Philosophy and Educational Research: a reconsideration of epistemological boundaries

This paper examines what logically is or ought to be the relationship between philosophy and educational research. It explores the sense in which philosophising itself constitutes a form of research and notes the role of philosophy in addressing the ethical, epistemological and political issues which underpin other forms of educational research of an empirical character. The paper goes on to examine more fully the role of philosophy in empirical research. It explores the complex interplay of logic and psychology in the history and biography of the development of ideas and suggests that this picture argues for freedom of movement between the two in academic lives and institutions. It then takes a step further and, drawing on Quine and Kuhn, challenges the epistemological status of the dichotomy between a posteriori and a priori reasoning.