Critical Realism
Philosophical Foundations
Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology & Method
The CR framework proposes that reality is stratified and that an external reality exists (in the actual dimension) which is independent of our knowledge of it in the empirical dimension.
Here I present my suggestion for a new conceptualisation of personal epistemology which is intended to elevate our understanding of the way people attain knowledge. This involves our constant evaluation of our knowledge by planning (forecasting), conducting activities (probes), observing their outcome and amending our hypotheses. CR also maintains that our knowledge is fallible, and through persistent re-evaluation by reality testing, our knowledge asymptotically approaches the true nature of the phenomenon in the actual dimension. In my understanding all epistemology is personal and each individual possesses his personal approach to attaining and evaluating knowledge. People differ in their level of curiosity, awareness and sensitivity to anomalies, and the extent to which they act on their environment in order to evaluate their knowledge differs accordingly.
Following these epistemic understandings, and elaborating on the research methodology which I had produced in 2012, I conceptualised a suggestion for a new cyclic methodology for conducting research of practice, producing practical knowledge and introducing it into the academy.
I conceptualised an explicit method for conducting academic research and specifically research of professional practice. This was based upon the method through which I conducted my research by adopting modes of inference of induction, deduction, abduction and retroduction together with activities which I conceptualised including anomaly detection, mapping of attributes, forecasting, probing, and reification.
