Focus on Questioning

Two Diagonal Sets: Approach Duality

It is evident from the TET diagram that the methods generate two sets lying along the diagonals. These two sets handle research in opposite ways as follows:

  • Bottom L — Upper R: These focus on ordering to develop a consensus.
  • Bottom R — Upper L: These focus on questioning given relationships.

Both requirements are so central to inquiry, that researchers draw on methods from each diagonal-set as explained later.

See below: Comparison of methods on the Questioning diagonal.
(Previous Topic: Comparison of methods on the Ordering diagonal.)

Questioning

Questioning is essential to enable the growth of knowledge through the discovery of errors. It is fundamental to the methods that lie along the diagonal that stretches from bottom right to top left. All these methods draw on the notion that existing knowledge is uncertain and provisional.

  • Explanatory method (L'3)
    Theories come and go and even the most substantiated model is liable to be false. Questioning takes various forms here: inventing alternative explanations; experiments to verify suggested relations; and attempts to refute accepted conjectures.

  • Dialectic method (L'4)
    This method questions consensus by identifying clashes of viewpoints and value conflicts. By common consent, opposites cannot both be valid as stated and so their existence suggests either some profound error or the presence of a deeper principle or higher truth. If a synthesis or principle for resolution of the duality is found, then a researcher may immediately look for a new opposing perspective.

  • Contemplative method (L'7)
    The researcher here asks himself questions about accepted knowledge in a reflective way. These may address a puzzling anomaly or challenge the model or paradigm within which colleagues are working. In every case, the starting point is a disquieting intuition that some accepted principle or theory is insufficient or unsatisfactory and needs re-working for a superior resolution.

Increasing Controversy

Questioning is inherently dependent on the experience of conviction. The X-axis zones previously identified are therefore relevant, and controversy naturally increases in moving up the diagonal.

These methods draw freely on each other e.g. a falsified conjecture may generate wonder and re-imagining, while an insight from wondering may lead to a new hypothesis that deserves testing.

  • Explanatory method offers a variable degree of controversy, from minimal to moderate.
    1. Hypothesis falsification is in the impartial zone and requires a dispassionate and disinterested attitude that reflects the purest conception of science. So this form of questioning should generate minimal controversy, given suitable study design and implementation.
    2. Hypothesis generation is inherently somewhat provocative if the hypothesis is not trivial or artificial. So it allows for the emergence of public controversy.
    3. Hypothesis verification, lying between the above two, generates localized controversy because it encourages support for the hypothesis (and is often performed with a supportive conviction) while being wholly insufficient to establish maximum confidence.

  • Dialectic method is significantly more controversial because it draws attention to opposing convictions within the research community as a whole. Each side feels convinced of the validity of their own position and may produce polemics. So it is necessary for the dialectical researcher to appreciate each perspective fairly so as to manage the controversy. The researcher must be able to intuitively and analytically feel their way into the certainty supporting each of the two poles.

  • Contemplative method is the most controversial, especially when the researcher's compulsive conviction becomes overt and receives publicity. Minor insights may only cause tremors within a small circle of specialists. But it is impossible to know when a minor insight might end up explicitly questioning the entire model which underpins current research programs and academic careers.

Methods on the Other Diagonal

The need for questioning is intrinsic to science, however, questioning is neither stringent nor particularly relevant in the methods on the ordering diagonal. Rather those methods invite questioning.
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Originally drafted: 10-Apr-2015. Last amended 30-Apr-2022.