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3.2: The relationship of my epistemology to my methodologyWhitehead and McNiff were helpful in reminding me that my ‘methodology will in turn beinfluenced by your ontological and epistemological assumptions’ (2006 p. 23). This renders thequotation from Donald Rumsfeld (February 12, 2002) at the start of chapter 2, even morepowerful and less foolish than most commentators would appreciate. When it is acknowledgedto have originated in the work of the epistemologist, Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976), it is an evenmore convincing assessment of the state of a person’s knowledge.“Ryle explains that some people understand knowledge as an empirical object of rationalenquiry, that is, it can be understood by adopting a spectator approach, as a spectatoranalyses a play from a distance.” (Whitehead and McNiff, 2006 p. 33)In the context of the war in Iraq and from the perspective of the Pentagon, Rumsfeld was quiteright to acknowledge that from where he was standing and observing the theatre of conflict, hedid not know what he did not know.In the context of my career spectating, however, has never been an option. On the contrary, Ihave had to build my knowledge base through my own self-directed learning and the necessaryinteractions I established with peers and other pedagogical agents. My epistemology is closer tothe inductive end of the spectrum and is certainly socially constructed.“The epistemology of a social constructionist perspective thus demands that researchers dowhatever they can to approximate an understanding of the life-world of social actors asthey themselves understand it. It requires more than accurate reportage of the insider’sperspective, however. It demands that, as we seek to understand a social phenomenon, wemust also recognize the importance of the larger social context in the construction ofindividual’s interpretive practices. This requires some grasp of the historical backgroundof the phenomenon under study, as well as a recognition of the political and economicrelationships within which sense-making takes place.” (Goodson and Mangan, 1991 p.11)Whitehead takes this a little further, ‘developing the idea of living theories’ (Whitehead andMcNiff, 2006 p.32). With McNiff he argues177Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)