The primary task of a researcher is to seek and create knowledge while solving problems at hand. This knowledge can be explicit or implicit, where on one hand, the explicit knowledge deals with facts or information and conceptual knowledge that can be organized in meaningful ways and is easy to communicate, on the other hand, implicit knowledge deals with the ‘know how’ such as tacit and procedural knowledge which can be hard to communicate. The explicit knowledge is more formal in nature while the implicit knowledge is more informal in nature and is learned through experience. Depending on the nature of research question or the aspects of it, this knowledge can be gained through reason and deduction or through empirical evidence and experience. The former mode of gaining knowledge is termed as rationalism while the latter is referred to as empiricism. While understanding the exclusivity of these two modes, an important point to note is, we cannot imagine beyond our experience (empiricism), but we can certainly deduce the underlying behaviors (rational deduction), thus establishing a link between the two modes of gaining knowledge.
As a heads up, the term ‘philosophy’ in this vignette refers to the overall approach to a particular problem which includes the history as well as the use of a knowledge collection, a way of looking at the problem, and not necessarily the purely academic meaning of philosophy which deals with the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, truth, ideas, meaning of life, etc. Given this definition of a philosophy, it is worthwhile to pursue the origin of a philosophy as it not only serves a means to broaden our perspective and appreciate the context, but also ensures that we build the correct depth and not waste time down fruitless paths. To explain how the history and origins of a particular philosophy affect the way we look at a particular problem, one has to look at his own experience about connecting the dots of various research efforts to address the research problem in a historical perspective and how it shaped our current understanding or looking at the problem. It is important to note that this understanding does not come purely from reading, but through experience over time and interacting with people as we try to fill in the gaps. The basic idea is that all research has an origin, and that origin has a context, so to earmark on this journey, one has to ask what was the context wherein research started in a particular area. For example, let’s take asphalt concrete fatigue damage. The origins of asphalt concrete fatigue can be traced back to 1905 and which went on to 1950-60s, and then moved to 2003 as not much happened in the intermediate years, where one notes that only one test was standardized by AASHTO for specification purposes in 2003, however from 2003-2021, nearly a dozen more tests were added, so much so, there are almost 18 asphalt ‘cracking’ tests, and all claim to address the same problem. Quoting Dr. Shane Underwood on this, there are four causes for this outpour. Firstly, the pavement layers were overlayed over time as a result the extra layer thickening took care of fatigue but rutting started showing up. So, the focus shifted. Secondly, the community moved from Marshall to SuperPave design method in late 1990s/early 2000s. Thirdly, there are two conflicting philosophies wherein one focus on damage while the other focus on fracture, as a result the test methods to assess the same have differed. Finally, there is another collision of philosophies where in one focuses of prediction while the other focuses on just ranking or pass/fail criteria. Knowing all these four causes helps oneself to put things in perspective and appreciate the differences through the context of the origins these arise. It is essential to know the origins of one’s own research and the philosophy that drives the approaches we use to solve the problem. This helps us in seeing the big picture and staying on track or may be changing the track!
For our particular research problem, we can start with defining what we actually mean by knowledge and what are the means of obtaining knowledge in our context. We also need to look at different types of knowledge such as factual, conceptual, procedural, and tacit, and how our research feeds into these four categories. Finally, one should look at different philosophies of approaching a research problem, the roots of such conflicting philosophies, and how to navigate them unbiasedly. It also included classifying our approach under the umbrella of one such philosophy and reflecting on why that is important or how it does or does not make sense!
Here are the three strong points that I believe can be incorporated into our research based on these reflections on the history of knowledge:
1. It is very important to examine the pathway of one’s research in both directions. In that, I mean looking at the history of how we got here, and also what future holds for us, or where we will be in future. This means one needs to backtrack to the origins of studying say material mechanics (in my case) and why it was deemed important, and how it helps our understanding of infrastructure performance. At the same time, one needs to make sure that one’s work adds to the broader goals of the guiding philosophy (if it falls under one), and if not, one needs to reorient his research in a direction that yields a fruitful outcome. This is something one needs to spend some time on to get a better sense of the journey so far, and how one’s work is really essential or otherwise.
2. I feel it is important to belong somewhere at this point. I mean it is essential to figure out the philosophies of looking at the research problems one is looking at and see where one’s work falls. This means one should make sure one finds some place at least under one camp. I am not sure what happens if some work falls under more than one camp, but I guess it should be okay, as many philosophies have a crossover and maybe one is at the crossover. A starting pint would be to start listing and articulating the basic arguments of each philosophy and looking at one’s work through those lenses to classify it as part of one or another.
3. One need’s to look at his work from a knowledge perspective and classify the outcomes of one’s research under the four umbrellas of factual, conceptual, procedural, and tacit knowledge. I believe all publications and project reports come under factual knowledge, some methodological papers may fall under conceptual knowledge, but I am not sure how does one articulate the tacit knowledge of his research work. This is something one needs to work on, but I believe this knowledge is hidden in the weekly meeting notes one has with his advisor (and the research group at large), and the lab notes which are based on one’s experimental testing and analysis.
In closing, I would say that I have been thinking more on the epistemological aspects of knowledge and the dimensions of really knowing something. However, I think it is essential to start bridging rationalism and empiricism as that’s what I think I am currently doing and focus more on the attributes of knowledge-both explicit and implicit, which are continuously being generated as part of my research work. One should be able to appreciate that every thought process has an origin, and it is very beneficial to know the origins of all the guiding philosophies of approaching a research problem at hand.
Note: This write-up is inspired by a course I took in Fall 2021 on “Thinking Big” co-taught by Dr. Amit Bhasin from UT Austin, Dr. Andrew Braham from University of Arkansas, and Dr. Shane Underwood from NC State University.