the science must be conceived and worked throughout the conjectures and
refutations, which ways can be convergent to the knowledge objective, and throughout of it
will have a centripetal and centrifugal action about the empirical analyzed objective. To
legitimate his empirical science idea, Popper (1975 a, p. 273) distinguished three requisites
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to content his empirical-theoretic system. Respectively, he must be synthetic, so that can
represent a possible world, without contradictions; in the second place, it must be delimited
very well being absented completely from the metaphysics and having to represent a world
with a possible experience and, in the third place must be distinguished from other similar
systems for representing our world of experience. So the author affirms that the logic of
scientific research, or the knowledge logic is “to provide an analyze of this procedure, or,
to analyze the method of empirical sciences” (Popper, 1975b), not by induction, that he by
himself refutes in a tenacious way, however, through the deductive way.
His critic to the induction, that the author denominates as “inference based in a great
numbers of observations”, dwells on considering it as a myth, not as a psychological fact, a
fact of the quotidian life or a scientific procedure, according the real method of science
engages the conjectures, being appropriated by generic conclusions, even after a unique
observation (Popper, 1982, p. 85).
According to this orientation, the objective epistemology for Popper (Ibid., p. 41) or the
knowledge theory as preferred, is the analyze of the proper process of the empirical science
that he described as “theory of the empirical method”, or, an “experience” theory . popper
recognizes one empirical or scientific system only if it is a passive evidence of the
experience, , having as a delimited criterion not the examination, but the refutability of a
system, or that, “its logic form can make possible its value through the resource to the
empirical proves” (Ibid., p. 42). Other authors break the traditional concept of
epistemology too, we can mention some of them like Michel Focault, Gaston Bachelard,
Jean Piaget, Jürgen Habermas e Edgar Morin, which will be considered hereafter due to the
relevance and epistemological influence on the construction course of the scientific
investigation.
In his “Archeology of knowledge”, Focault centers the knowledge history of man as a
proper epistemological field that warrants the comprehension of its cultural organization, as
well as a process which is responsible for the scientific knowledge construction. While
epistemology, the focaultian archeology is concerned with the “foundations of sciences”,
taking care of a system of a fundamental order, which primordial direction is to orientate
and to rule the sciences, constituting to the a historic priori, being an experience that
determinates the “general space of knowledge” and the nexus between the sciences.
According to Focault, the most important for the epistemology is not the treated object by a
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science, but the place and the role that one or another science take place in the space of
knowledge (Japaissu, 1977, p. 127).
For Focault (1966, p. 450 – 451) the dominion of episteme and even its discussion take
place in a space of three connected dimensions. In one of the dimensions, are founded the
mathematics and physics sciences to whom “the order is always a deductive concatenation
and linear of evident propositions e verifiable”. In another dimension are founded the
sciences such as the life language, the production and the distribution wealthiness,
preparing between itself relations of “discontinued elements, but analogous, in such a way
that can be established between them causal relations and of a constant structure”. The
third dimension is the philosophic reflection that in a general way will orientate the two
first dimensions, being developed together with the biology and economy dimension.
“...it designs a common plan: there can emerge, and with effect emerged, the
several life philosophies, of alienated man, of the symbolic forms (when it
transfers to the philosophy the concepts and the problems that were raised in
different empirical dominions); but there emerged too, if we interrogate in a
radical philosophic view point, the empirical foundations, some regional
ontologies that try to define what are in their own, the life, the work and the
language; at last, the philosophic dimension defines together with the
mathematics disciplines, a common plan: the one of the thought
formalization” (Ibidem).
The “triadic knowledge” of Focault tries to include the human sciences in the
intermission of knowledge or in the defined content by these three dimensions, can’t be
situated on anyone of the three axles. Considering this inclusion, the human sciences, will
form “a kind of cloud of represented disciplines, in the triadic interior, and making part
somehow, in a varied way, of its three dimensions” (Japaissu, 1977, p. 115), as can be
verified in the 1 Picture.
15
PICTURE 1
THE SISTEM OF HUMAN SICENCES BY MICHEL FOUCAULT
Source: Japiassu (1977, p. 114)
From this triadic comprehension, Foucault (1995, p. 158) is concerned on
distinguishing the ideas history of its knowledge archeology, showing that the first one
describes without interruption the passage from non-philosophy to the philosophy, from
non-science to the science, from non-literature to the workmanship. Moreover, the author
points out that its analyze is a “analyze of the deaf nativity” that is attached to the genesis,
continuity and history totality, therefore, with a delimited ending. That’s why the author
propounds his archeology, as an abandonment of the ideas history, which means, looking to
construct a human knowledge history, in a different way from the conventionalizing
accepted in the scientific field. Kremer – Mariette (1997, p. 7) explains this “difference”,
affirming that the “knowledge archeology” of Focault is a regularized method and that it
owns a delimited object, which is not the science, but the knowledge. That’s why arguments
that the archeology is exactly a “rigorous method that treats the normative speeches of an
epoch, the normalization forms and the rules of the knowledge formation”, which its
extension is extra – scientific, at the same time it doesn’t confuses but, it exceeds and
surpasses the methods of the recognized sciences, for example, the history, the
epistemology, the sociology and the historical psychology, and confessing itself the
historical method in the most positive sense of all (whom Focault denominates as
16
positivism), a critical history not for judging "the past, but, to the contrary, because it
'shows', and this 'demonstration of the past it's equivalent, in the today historical reality, to
a real praxis, able to revolutionize the established practices." The same author emphasizes
that the knowledge archeology duty is to analyze and describe the sciences that are being
formed, following in a very detailed way "what is done and undone, what is announced and
what is denounced, only by admitting the object since being constantly rectified and
reorganized, tolerating the subject only as the center of one construction and questioning
activity."(Ibidem, p. 8). Expressed in his words Foucault (1995, p. 159 - 160) the
archeological epistemology can be understood starting from the principles, from which are
detached four of them:
1. The archeology doesn't look for defining the thoughts, the representations, the images,
the themes, the obsessions, that are occulted or manifested in speeches, but it looks for
the speeches itself, while the practices obey to the rules. The archeology doesn't treats
the speech as a document, as a sign of something else, as the element that should be
transparent, but whose importune opacity needs to overpass frequently for finding
again, there where it is maintained the part, the profundity of the essential; it addresses
to the speech in its proper volume, in the monument quality. It is not a interpretative
discipline deal: it doesn't look for "another speech" more occulted. It refuses to be
"allegoric".
2. The archeology doesn't look for finding the continuing and insensible transition that
connects, in a smooth declivity, the speeches in what it proceeds, evolves or follows. It
doesn't observes the moment in which, since they didn't exist, became in what they are;
neither the moment in which, unmaking the solidity of its image, will lose, little by
little, its identity. Its problem is, on the contrary, to define the speeches in its
specification; to show in which sense the ruling games that are used is irreducible to
any other; to follow them during its extern edges for a better accentuation. The
archeology doesn't goes in a slow progression, in the confusing field of the opinion to
the system singularity or to the definitive stability of science; is not a "doxology", but a
differential analyze of the speech modalities.
3. The archeology is not ordered by the sovereign image of workmanship; is not looking
to comprehend the moment in which it was detached in the anonymous horizon. It
doesn't want to find again the enigmatic point in which the individual and the social are
17
inverted. It isn't neither psychology, nor sociology, neither, in a general sense, the
creation anthropology. To her the workmanship is not a pertinent pruning, even if it was
a deal of restoring in its global context or in the causality net which gives the support. It
defines tips and practical discursive rules that overpass individual workmanship, and
sometimes they command and control it entirely without any escape; but sometimes,
they only rule only one part. The instance of the creator subject, while reason of being
part of a workmanship and principle of its unity, it sounds strange.
4. Finally, the archeology doesn't look to reconstruct what could be thought, desirable,
aimed, experimented, longing by men in the same instance when the speech was
professed; it doesn't propounds to preserve this fugacious nucleus where the author and
the workmanship change their identities; where the thought still remains closer by itself,
in an unaltered form, where the language wasn’t yet developed on the spatial dispersion
and successive speech. In other words, doesn’t try to repeat what was already told,
finding it again in its own identity. Doesn’t pretend to be extinguished in the ambiguous
modesty of a reading which permits the return, in its purity, of the distant light,
precarious, almost extinguished from the origin. It’s nothing farther and nothing
different than a rewrite: which means, in the exterior form in which remained, a
regulative transformation of what was already written. It is not the return to the proper
origin secret; it is the systematic description of an object-speech.
In the same manner as Foucault, Bachelard propounded the construction of a criticalhistoric epistemology, that could study the science in its growth and development process,
which is, its history and should be realized. The author point view converges to the
conviction that the progress is the mobilization element, dynamic of the scientific culture,
and it’s this element that “ the science history” must describe, in a judging way, valorizing
it, eliminating any margin return to the mistaken conceptions, in this manner will be “
formulated a searching history, one history that it clarifies by the present purpose, one
history that departs from the present certainty and finds out, in the past, the progressive
formations of the truth” (Bachelard, 1990, p. 205 – 207).
The bachalerian proposition of epistemology aims the scientific knowledge production,
embracing all the aspects: logical, ideological, ontological, historical. For Bachelard, after
the sciences birth, occurs its evolution in historical moments very determined. That’s why
the epistemology must interrogate itself in a critical way about the “ susceptible existing
18
relations between the society and the science, between the sciences and the several
scientific institutions or between the several sciences”, looking to discover the genesis, as
well as the structure and the functioning of the scientific knowledge (Japaissu, 1977, p. 66).
Bachelard defends (1990, p. 213) that the epistemology interest returns to the logic of the
scientific truth discovering and this as a polemic against the incorrect, against the error,
submitting the science approximated truths, as well as the methods utilized by itself ‘to a
permanent ratification... and its applicability will be done no longer to the nature and to the
knowledge value, of a finished science, “ from which should be discovered only the
possibility conditions, the coherence or the legitimate titles, but to the sciences so that they
could happen in its real conditions of growth” (Japaissu, 1977, p. 71).
Piaget (1978, p. 34) on the other hand, defines the epistemology as ‘theory’ or the study
of the valid knowledge constitution, whose process consists in the passage of a inferior
validity to a superior validity, but not only a self terminated ‘validity’ as the isolated logic
does, but extending its concern to the relation between the subject and the object, with the
purpose to get closer to the determination of how the knowledge can reach the reality. The
genetic epistemology of Piaget is founded, therefore, looking for necessary and
indispensable nexus between psychology, logic, science specialty and mathematics, “only
in the function of this collaboration that the exigencies in fact and in validity can be
respected” (Ibidem). Piaget affirms that, as the genetic psychology is a science whose
methods are very similar to the biology ones, it can’t and it mustn’t have compatibility with
an epistemology that is presented as philosophical, because the connection between this
two dominions would be considered illegitimate, because of the metaphysic position that
the philosophy maintains and, if it happens, any scientific study would be reduced to any
philosophy
(Ibid., p. 32). Therefore the genetic epistemology proposition will be
constituted scientifically, demitted from every and any philosophical theory and pertinent
ideologies about the knowledge.
The genetic epistemology of Piaget considers that the scientific activity dimensionally
interdisciplinary. With other words, many knowledge dimensions are considered in the
relationship of the pertinent disciplines. The own knowledge is characterized by Piaget as a
subject construction, having its origin in a roll of development possibilities in intelligence
formation and not as a potentiality entirety given to priori, therefore is given through the
assimilative organic action of the Subject, Which Accommodates the Known Object In Its
Sensorial – Motors Schemes. That’s why Piaget (1972, p. 11) declares that the basic
19
orientation of the genetic epistemology is “to discover the roots of the knowledge diversity,
since from the most elementary forms and to follow its evolution up to the following levels,
including, the scientific thought.”
On his own words, Piaget (1972, p. 11) explicates that the genetic epistemology and its
proceeding purpose has its course very delimitated, without giving up of philosophical
bases, affirming that it is “... naturalist not being positivist, which turns evident the subject
activity without being idealist, that is sustained on the object as well considering it as a
limit (existing, therefore, independent from us, but never completely reached) and that,
above all, sees into the knowledge a continuing elaboration...”
Japiassu (1977, 0. 58) affirms that in despite of Piaget, through his genetic
epistemology, tries to overcome the positivism in all its forms, it is presented as a
prolongation of the positivist tradition that tries to inaugurate one science of the science
without any philosophical influence. However, the author warrants, “the simple fact of
justifying the pedagogical and social utility of a ‘scientific epistemology’, and to look for
an identification of its own scientific statute, it is already a philosophic activity.”
Dealing about the investigation of the positivism origin, Habermas searches, step by
step, to show the reduction, in a progressive way, in the XIX century thought, of the
knowledge to the scientific knowledge, and, consequently, of the knowledge Theory to the
Science Theory and to the Methodology. Habermas pretends to revalidate the dimension of
the knowledge Theory while constituting analyze of the scientific object being possible,
only through this dimension to contest the scientific and reduction comprehension of
sciences, and in an incontestable way can be considered “in its interlacement with the
social process” (Müller, 1981, p. 7).
It is good to observe, as Müller says (1981, p. 8) that in the German language doesn’t
exist the term ‘epistemology’. However, the most common and proximal expression that
characterizes the epistemological reflection about the science is the “Theory of the Science”
(Wissenschaftsthoerie), comprehended by Habermas as under obligated with the positivist
inheritance, “according to how it implicates the knowledge Theory reduction to the
Scientific Knowledge Theory, therefore, to the Science Theory and to the Methodology."
According to this way is pretended that the Knowledge Theory in Habermas has as
purpose the objectivity destruction of the pure and present theory in the positivist
comprehension of the sciences through the dialectic materialism. Therefore, "the
Knowledge Theory in Habermas conducts to the dialectic question of the unity between
20
theory and praxis". So it results the Habermasian preference as "gnosiology" instead of
"epistemology" "for avoiding possible decurrent misunderstandings of the non congruence
between Epistemology and the Knowledge Theory"(Ibid., p. 9).
Through two fundamental theses, Habermas propounds the reconstruction of the
Knowledge Theory, till now obscured by the positivism, with the finality that the science
can be thought and rethought in its social totality, reintroducing the necessary nexus for the
critical reflection, about itself and establishing the historic materialism as an
epistemological foundation of the scientific reflection, where the knowledge is considered
as mans production, promoted by the historic and social circling conditions, by which man
is subordinated. Only in this point of view the epistemology (comprehended here as the
Knowledge Theory) intrinsically associated to dialectic, is characterized in Habermas.
Habermas (apud Müller, 1981, p. 7) considers that:
1. One Knowledge Theory while radical critic of the knowledge it is possible only as
Society and Evolution Theory, comprehended as a logic reconstruction of the
humankind development in its principal dimensions, of the instrumental and strategic
proceeding, and of the communicating proceeding.
2. One Society and Evolution Theory, that it pretends as dialectic, is possible only by
reconsidering the epistemological and normative foundations of the historical
Materialism. This reconsideration postulates the reintroduction of Knowledge Theory
and of Practical Philosophy in the Marxist theory.
In this perspective the epistemology consists on the Critical Knowledge Theory, having
as a methodological support the materialist dialectical. In the historical materialism the
man and the nature own the “synthesis referential value”(Habermas, 1982, p. 46), and the
work makes part of this synthesis. That’s why the author will affirm that “the social work
system is, in each case, the work result of past generations”, consequently, the present
cognoscente subject, must comprehend his work as a continuing work of subject production
which lived before him (Ibid., p. 56).
Since the “science sociology”, that considers the material, social, historical conditions,
of the study object, Vieira Pinto (1979, p. 69) affirms that the science is incontestable a
collective work , corroborating with the ratiocination line of Habermas. In this direction the
author emphasizes that “it is impossible... to appreciate the science out of the condition of
social fact, in which will be necessary the application of the general categories that explain
21
the particular social facts as moments of a historical process, which evolves them,
engenders, explains and interprets” (Ibid.).
It is in this perspective that the epistemology on the dialectic sense avoids conceiving
the science as abstract rationality effect, where are submitted the objective informations to
its laws priori. the dialectic disapproves that kind of conception, for verifying that: a) the
rationality appears into the man together with the organic process and is constituted as a
consequence of the work about nature, b) the man is a cognoscente subject and able to
reflect into his conscience and c) the man keeps constituting concomitantly the world
rationality, that is presented on the regularity format, the legality of the experience events
he has (Ibid., p. 71).
However, as the “totality” is an angular category of the materialist dialectic, accepts the
character of logical – historic phenomenon, or with other words, the production and the
development process of the social reality of it, considering man as a social – historic subject
that transforms his reality, at the same time that is transformed; unifies in the dialectic
method the ontology, the gnosiology, and the logic. Therefore, as Kopnin says (1978, p.
184), the historical – logic character will be indispensable for an adequate knowledge of the
object, as the description points out the temporal transformations occurred by the object and
the logical will be the interpretation and knowledge vehicle of this process and of the own
object, therefore the importance of its unity, without whom the “totality” would be studied
in an incomplete and dissatisfaction form.
The epistemological thought of Edgar Morin presents the totality not simply on the
relation part – totality and totality – part, as we had the opportunity to analyze in the former
chapter, but as in an hologram in which each part or each point contains the totality and
vice versa, not admitting a mutilated thought enrolled by the reductionism that it doesn’t
show itself able to order the informations and the knowledge of a dynamic world, but what
considers as “iceberg” in all its dimensions: the incidental, the uncertainty, the incomplete,
the possibilities of the ranges and limits, therefore, of its overcoming or not.
To Morin (1996 b, p. 18-28) the classic epistemology picture presents the scientific
knowledge of the centered elements, by one side, in the culture and in the society, on the
other side, in the ideas organization way, therefore, of the social-culture and bioanthropological knowledge conditions. Every knowledge, inclusively the scientific
knowledge acquires world informations through theories, comprehended as “ a system of
ideas, a spirit construction that raises problems”. The ideas systems, are commanded by
22
reunion principles, denominated as logical principles. In the mean time, behind these, do
exist even more occulted principles which are the paradigms. The ideas theories and
systems are succeeded by the human brain-spirit, therefore by its bio-antophological
condition of knowledge, making possible to say that are produced by a given culture,
because of the disposal language, referring to the knowledge sociology. By the polarized
form view point, the knowledge field is presented as fragmented in the knowledge fields
non communicative.
This vision doesn’t consider, by one side, that the brain is a hyper - complex unitas
multiplex, bihemispheric and that its functioning is resultant of the supplementary and
antagonism “between a left hemisphere, more polarized about the abstraction and analyze,
and a right hemisphere, more polarized about the global apprehension and the concrete...”
and that the communication between the spirits (brain activities) “does never succeeds to
deny and erase in a total way an uncertain inscripted principle on the proper nature for
our knowledge”. On the other side, uses the knowledge sociology in a reducing way, for
example reducing the epistemology to the sociology. Incontestably the social-cultural
conditioners have a relevant responsibility on the scientific knowledge construction and of
the knowledge in a general way, however, as Morin points out, it has to be considered the
indeterminate processes as a historic and cultural complex and communicative inscription
with the spirit – brain, with its uncertainties and indeterminate processes too. (Ibidem).
The most complexity undertaking is “to render accounts of broken articulations by the
sections between disciplines, between categories and between knowledge kinds”, tending to
the multidimensional knowledge, which is, to study and to respect the several dimensions
of one phenomenon, since man is considered a biological – social – cultural being and that
the phenomenons emerge and are, on the economic, psychological, cultural, etc. context.
Consequently, the complex thought in its multidimensionality, “sluices in its interior a
principle of incomplete sense and uncertainty” (Morin, 1996a, p. 177). In this terms,
Morin defends that the knowledge objective is not to furnish an absolute and complete
answer as the last word by itself, but to open the dialog and not to cloister it, not only
uprooting from this universe what it can be “clearly determined, with precision and
exactness, as the nature laws, but, to enter too, in the dark – clear game which is the one of
the complexity” (Ibid., p. 191).
Starting from this point the complex epistemology will have as function and utility of
the limits conscience taking advantage, in this way, the knowledge of our knowledge and,
23
therefore, its progress in new spaces and moments by means of a confrontation with “
inexpressibility and the indecision of the real” (Morin, 1996 b, p. 32).
In this vision, Morin declares that it doesn’t exist any radical epistemology section, as
well as there is no pure science, there isn’t any final truth about any object and there is no a
pure logic, this is visible in the own life that is surrounded is supplied by impurities and the
proper “ realization and development of science, of logic, of thought needs this impurities.”
The complex epistemology doesn’t imbues with the ambition of destroying the scientific
principles and its competencies, but principally, with the adequate development and
necessary articulation with other competencies that, through a concatenation form “the
complete and dynamic circle, the circle of the knowledge of knowledge” (Ibid., p. 33-34).
Educational research: an object in construction
With the creation of the pos – graduation courses in Brazil occurred a considerable
increase of the research in the educational field, reflecting in this production a divers
paradigmatic character in its methodological models, in the philosophical and
epistemological bases approach and, therefore, in the proper critical analyze of this
production, according to the investigator inclination, and being influenced once by the
formula, and once by an thoughtless option (Mello, 1983, p. 69). But the necessity of a
multi - paradigmatic character on the conceptual, methodological, epistemological option
starts to take a real form since the ending of the 60 decades, and getting more
intensification on the posterior decades. The education research is revealed in this direction,
where by one hand is accepted the creative challenge of “ putting before the reality to the
theoretic fixation, so that the practice do not be reduced to the ‘theoretic practice’, and so
that the theory can remain on its proper place, as an interpretative instrument and with
creative condition” not forgetting obviously the investment of the critical conscience that
characterizes the limits and the ranges of each theory, obligating it to be adequate, to see
again, change and overcome into the interior that the research is a discovering and creation
process (Demo, 199, p. 23-28).
The educational research as a dialogue must do much more than producing scientific
knowledge
by the scientific knowledge about the education, it must be concerned
principally, inside its communicative action, to tame ways that can turn possible the
benefactions for the scientific community, to the society, and in a special way to the
education. Is the educational research responsibility, than, examine the epistemological
24
problems that penetrate in the education field and, in this way, with a critical vision, to
construct directive ways providing sustentation. So that this research can reach this “tops”
the educational investigator must be a constant and careful studious, knowing that the
research isn’t realized or thought simply by the application of this or that methodology or
specific techniques, but through the epistemological formation of the investigator (during
all his life), that has a substantial weight on the scientific investigation process, considering
that “the profound study of fundamental problems of education on its scientific, historical
and philosophical aspects can’t be substituted by the learning of discussing methodological
itineraries” (Azanha, 1992, p. 11). This doesn’t mean that it must be given less importance
to the methodological dominion of the research in education, but having the conscience that
is the epistemological formation of investigator that will make possible a better application
of it, providing more sustentation to the occurred research and to its processes.
Consequently is from this relevant point that the research should be realized.
The educational research construct in Brazil followed (and follows) the “rocky way”
since 1940, passing by its institutionalization through the concepts 977/65 and 77/659 of
CFE that calibrated the organization and the functioning of pos-graduation courses in the
country, crossing the years 70 and 80 with its paradigmatic and methodological debates and
conflicts , reaching the 1990 in its thematic diversification and entering on the XXI century
as an apprentice that, in spite of what succeeded to inward, it still has a lot to be grown and
to learn.
The production of the educational research in Brazil, can be divided in five basic
periods, and the three first periods by Gouveia (1971), the fourth by Mello (1983) and the
fifth by Megid Neto (1999).
The first period, since 1940 till 1950, occurs with the creation of the National Institute
of Studies and Pedagogical Researches (INEP), being verified a predominancy of psychopedagogical themes connected to the psychology and psychometric, including studies about
the learning evaluation, intelligence tests and aptness tests. The second period, starting in
the middle of 1950 till the middle of 1960, has as a referential character themes on the
Education Sociology area, with many thematic studies including school and society,
cultural aspects and social development. The third period begins in 1964 till 1970,
mobilized by the changing of political-economic models and by the scientific production
increase of the pos-graduation courses, whom institutionalization occurs in 1965, as it was
mentioned above. The themes of this historical moment were marked by the educational
25
economy, where the works present the education as an investment, financing agents of
education and formation of the education professionals. The fourth moment of the scientific
production in the educational field in Brazil (middle of 1970 till 1980) is characterized by
Mello (1983) as the reappearing of psycho-pedagogical themes, therefore, concerned with
the technique and the diversified thematic. For example, are noted many themes in the
curriculum area, methods and learning techniques, evaluation, administration and school
organization, politic and educational technology.
The fifth period is described by Megid Neto (1999) as the period of fortification
psycho-pedagogical themes, not having its concern exclusively in technique, however,
diversifying its range, earning notoriety the social - cultural study, of administrative
management and educational politics, beyond of learning methodologies, new educational
technologies and research paradigms (on the 70 decades, as affirms the author, there was a
predominance of positivists and empiric-inductive paradigms, on the 80 and 90 decades,
pos-positivists, theoretic – critics and constructive or naturalist / constructive). The same
author based on the educational literature numbers three methodological phases of the
educational research. The first (1940-1970), predominating the statistic quantitative
methods and empiric-inductive, experimental researches and almost experimental, kinds of
studies as survey and correlation. The second starting to appear in the ending of 70 decade,
with the appearing of descriptive studies of the reality, including the case study,
ethnography, phenomenological study, action - research and participating research. The
third phase, in the middle of 80 decade, starts the debate between the quantitative and
qualitative approaches, where each one of them advocated its relevance about the other one
as being sufficient to the problem to be studied, the study object and the relation subjectobject. Despite of this established debate, still today is predominant the quantitative
approach, however, gradually other paradigmatic tendencies are getting new spaces, as we
can see for example in the works of Sanchez Gamboa (1982, 1987, 1996), Silva (1997) and
Ramos Lamar (1998).
The educational research, as Charles defines (1988, p. 3) is the thematic study, patient
and very careful in many education aspects for discovering the best way of work in
education, establishing principles that can be followed, at the same time of opening ways,
through the questioning of its own practice and the same principles, with the purpose of
turning dynamic the orientation vision, reflective and transforming of education as a
research object in a multidimensional perspective.
26
It’s exactly about this vision that the research of educational research, or better, the
epistemological research must be founded, which is, through the critical analyze must
denounce questionable paths, without scientific substantiality and to propound the constant
reflection of the educational research praxiology, indicating significant but not final tips for
the scientific knowledge construction in this particular field. The epistemological study of
educational research, consequently, is a challenging vehicle, considering its evaluating
character of scientific production quality and the epistemological pertinent monitoring,
which makes substantial our work and provides safe elements for its construction.
Necessary nexus between science, epistemology and educational research
There is no way of developing an epistemological research without considering the
basic elements of its sustentation, because of the knowledge systematic investigation that it
develops. This “systematic character” we believe, doesn’t gives na end to the study of the
development possibilities of scientific research in one vision, but as a way, it longs for
following in an evaluating way the advance, retrocession or the stagnation of the research
and the processes that make part of it, searching its best development and growth.
Science, epistemology and educational research are the “basic elements” of this
work, where the first systematize the knowledge, creates theory and methods about a
determined reality, elaborates principles and possibilities starting from the study object,
searching its articulations with pertinent sources and making possible the reflective critic
for the second one about its practice. The epistemology, however, will be the investigation
vehicle, reflection and critic of the science text and of its development, having as a
primordial purpose the plurality investigation and the text clarification (comprehended here
as the science reality or the science in construction). After the object identification (the
text), of the epistemological research (the plurality study and the text clarification) it is
transferred to the epistemological method which is the “resource to the classic categories
of epistemology that deal with the possibility, foundations (origins or limits), and the
knowledge truth” (Adib, 1996, p. 222).
The educational research, in a very special way needs this epistemological vision,
where its text and context can be investigated through the reality of its own history and of
the forming processes. The big problem, however, as Pimenta (1996, p. 42) points out, is
that the “education it hasn’t been sufficiently subjected as investigation area of a science”,
exactly for taking loaned apparent scientific statute of the “education sciences” that it does
27
not favor an adequate confrontation of epistemological questions in the educational field.
This non-confrontation turns difficult not only the research articulation in this field, but to
the formulation of necessary researches and to the educational social practice too. The
epistemological question in the educational research is the vehicle which possibilities the
necessary reflection in this specific field, transforming, reviewing and rethinking the
studied universe, as well as pointing ways which wasn’t trod yet, or if they were, pointing
“new lights” of those ways. This speech must be retaken, making possible to the education
being comprehended as a first science which opens way to the man knowledge, of its
history and other sciences, permitting to the educational investigation to be constructed
without speculation, but under the necessary epistemological prism.
On the other hand, the epistemological research must be worked on the historical
and logical aspects. While the first one is concerned with the sprouting, development and
the transformation phases of the object, the second converges its attention to the reading of
the first one, not being concerned only on reproducing its history, but through it, showing
its ways (of object), revealing the knowledge about the it, presenting new focuses and
relevant discoveries to its development and making possible the critic reflection about its
processes with the purpose to rethink its trajectory. So, to know the science, the
epistemology, the educational research, history, man, abstract and concrete, cause and
effect, ontological elements concepts, through the logical and the historical means to open
ways on the knowledge revelation of the scientific productions and its processes, which
instead of pretending to reveal all the faces of totality takes it as a way in construction for
the comprehension of its reality.
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AZANHA, José Mário Pires. Uma idéia de pesquisa educacional. São Paulo: Editora da
Universidade de São Paulo, 1992.
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