Can we have more theory? An essay review of Evaluation Practice Reconsidered

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Notes

The book reviewed here is Thomas A. Schwandt, Evaluation Practice Reconsidered (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), xii + 224 pp., US$29.95 (pbk), ISBN 0‐8204‐5705‐1.

Phil Francis Carspecken is professor of Inquiry and Philosophical Foundations at the School of Education, Indiana University, W. W. Wright Education Bldg., 201 North Rose Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405‐1006, USA; e‐mail: [email protected]. His scholarly work is focused on philosophy, social theory, and methodological theory. He is the author of Critical Ethnography in Educational Research (New York: Routledge, 1996) and Four Scenes for Posing the Question of Meaning (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). He has recently published ‘Ocularcentrism, phonocentrism, and the counter‐enlightenment problematic’ in Teachers College Record (August 2003).

1. Popular uses of the word ‘paradigm’ are so ambiguous and muddled that the term is usually best avoided (Bernstein 1976, Carspecken 1999: Essay One). However, in this case I believe that ‘true paradigms’ are at stake. True paradigms operate like ‘horizons of intelligibility’; holistic worldviews or ‘primordial scenes’ that are assumed and in the background whenever specific thoughts, questions, or actions arise (Carspecken 1999).

2. Schwandt uses the expression ‘modernist paradigm’ frequently, as will I in this essay. I will also use expressions like ‘modernist’, ‘ideology of modernity’, ‘scientism’, and ‘scientistic view’ with synonymous meanings, often just for the sake of variety but at times to emphasize different nuances.

3. Most of the essays in the book have a binary format. In Chapter 1, modernist understandings of evaluation are compared with humanistic understandings. In Chapter 2, the ideology of social scientific progress is contrasted with the idea of morally engaged practice. Chapter 3 compares two discourses of disengagement (both modernist in Schwandt's opinion) with engaged practical philosophy. In Chapter 4, the idea of a general logic of research and evaluation is contrasted with practical hermeneutics. And so on. Sub‐sections within each essay are often structured in the binary form as well. Examples include a section contrasting knowing with understanding in Chapter 5; theoretical knowing is compared with narrative knowing in Chapter 7; the terms ‘rational’, ‘orderly’, ‘abstract’, and ‘universal’ are frequently contrasted with ‘messy’, ‘uncertain’, ‘concrete’, and ‘local’ throughout the book. And there are other binary contrasts as well. In each case, one main feature of scientism is brought to light through its comparison with an alternative.

4. Schwandt uses the expression ‘practical hermeneutics’ fairly frequently, but we must not hold him too closely to this expression for he characterizes his alternative with other expressions as well. What he has in mind is not totally tied to the hermeneutics tradition but rather suggests expansions and supplements from expressivism (e.g. uses of Charles Taylor) and to a lesser extent from contemporary critical theory (e.g. uses of Jürgen Habermas here and there, but Schwandt also has an implicit critique of Habermasian theory within several sections of the text).

5. Synthetic status for the alternative of practical hermeneutics is frequently implicit to Schwandt's statements. A good example is discussed in a section below (on the way ‘we are first’ in the world). However, Schwandt also considers expanding our everyday notion of ‘rationality’ on page 113, broadening narrative theory to make it possible to distinguish ‘true’ from ‘false’ narratives on pages 128–129, and in other ways suggests that a synthetic position for his alternative is appropriate.

6. Here is an example of supplement status for the alternative: ‘… social inquiry as dialogical or practical reasoning is in part continuous with the project of modernity. It does not so much seek to overcome modernity as to give it new meaning’ (p. 110).

7. An example of a middle‐ground position is that of finding a way between the either/or of foundationalism and relativism (p. 184).

8. Particularly in the early essays, an actual replacement is strongly suggested for the alternative of practical hermeneutics. The ontology of order vs the ontology of messiness is just one example.

9. Schwandt frequently critiques scientism for its insistence on rationality and reason, but he really means to critique the hegemony of scientific rationality, or instrumental rationality, as the following quotation reveals: ‘a new vocabulary may be used to express more adequately what it means to be reasonable without equating reasonableness and rationality with scientific rationalism’ (p. 113). It would serve us better, I think, to show how scientific rationality is absolutely dependent upon everyday reasonableness. An alternative vocabulary could lock scientific rationalism in place, leaving the practices it supports intact and creating a false binary between ‘scientific rationality’ and ‘everyday reasonableness’. At other times, a call for an expanded notion of rationality is made.

10. The point is that within experience the order of processes is reversed from what some objectivistic models would suggest. From such experiences, we arrive at the metaphors, abstractions and so on from which an objectivistic view and model may be constructed. Experience is primary, but much of it becomes obscured when one becomes habituated to objectivizing thought.

11. On p. 83, Schwandt tries to distinguish between understanding that occurs when we read a text, which he considers equivalent to repeating back to ourselves just what the text says, and understanding that occurs when interacting with another, which he describes in a way true to acting from the second‐person position associated with the act of the other. Actually we do not understand texts by repeating back to ourselves what the author has written, but by being able to respond to passages from all three positions at once. We are pulled into texts, find ourselves disagreeing or agreeing with actors in the text, find ourselves ready to analyse passages for an audience of critics, as well as being able to formulate or paraphrase the same passages as if we were the author. The process is identical with the processes of understanding other people.

12. Much more would have to be written about the third‐person position. For example, we can never know whether claims from a third‐person position are commonly held to be true; we can only know which claims work as commonalities in specific interactions—work by remaining unchallenged and supporting expectations that are roughly met. Third‐person positions are assumed to be shared and that is all they can be. That is one reason why all knowledge claims must be fallible, as Schwandt also understands (p. 140): they depend on responses from others for their support, and even affirming responses only mean the claims work for the time being.

13. Schwandt does not provide a way to understand critique or power in communicative processes, though he clearly acknowledges that these things are important when he discusses how narratives can be wrong (pp. 128–129).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Phil Francis Carspecken

The book reviewed here is Thomas A. Schwandt, Evaluation Practice Reconsidered (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), xii + 224 pp., US$29.95 (pbk), ISBN 0‐8204‐5705‐1. Phil Francis Carspecken is professor of Inquiry and Philosophical Foundations at the School of Education, Indiana University, W. W. Wright Education Bldg., 201 North Rose Ave., Bloomington, IN 47405‐1006, USA; e‐mail: [email protected]. His scholarly work is focused on philosophy, social theory, and methodological theory. He is the author of Critical Ethnography in Educational Research (New York: Routledge, 1996) and Four Scenes for Posing the Question of Meaning (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). He has recently published ‘Ocularcentrism, phonocentrism, and the counter‐enlightenment problematic’ in Teachers College Record (August 2003).