Presented by

Dr. P.Madhu.

Asso Fellow. IUCSSRE. Mahatma Gandhi University KottayamAt

Dept. of History Student – Methodology Workshop- Sri Sankara University for Sanskrit, Kalady- Kerala

On19-12-2014

Is language a vehicle of meaning or conveyer belt of thought?

�Shares its etymological root with Conceit!

�To “take in”!

"take (seed) into the womb, become � "take (seed) into the womb, become pregnant,"

�Concepts are the constituents of thoughts

� Is ‘non-conceptual understanding’ possible?possible?

� ‘referential’? – Networked references!

With concepts we classify particulars!

Concepts are methodologically (?) arrived from observing or analyzing from observing or analyzing

sources

Cloaks’ of senses?

� Method: Methods are means by which concepts are either discovered or invented from sources ?

� The procedure by which we weave meaning? � The procedure by which we weave meaning?

� A procedural means to uncloak?

� Source

� Object of Study?

� Objectified by concepts & methods?

� That which we try to un-cloak?

Rene Magritte

Sources, Method and concepts are mutually related and they reinforce/ torpedo each other

1. Sources don’t lie out there to be discovered. Even their existence can’t be recognized or acknowledged without the means of concept or method.

2. Methods are not merely neutral tools available there. They have to be invented and sharpened as we grasp our research problems better. They have to be reinvented as our political conscience improves with research our political conscience improves with research acquaintance.

3. Concepts are not truth statements. They are habituated patterns of organizing facts influenced by our political sensibility and exposure to other concepts. Concepts are method dependent. Though ideally concepts are arrived as the result of a research process, without a conceptual a priori we cannot approach a research problem.

the first impression is not a fundamental truth. In point of fact, scientific objectivity is possible only if one has broken first with the immediate object, if one has refused to yield to the seduction of the inicial choice, if one has checked and contradicted the thoughts which arise from one's :first observation. Any objective examination, when duly verified, refutes the results of the first contact with the object.the first contact with the object.

-Gaston Bachelard (Psychoanalysis of fire)

� Research gap?

� Concept creation? Establishing truth?

� Methodological precision?

� Appropriating Source?

� Exposing error?

� De-cloak meaning?

Santa Muerte (Spanish for Our Lady of the Holy Death)

There is always a There is always a further!

Nimitha

Induced

Akrama

� Usually we begin our research process from our conceptual a priori. Conceptual a priori is the positive unconscious of knowledge of the individual researchers or the research field. The objective of our research, I would recommend, should not be reproducing our conceptual a priori by means of readymade methods justified with data sources, means of readymade methods justified with data sources, approaching all the three uncritically.

� The research process is also the process in which the researchers gain ability to handle source, method and concepts dexterously. The greater research processes take researchers to break away from conceptual a priories the dexterous they are.

� A refined research process is, to my understanding, explaining or understanding the source, using the best possible method.

� Methods are better to the extent they challenge the conceptual a priories. The coarsest of research conceptual a priories. The coarsest of research endeavor on the other hand would be reproducing conceptual a priories. A still worse research process may not even be aware of the existence of the conceptual a priories within which researches are problematized.

� Most of the hypothetico-deductive research projects reinvent the conceptual bias with which they started their truth-game. Conceptual a priories though are inevitable, research projects of greater authenticity move ahead by prioritizing methods over concepts. By move ahead by prioritizing methods over concepts. By prioritizing methods over concepts I mean challenging a priori concepts by critiquing methods by which they were produced.

� Precisely, this is called methodological critique. Such a critique may free research endeavors to look at the sources in a new light

� Research endeavors of greater authenticity critically examine the methods in relation to their efficacy in understanding the source. Understanding or explanation of the source through undergoing into spirals of methodological reflexivity is pivotal to spirals of methodological reflexivity is pivotal to research endeavors of greater authenticity. The idea is diagrammatically expressed in the Figure given above.

� The diagram exposes the tentative reflexive spiral researchers may go from a priory concept to methodologically refined concept.

� Of the three, among the trio: source, method and concept, I suggest, we need to be more cautious and guarded about ‘concept’. One has to be aware, concepts are not truth statements, but they are results of our attempt to systematically understand the source of our attempt to systematically understand the source through a set of methods.

� Concept is Krami!

� Commitment to methods over understanding the source is an error we often commit. The error of committing to one or another set of methods towards understanding the source however, may not be fully avoided. Nevertheless, the awareness regarding avoided. Nevertheless, the awareness regarding inevitable fallaciousness of methods in understanding the source may enhance our caution against reducing truths into concepts

� Research is a never ending endeavor of making sense of the source with reflexively produced methodological engagement. The moment, we declare the concepts we have drawn as pure truth, we should know, is the moment our research and scientific know, is the moment our research and scientific temperament is lost to dogmas and prejudices

� Disappropriate

� A-signifying Puissance!

� Potency

� Void

� Event