ways of knowing

Chapter 7 introduces the idea that there are different ways of knowing. Science is looking for facts -- factual knowledge. But participatory action research is not just looking for facts. The author, Peter Park is drawing a picture that this type of discovery is much more like hermeneutics -- which I understand. My cousin, Norm Arnensen was the toughest professor at Bethany Bible College because he taught hermeneutics and demanded that his student used the proper steps in arriving at their interpretation of scripture. You not only need to know what the original language said, but the entire context in which it was spoken . . . cultural, situational and relational. This is also like the process that lawyers go through to prove their points in court based on legal precedents. The other analogy that Park ties to this is the Chinese language . . . which I found so fascinating. The classical Chinese letters are not letters at all, but symbols that are put together to convey an action. The symbol is more like a stop sign or a bathroom sign, telling the reader something they should do. Their whole language is action oriented rather than abstract thought or ideas conveyed by letters of an alphabet. I remember when Leighton and I were in Japan and I was looking at a book about the Japanese language and how they had three ways to write a message -- they could use classical Chinese figures, Japanese figures which looked a lot like chinese symbols and then they had a more modern Japanese alphabet system which most people understood and used today. Participatory action research uses relational knowledge which emphasizes community and common sense knowing in order to discover the actions that must be taken.