PHILOSOPHICAL PedR

1
PHILOSOPHICAL PedR

• George MacDonald Ross
• Director, PRS Subject Centre
• York, 3rd November 2005

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Opportunities for PedR

• No publication forum before 2002
• Little scholarship to build on
• Limited funding for research
• Little encouragement to bid (RAE)
• Few successful bids (e.g. FDTL5)
• Catch-22

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Challenges and Barriers

• Only a social science research model accepted by
  funders
• Philosophers repelled by generic PedR
• Need to articulate how philosophical research
  methods can contribute to PedR (subject-specific
  and generic)

4
Philosophical Research

• Conceptual analysis
• Evaluation of reasoning
• Detecting hidden assumptions
• Distinguishing what requires thought from what
  requires facts
• Articulating theoretical structures
• Ethics

5
The Role of the Academy

• Co-operation between cognate subjects
• Two-way flow between the generic and the
  subject-specific
• Summaries of generic outcomes
• Recognition of subject-specific contribution to
  the generic
• Influence funders of PedR (e.g. RAE)

6
Thank you for listening

• George MacDonald Ross
• Director
• Subject Centre for
• Philosophical and Religious Studies
• of the Higher Education Academy