Epistemology

What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like

The entry node · the standard the rest of the branch measures against

Practised · resource not yet written

Four conditions rendered for design work: real avenues through which criticism can travel while a decision can still change, demonstrable uptake of that criticism, standards of evidence agreed before evidence is gathered, and authority that tracks relevant knowledge rather than rank. They are necessary rather than sufficient — they make error detectable, not absent — and the fourth cannot be self-certified, which is why it is written as an arrangement a process submits to rather than a check it performs on itself.

Grounding. Critical contextual empiricism (Longino); strong objectivity (Harding); veritistic social epistemology (Goldman)

Sources

• Reference 1: Longino, H. E. (2002). The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton University Press.
• Reference 2: Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press.
• Reference 3: Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford University Press.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence, Process
• Designing Under Disagreement — Process, Evidence
• The Designer’s Own Position — 2 shared sources
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Evidence · 1 shared source
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence

Connected contributions

• When Testimony Becomes Evidence
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility
• The Designer’s Own Position

Where this work leads

• Source Discipline in Knowledge Products, on the Learning Design page

When Testimony Becomes Evidence

The criterion an evidence hierarchy cannot supply

Practised · resource not yet written

What makes a firsthand account count as evidence, and equally what makes a claim fail regardless of who holds it. It is the contribution that keeps a widened set of knowers from becoming an unlimited set of claims, and it leaves appraisal discipline — distinguishing a robust finding from folklore — fully intact.

Grounding. Epistemology of testimony (Coady; Lackey); epistemic dependence (Hardwig); testimonial injustice (Fricker)

Sources

• Reference 4: Coady, C. A. J. (1992). Testimony: A Philosophical Study. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 5: Lackey, J. (2008). Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 6: Hardwig, J. (1985). “Epistemic Dependence.” The Journal of Philosophy, 82(7), 335–349.
• Reference 7: Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Evidence · 1 shared source
• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Evidence, Learner research
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence · 1 shared source
• Designing Under Disagreement — Evidence

Connected contributions

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour

Where this work leads

• Reading Learning Science Without Neuromyths, on the Learning Design page
• Source Discipline in Knowledge Products, on the Learning Design page
• Evidence Brief & Knowledge Product Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page

The Invisible Rules of Admissibility

The diagnostic · specifiable rules rather than bias

Practised · resource not yet written

Sequencing, genre, the credential gate, proxy substitution, small-n erasure, safety closure, and the upstream lock: named filters that settle what enters a record before anything in it is weighed. Naming them as rules rather than as bias is what makes them examinable, and correctable, by the room that has just applied one.

Grounding. Epistemic injustice (Fricker; Dotson); socio-legal work on admissibility, expert qualification, and burden of proof

Sources

• Reference 7: Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 8: Dotson, K. (2011). “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.” Hypatia, 26(2), 236–257.
• Reference 9: Jasanoff, S. (1995). Science at the Bar: Law, Science, and Technology in America. Harvard University Press.
• Reference 10: Twining, W. (1990). Rethinking Evidence: Exploratory Essays. Basil Blackwell (2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2006).
• Reference 11: Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993) — the admissibility standard for expert evidence in United States federal courts.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Experience Without Language — Equity · 2 shared sources
• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence, Process
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Evidence, Equity
• Designing Under Disagreement — Process, Evidence
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence · 1 shared source

Connected contributions

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like
• Experience Without Language

Where this work leads

• Working with Subject-Matter Experts, on the Learning Design page
• Source Discipline in Knowledge Products, on the Learning Design page
• Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, on the Accessibility page

Knowledge That Was Never Produced

The absence that leaves no trace

Practised · resource not yet written

Questions never funded, populations never studied, outcomes never defined. Nothing was excluded because nothing was submitted, which makes non-production the likeliest reason an evidence base looks thin and the hardest thing to detect from inside a literature search.

Grounding. Agnotology (Proctor & Schiebinger); structured ignorance (Mills); Tuana

Sources

• Reference 12: Proctor, R. N., & Schiebinger, L. (Eds.). (2008). Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford University Press.
• Reference 13: Mills, C. W. (2007). “White Ignorance.” In S. Sullivan & N. Tuana (Eds.), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. State University of New York Press.
• Reference 14: Tuana, N. (2006). “The Speculum of Ignorance: The Women’s Health Movement and Epistemologies of Ignorance.” Hypatia, 21(3), 1–19.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence, Equity
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence, Learner research
• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence
• Experience Without Language — Equity
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Evidence

Connected contributions

• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility

Where this work leads

• Research-to-Practice Learning Systems, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Disability Data and the Limits of Prevalence Figures, on the Accessibility page
• Source Discipline in Knowledge Products, on the Learning Design page

Experience Without Language

Hermeneutical injustice · when the account cannot be formed

Practised · resource not yet written

Nobody is disbelieved and no claim is rejected: the concept required to state the experience does not yet exist in the shared interpretive resource. It leaves no trace in a consultation record, so a process that measures only what was said will read it as an absence of concern.

Grounding. Hermeneutical and contributory injustice (Fricker; Dotson); idioms of distress (Nichter); Kleinman

Sources

• Reference 7: Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 8: Dotson, K. (2011). “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing.” Hypatia, 26(2), 236–257.
• Reference 15: Nichter, M. (1981). “Idioms of Distress: Alternatives in the Expression of Psychosocial Distress.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 5(4), 379–408.
• Reference 16: Kleinman, A. (1977). “Depression, Somatization and the ‘New Cross-Cultural Psychiatry’.” Social Science & Medicine, 11(1), 3–10 — the source of the category fallacy.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Equity · 2 shared sources
• The Construct Inside the Measure — 2 shared sources
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — 1 shared source
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Equity
• When Integration Becomes Assimilation — Equity

Connected contributions

• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility
• The Construct Inside the Measure

Where this work leads

• Designing for Episodic and Fluctuating Conditions, on the Accessibility page
• Equity-Centered Learning Design, on the Universal Design for Learning page

Making as Knowing

Whether knowing-how is knowledge in the same sense

Practised · resource not yet written

The form of knowledge most present in craft, facilitation, and clinical practice, and least legible to a hierarchy built for claims. Elicitation methods presuppose an answer to this question and rarely state it, which is the point at which a tacit account is either carried into a design or lost at the interview.

Grounding. Knowing-how (Ryle); tacit knowledge (Polanyi; H. Collins); reflective practice (Schön)

Sources

• Reference 17: Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson — the source of the knowing-how and knowing-that distinction.
• Reference 18: Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press.
• Reference 19: Collins, H. (2010). Tacit and Explicit Knowledge. University of Chicago Press.
• Reference 20: Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Designing For and Within Practice-Based Research — Craft · 3 shared sources
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Capacity

Connected contributions

• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour

Where this work leads

• Working with Subject-Matter Experts, on the Learning Design page
• Experiential Learning Infrastructure, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Inclusive Facilitation & Capacity Building, on the Accessibility page

Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour

When deference is well-grounded rather than deferential

Practised · resource not yet written

Nobody verifies most of what they know, so dependence is the ordinary condition of expertise rather than a lapse in it. This contribution sets out the grounds on which trust in an expert, a source, or a community is warranted, alongside the documented cases in which expertise established outside formal credentials has held up against expertise inside them.

Grounding. Epistemic dependence (Hardwig); epistemology of expertise (Goldman); interactional expertise (Collins & Evans); civic epistemology (Jasanoff)

Sources

• Reference 6: Hardwig, J. (1985). “Epistemic Dependence.” The Journal of Philosophy, 82(7), 335–349.
• Reference 3: Goldman, A. I. (1999). Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 21: Collins, H., & Evans, R. (2007). Rethinking Expertise. University of Chicago Press.
• Reference 22: Epstein, S. (1996). Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge. University of California Press.
• Reference 23: Wynne, B. (1992). “Misunderstood Misunderstanding: Social Identities and Public Uptake of Science.” Public Understanding of Science, 1(3), 281–304 — the Cumbrian sheep farmers study.
• Reference 24: Jasanoff, S. (2005). Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States. Princeton University Press — the source of civic epistemology.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence · 1 shared source
• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence · 1 shared source
• Making as Knowing — Capacity
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Evidence

Connected contributions

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence

Where this work leads

• Working with Subject-Matter Experts, on the Learning Design page
• Reading Learning Science Without Neuromyths, on the Learning Design page

Designing Under Disagreement

Deciding and building when knowledgeable people conflict

Practised · resource not yet written

Disagreement between well-informed people working inside a single framework, where a decision still has to be made and something still has to be built to a deadline. It covers what the disagreement is itself evidence of, and which deliberative arrangements produce a defensible decision rather than the loudest one.

Grounding. Peer disagreement (Feldman & Warfield); deliberative method (Fishkin; Landemore); participatory design (Ehn)

Sources

• Reference 25: Feldman, R., & Warfield, T. A. (Eds.). (2010). Disagreement. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 26: Fishkin, J. S. (2009). When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation. Oxford University Press.
• Reference 27: Landemore, H. (2013). Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many. Princeton University Press.
• Reference 28: Ehn, P. (1988). Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artifacts. Arbetslivscentrum.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence, Process
• When Integration Becomes Assimilation — editorially linked
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence, Process
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Evidence

Connected contributions

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like

Where this work leads

• Co-Production & Participatory Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Scoping and the Decision Gate, on the Learning Design page
• Learning Design for Emergent Learning, on the Learning Systems Design page

When Integration Becomes Assimilation

Where synthesis is the wrong instrument

Practised · resource not yet written

Two knowledge systems can answer the same question incompatibly, and integrating them under unequal power absorbs one into the other. Holding the conflict open is an arrangement to be maintained rather than a deliverable to be produced. This contribution coordinates with the Indigenous-led work held elsewhere on the map and does not stand in for it.

Grounding. Ethical space (Ermine); Two-Eyed Seeing (Bartlett, Marshall & Marshall); legal pluralism

Sources

• Reference 29: Ermine, W. (2007). “The Ethical Space of Engagement.” Indigenous Law Journal, 6(1), 193–203.
• Reference 30: Bartlett, C., Marshall, M., & Marshall, A. (2012). “Two-Eyed Seeing and Other Lessons Learned within a Co-Learning Journey of Bringing Together Indigenous and Mainstream Knowledges and Ways of Knowing.” Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 2(4), 331–340.
• Reference 10: Twining, W. (1990). Rethinking Evidence: Exploratory Essays. Basil Blackwell (2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Designing Under Disagreement — editorially linked
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Equity · 1 shared source
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Equity
• Experience Without Language — Equity
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Ethics

Connected contributions

• Designing Under Disagreement

Where this work leads

• Indigenous & Equity-Centred KMb, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Supporting Indigenous-Led Learning Design, on the Learning Design page

The Construct Inside the Measure

How an instrument decides which outcomes become visible

Practised · resource not yet written

An instrument encodes a construct, and choosing it settles in advance what will be able to register as an outcome. Where the construct does not hold in the setting, the measure returns nothing on something that worked, or an effect on something nobody intended.

Grounding. Construct validity (Messick; Borsboom et al.); category fallacy (Kleinman); idioms of distress (Nichter)

Sources

• Reference 31: Messick, S. (1995). “Validity of Psychological Assessment: Validation of Inferences from Persons’ Responses and Performances as Scientific Inquiry into Score Meaning.” American Psychologist, 50(9), 741–749.
• Reference 32: Borsboom, D., Mellenbergh, G. J., & van Heerden, J. (2004). “The Concept of Validity.” Psychological Review, 111(4), 1061–1071.
• Reference 16: Kleinman, A. (1977). “Depression, Somatization and the ‘New Cross-Cultural Psychiatry’.” Social Science & Medicine, 11(1), 3–10 — the source of the category fallacy.
• Reference 15: Nichter, M. (1981). “Idioms of Distress: Alternatives in the Expression of Psychosocial Distress.” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 5(4), 379–408.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Experience Without Language — 2 shared sources
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Evidence
• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — Evidence
• The Invisible Rules of Admissibility — Evidence
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Evidence

Connected contributions

• Experience Without Language

Where this work leads

• Access in Clinical and Placement Education, on the Accessibility page
• Eliminating Construct-Irrelevant Barriers in Assessment, on the Universal Design for Learning page
• Learning Evaluation Framework Design, on the Learning Systems Design page
• KMb Evaluation Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page

The Designer’s Own Position

The assumptions a method cannot catch on its own

Practised · resource not yet written

No method examines the assumptions it was built on, and elicitation presumes a neutral extractor. The correction is criticism from a differently positioned knower holding authority to overrule — an arrangement submitted to rather than a process run — which applies to the designer the same condition a sound knowledge process is asked to meet.

Grounding. Strong objectivity (Harding); situated knowledges (Haraway); Wylie; Hill Collins; Longino

Sources

• Reference 2: Harding, S. (1986). The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press.
• Reference 33: Haraway, D. (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599.
• Reference 34: Wylie, A. (2003). “Why Standpoint Matters.” In R. Figueroa & S. Harding (Eds.), Science and Other Cultures: Issues in Philosophies of Science and Technology. Routledge.
• Reference 35: Collins, P. H. (1990). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Unwin Hyman.
• Reference 1: Longino, H. E. (2002). The Fate of Knowledge. Princeton University Press.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like — 2 shared sources
• When Testimony Becomes Evidence — Learner research
• Knowledge That Was Never Produced — Learner research
• Warranted Trust and the Division of Cognitive Labour — Ethics
• When Integration Becomes Assimilation — Ethics

Connected contributions

• What a Sound Knowledge Process Looks Like

Where this work leads

• Learner Research: Human-Centred Design, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Co-Production & Participatory Design, on the Knowledge Mobilization page
• Partnering with Disabled People in Learning Design, on the Accessibility page

Designing For and Within Practice-Based Research

When the work made is part of the finding

Practised · resource not yet written

Research-creation and practice-led inquiry produce knowledge through making, which changes how a project is scoped, supervised, documented and examined. Designing learning in these settings means building documentation into production rather than reconstructing it afterwards, and making the criteria for a practice-based contribution explicit to everyone assessing it.

A resource in two areas. Its home is Learning Experience Design, and it is also part of the Epistemology set.

Grounding. Practice as research (Barrett & Bolt); knowing-how (Ryle); tacit knowledge (Polanyi; Collins)

Sources

• Reference 36: Barrett, E., & Bolt, B. (Eds.). (2010). Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. I.B. Tauris.
• Reference 17: Ryle, G. (1949). The Concept of Mind. Hutchinson — the source of the knowing-how and knowing-that distinction.
• Reference 18: Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. University of Chicago Press.
• Reference 19: Collins, H. (2010). Tacit and Explicit Knowledge. University of Chicago Press.

Most related, by shared theory and theme

• Making as Knowing — Craft · 3 shared sources

Connected contributions

• Making as Knowing

Where this work leads

• Learning Experience Design, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Designing Inside a Research Culture, on the Learning Design page
• Studio and Workshop Pedagogy, on the Learning Experience Design page
• Ethics and Consent in Learner Research, on the Learning Design page