196)
While Aristotle’s account is useful for thinking about the kinds of expertise that might be
required of different roles in the educational enterprise, this formulation provides little
advice about how this expertise might be acquired or developed (apart simply from
experience). For this, the classification of different kinds of systems of inquiry proposed by
Churchman (1971) provides a useful organizing principle.
Churchman proposed a classification of inquiry systems based on what was the primary or
most salient form of evidence, and he labeled each category of inquiry system with the
name of a philosopher whose own stance, according to Churchman, typified the category:
Leibniz, Locke, Kant, Hegel, and Singer.
In Leibnizian inquiry system, certain fundamental assumptions are made, from which
deductions are drawn by the use of formal reasoning. Within a Leibnizian enquiry system
the most important form of evidence is rationality—whether the conclusions follow
logically from the assumptions. The obvious example of a Lebnizian inquiry system is pure
mathematics. Although there may conceivably be occasions in educational research when
such methods might be appropriate, they generally inadequate—typically inquiries into
educational phenomena require some sort of empirical data from the situation under study.
In what Churchman called a Lockean inquiry system, the main source of evidence is
observation of the world. Empirical data are collected, and then an attempt is made to build
a theory that accounts for the data, or conversely, multiple theories are developed that
generate testable hypotheses that can then form the basis of a “crucial experiment” that will
indicate which of the theories is correct. This is the standard method of inquiry for the
physical, life, and earth sciences. The major difficulty with a Lockean approach is that,
because observations are central, it is necessary for all observers to agree on what they have
observed, leading to the need for the “scientific detachment” described by Bulterman-Bos.
If observers disagree on what they have observed, if the evidence is in doubt, then the
Lockean inquirer cannot begin.
Philosophers of science have long recognized that all observations are theory-dependent.
As Werner von Heisenberg observed, “What we learn about is not nature itself, but nature
exposed to our methods of questioning” (quoted in Johnson, 1996, p. 147). Nevertheless,
there are many situations, even within the social sciences where considerable progress can
be made, because the relevant data are sufficiently-widely agreed to provide a fruitful
starting point for the Lockean inquirer.
Where there is no such sufficient agreement about what the relevant data are, then a
Kantian inquiry system is more appropriate. The Kantian inquirer accepts that there can be
no such thing as “scientific detachment”—what is generated by any theory will inevitably
be, to an extent, a consequence of the assumptions made by the inquirer about what
constitutes the relevant data. Kantian inquiry involves the deliberate framing of multiple
alternative perspectives, on both theory and data (thus incorporating both Leibnizian and
Lockean systems). This could be done by building different theories on the basis of the