Knowledge and Kinesiology

Epistemology, or ways of knowing, can be used (a) to show that kinesiology employs different but complementary methods for gaining knowledge and that each method has a role to play in kinesiology, and (b) to show how epistemology can be used to organize an introductory kinesiology course or textbook. The epistemologies used to organize the subdisciplines are rationalism, empiricism, science, and subjectivism. An epistemic approach to a foundations course or textbook allows one to answer questions in the subdisciplines regarding how knowledge is evaluated, how knowledge develops, what method should be used to develop knowledge, and how knowledge can best be taught. The goal is to enable students to understand an increasingly diverse field by literally charting how methods of knowledge creation relate to the subdisciplines that compose kinesiology.