Swimming in the Rainforest

Into the Rainforest:

Several years ago, my daughters and I spent a week’s vacation at the Grateful Bed and Breakfast near Loquillo, Puerto Rico. The Grateful Bed and Breakfast sits atop a breezy hill, and if you turn your head just right you can almost see a sliver of ocean from the main gate. Loquillo is a sleepy little artist’s colony type of town some 90 miles east of San Juan, and boasts two lovely public beaches and numerous semi-accessible tiny private beaches. But the real claim to fame of the Grateful Bed and Breakfast (besides its nightly diet of bootleg music) is its proximity to El Junque.

El Junque is one of the finest rainforests in the Caribbean, and for that reason it is also a National Park. Because it is a park, it is laced with mile after mile of hiking trails. Some of these trails are easily accessible gradual descents down wooded canyons, while other trails are serious challenges for even seasoned hikers. Few people outside of the Park Rangers know these trails well.

One such person is Marty Souci, the owner of the Grateful Bed and Breakfast. Marty is a renegade New Yorker, who had once upon a time been one of Geraldine Ferraro’s speechwriters. But one day he decided to toss it all in, and open his own tourist spot in the tropics. He apparently had mellowed a little bit since his high-pressure political days, but he still was able to make use of the frantic New Yorker side of his personality when he needed it. For instance, he set out to learn every single trail in El Junque and every off the beaten path tourist sight on the eastern side of the island. So, when he said that he could give us advice on places to go where we would be free from the average tourist, he was able to make good.

The first morning after our arrival at the Bed and Breakfast, I was awakened by the squawk of birds. I stepped outside in the early morning, and received two surprises right away. First of all, I was stunned by the sheer intensity of the tropical sun. We had flown in during the late afternoon, so by the time I got our rental car and headed off from the San Juan airport, the sun was low in the horizon. It was early August, but in the tropics all that meant was the fact that it was about five degrees hotter, and the day about 30 minutes longer, than in the dead of winter. Except when the sun was overhead; then, the sun literally shimmered in the sky. I spent the rest of the week bathing in 30 SPF waterproof sunblock.

The second surprise was the fact that the squawking birds that woke me up were a pack of parakeets. I had not seen that many green and yellow birds this side of Woolworth’s basement on Capitol Street in my hometown of Charleston, West Virginia. The thought of all those birds flying around in the wild made me laugh; first, at the surprise, and second, at my naiveté on the matter.

My two teenage daughters were up and about shortly, and we were off to the dining hut for breakfast. Bob was the sole Grateful Bed and Breakfast employee, and he doubled as handyman and gourmet chef. Bob had once been a college linebacker, had been married three times, had spent several hitches in the Air Force and an extended stint as an air traffic controller before he, too, decided to pitch it all in and come down to the tropics. For all of the historical data listed above, Bob turned out to be one of the happiest, gentlest, and most laid back people I have ever met.

As we stumbled in for breakfast, he shot us a huge grin and welcomed us to paradise. He was putting the final touches on a massive bowl of fresh fruit cocktail, featuring mangoes from the tree just outside the dining hut, and was firing up the griddle to make us a batch of Karma Cakes. Bob’s Karma Cakes were whole wheat and buckwheat pancakes filled with tropical fruits and nuts and yogurt, yet which were still amazingly light and buoyant.

Marty strolled in and joined us for coffee, and asked us what we would like to do that day. The girls wanted to go to the beach, and I wanted to wander the rainforest. Marty recommended the beach for the morning, when it is less crowded, and the rainforest in the afternoon. Since we would be wearing our swimming gear, he suggested that we could take a dip in the Mameyes River.

The Mameyes River plunges and meanders along the entire length of El Junque. Even on the hottest day, its waters are still refreshingly cool. One of the most interesting quirks about El Junque is the fact that it is most likely the most benign rainforest on the planet. Puerto Rico has almost no fauna, except for the birds that have wandered in, various animal companions and vermin that have accompanied humans and human habitations, and the ubiquitous coquis. Coquis are tiny little frogs who can only live, for some unknown reason, on Puerto Rico, but who manage to occupy every cool damp place they can find. We had a whole tribe of them living and peeping merrily in the water tank for our toilet.

Because Puerto Rico is so lightly populated with animals, there are no predators lurking in the rainforest. No leopards, no jaguars, no mongeese, no poisonous snakes, no venomous insects. If it were not for the mosquitoes, a person could sleep out in the open under the night sky in El Junque. Because of this lack of danger, tourists and locals alike cavort through the jungle and splash around freely in the waters of the Mameyes River, without worrying about any sort of threat at all.

After a pleasant morning bodysurfing at the surfing beach, we took Marty’s suggestion and set off to swim the invigorating Mameyes River. Our first stop was a rather famous and picturesque waterfall. We slid around on the water-smoothed stones, and arched our bodies under the pleasing pressure of the torrent of tropic river water squeezing its way through a narrow rock opening and down a concave rock wall face.

After this natural shower, we took a path less taken that wound its way down a fairly steep bank along a nearly overgrown path. When we reached the bottom, the river had settled into a valley. The only other persons there were three or four local teenagers. They were using a stout rope tied to a thick tree limb to swing out to the middle of a clear deep pool. The pool had to be at least some fifteen or twenty feet deep, since the water was crystal clear but you could not see the bottom. We spent the better part of the afternoon at this pool; it was truly an idyllic tropical setting. I was especially glad that Marty had assured us that there were no snakes, alligators, crocodiles, or freshwater barracudas to threaten us.

The week drifted along at its own lovely pace. One evening, Marty took us for a late night cruise to a bioluminescent cove. There we darted and glistened in the moonlit waters, with the phosphorescence shimmering upon us and in our wake and making us look like psychedelic angels.

Late in the week, we took a catamaran to a tiny desert island just off the eastern coast of the island, where we spent the day snorkeling around a coral reef and dodging an unfortunate infestation of jellyfish that had decided to crash our party. We were told that we could keep our snorkeling tubes, and I mistakenly thought that this meant that I could keep my mask as well. I took the gear back to the Grateful Bed and Breakfast.

By this time, we had only one more morning to spend before we caught our flight back to Chicago. We decided to revisit our little swimming hole and swing out on the rope again. This time, I decided to take along my newly acquired snorkel tube and mask, and to explore the bottom of the pool.

The water was just as clear as it had been before, but the bottom was still obscured. This time, though, I had the tools to penetrate the obscurity. Once the girls were happily preoccupied with frolicking on the rope, I swam out to the center of the pool and dived down. The first few feet were uneventful. Then, the water grew murkier from the lack of light. I pressed on a few more feet, until I saw a school of huge narrow fish with long snouts and serious teeth, swimming about in the deeper water. I was so startled and frightened by this sight that I barrel-rolled in the water in a frantic attempt to get to the surface as quickly as possible. From the top of the river, I must have looked like some churning mini-maelstrom. It was enough to cause Bridget and Morgan to ask why I had made such a commotion underwater. Needless to say, we left early, and found something else to do to top off our last morning in the rainforest and at the Grateful Bed and Breakfast.

But here is what I pondered on the flight back to the States, and what I ponder on now. On the one hand, there were in truth schools of frightening looking fish that lived in the deep pools of the rainforest. That is a fact. I have seen one such school with my own eyes. But these creatures, which are so fearsome looking, are apparently no danger at all to humans who swim in the river. This is also a fact. When we splashed and swam in that pool, that first afternoon, we were oblivious to the creatures just below the surface of the water. But there is no escaping the fact that, just below us, were these creatures with teeth sharp enough to rip our flesh to shreds.

Here is my point: What am I to make of this experience? In other words, what did my little snorkeling adventure actually mean?

A Question of Vision:

I do not think we can underestimate the importance of having a vision when we set about to conduct our own research activities. With sincere apologies to people who are blind, in many ways empirical research boils down to a question of sight. Or rather, of looking. As Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, writing in 1686 (and whom we will look at in some depth later on) put it:

“All philosophy... is based on two things only: curiosity and poor eyesight; if you had perfectly good eyesight you could see perfectly well…, and if you were less curious you wouldn’t care about knowing, which amounts to the same thing. The trouble is, we want to know more than we can see (1686/1990: 11).”

Let us take Fontenelle’s claim seriously, and think about research as a form of seeing. Is there only one type of seeing in research, or are there multiple ways to see? If there is more than one way to “look,” do these multiple ways of seeing stand apart or can they be reconciled? And finally, how are each of these ways of seeing unique?

It is with the consideration of these apparently simple and humble issues that we can start to make some real headway on the thorny issue of discovering a unique and powerful vision for grounding qualitative research. First we need to see what sorts of “visions” have dominated and shaped empirical inquiry. Then, we can discern the aspects of qualitative research that give it its own unique vision. Once we do that, we can then compare that unique vision with the other visions that we find in the history of doing empirical inquiry.

The Mirror:

Let us start by returning to that crystal clear pool in the Mameyes River. But this time, lets do some time traveling. We are no longer in the Twentieth Century, but we are back in the prehistory of the island. Let us suppose we are following the peregrinations of one of the indigenous Taino natives who populated this island prior to the arrival of European civilization, and who as a people have purportedly been totally assimilated into a Euro-Afro-Taino mix that now characterizes today’s “native” Puerto Rican. Furthermore, we will assume that the Taino native whom we are following is like any other prehistoric person anywhere, bereft of any formal “scientific” empirical inquiry skills (not that there is anything inherently superior about having these sorts of skills or derogatory about not having them -- I am just describing a simple state of affairs).

I realize that the scenario I have drawn up is highly artificial and historically unlikely, so that consequently I have shifted out of history proper and into myth. But I hope that this will not concern us overmuch, since it is in the realm of myth where I hope to make my strongest points after all. Besides, what is history anyway, other than mythology with receipts?

So here we are, in some mythic prehistory of the Mameyes River valley and the dawn of human habitation on the island of Puerto Rico. Along comes a spear-bearing Taino native, looking perhaps to catch a fish for supper. The water is perfectly smooth. Also, the sky is overcast, since a storm is drifting in from the east. On a clear day, the pool reveals its depths to some degree, and our native can peer into it to look for a fish swimming near the surface. On this particular day, the flat grayness of the changing sky does something strange to the surface of the pool of water. It turns it into a reflective surface.

The Taino hunter bends over the edge of the still pool, spear arched and eyes on alert for a darting fish just under the surface. But he cannot look under the surface. Instead, for the first time, he sees his image, reflected on the surface of the water. This gives him serious pause. Perhaps he not aware right away that he is looking at himself. Why should he, if the whole idea of a reflection is outside his prior experience? But our hunter moves his arm slightly, cocks his head a bit, turns his torso first to the left and then to the right. The image on the surface of the pool follows suit. He is left to conclude that, in perhaps some magical way, he is seeing himself.

Surely such an experience must restructure the consciousness of the viewer. He has been privileged with the awareness of self as a material object in the world, such that it can now be seen as any other object can be seen. Jacques Lacan (1977) called this the mirror stage of consciousness, and suggested that it happens fairly early in infant development. Walker Percy (1983) pondered on the momentousness of this ability to draw the self into the realm of the inquirer, and recalled the words of Helen Keller when she described the day that she realized that things had names, and that she was both namer and named in this arrangement.

The discovery of the mirror has to be one of the greatest technological advancements in human inquiry. Remember that the mirror is indeed a piece of technology, because it helps us correct the “poor eyesight” that Fontenelle bemoaned earlier. It allows the inquirer to correct for the fact that he or she cannot see himself or herself seeing. But it has a richer connotation as well. The smooth still surface of a pool is a mirror because it allows for the reflection of light from its surface. In this fashion, it gives the inquirer a direct and visual look at himself or herself.

But all reflection need not be so direct or so simply visual. Is it possible for more complex phenomena or occurrences to be “reflective” in a less direct, more metaphorical way? Suppose, for example, we see an albatross gliding gracefully and effortlessly above the ocean, only to hit the water in a gangling and comical fashion when it tries to land. We might be tempted to laugh, but might we also be tempted to see a parallel in our life, or in the lives of others? Are there times when we, too, must abandon our natural grace and crash into the only kind of “landing” we are equipped to make? Does it metaphorically reflect our strengths and shortcomings in being a teacher, a parent, a theorist, a human being?

The Mirror and the Conduct of Empirical Inquiry:

Let us call this the “mirror” form of empirical inquiry, to honor the role of the mirror in its discovery. But it is really deeper than just looking for one’s image cast in the ways and nature of the world. Empirical inquirers from the late Classical era in Greece up through the medieval era (these empirical researchers, by the way, were called “Natural Philosophers”) labeled this form of inquiry as “speculative” inquiry.

The word “speculative” is derived from the Latin word “speculum” which means “mirror.” Speculative inquiry started in Greece, but reached its richest systematic form during the medieval era. During the Middle Ages in particular, there was a deep and abiding belief in the notion that the world was one of the two Books of God (the Bible, of course, was the other!), and that by learning to “read” nature we would then be learning about ourselves and the human condition. In other words, every time we looked at the world, in some fashion we were seeing a reflection of ourselves in the grand scheme of things.

Alan of Lille, a 12th century French scholar, makes this point succinctly in the opening verse of one of his finest nature poems (from Raby, 1957: 15):

“omnis mundi creatura

quasi liber et pictura

nobis est, in speculum,

nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis,

nostri status, nostri sortus

fidele signaculum.”

Or, in my own rather loose translation:

“All the creatures of the world

Are as if a book and picture to us,

A mirror of our lives, of our deaths,

Of our state, of our fate,

A faithful little sign.”

Alan is saying that everything is a mirror if you learn to look at it properly. For this reason, it is not enough just to study something to find out what it is. The proper inquirer goes further to find out what it can tell us about ourselves. For this reason, speculative or reflective inquiry is, at heart, a contemplative exercise in the understanding of the self and the culture and indeed the nature of humanity.

The medieval world is filled with examples of such inquiry: the Speculum Naturale, the Speculum Morale, the Speculum Mundi, and even the Speculum Stultorum, or the Mirror of Jackasses (sometimes we forget that we in the modern world did not invent satire). In addition to the Speculum compendia, we have an enormous variety of bestiaries, which are accounts of the natures, habits, and contemplative and spiritual meanings of animals, plants, and in some cases even stones. It is no surprise that in all of these cases, the “reflective” structure was primarily Christian. Even though all of these works strive to incorporate known facts and beliefs about history, morals, the natural world, animals and plants, and even the foibles of fools, nonetheless the “tain” or consistent reflective coating on the “back” of each of these “mirrors” was the teaching of the Gospels. Because Gospel wisdom was seen as fixed and omnipresent in this era of Christendom, the writers were then free to incorporate any other mode of knowing into the process. In the bestiary we find one of the best examples of this process in action. Animals are described in terms of their habits, their appearances, their legends, their human-like attributes, their metaphorical resemblances to poor sinners, the Devil, Christ, and the like. The consistency of the Christian worldview served as an anchor to hold together these apparently disparate acts of understanding the natures and meanings of animals in the world.

As we can see, the medieval researcher had a much different view of the nature of reality, and how to study nature and the rest of the empirical world. Reality, for medieval scholars, was rich and complex. Because reality for them was held together ultimately by an omnipotent God, there was no need to try to trim down the principles of reality into a simple set of basic concepts. God was certainly free to make reality as complex as He wished it to be. The medieval mind was much less interested in simplifying reality than in learning how various aspects of reality, taken on their own terms, were woven together and related to other aspects of reality. By contemplating these sorts of relations, we could learn more about our own place in the scheme of things, for it was as if all these other aspects were able to function in some fashion as clues to the nature of our true selves.

The Middle Ages also sustained a deep respect the notion of the text, since as a manuscript culture they were dedicated to creating and preserving basic texts as a fundamental act of inquiry and scholarship. Early on, they integrated procedures for interpreting texts and interpreting nature. We see this tendency at the very beginning of the medieval era, in the work of Augustine. From his perspective, everything natural or conventional (i.e., textual) could be “read” not only in a literal fashion, but also simultaneously in a metaphorical fashion, an allegorical fashion, and in a morally instructive fashion. Augustine (c.427/1958), in De Doctrina Christiana, talked about reading as an act of integrating understandings from a literal level, an allegorical level, a practical level, and an anagogical, or spiritually enlightening, level, and most medieval speculative philosophers were happy to follow his lead. And as you might guess, this model of empirical inquiry was, in its own way, just as complex and subtle as any contemporary scientific model of inquiry that we might study.

The Mirror versus “Nuda Natura”:

Did it never occur to the medieval scholar to try to confront nature directly as an object for a simplifying type of inquiry? Of course it did, but the idea was rejected as being both dangerous and unseemly. The following early 13th century poem, which has been called “Nuda Natura,” talks explicitly about such matters. I am indebted to the legendary Medieval philologist and linguist James Marchand (Marchand, personal communication, 28 January 1998) for guiding and shaping the following translation. The Latin can be found in Raby (1957: 22):

“A poet, having discovered the bedchamber of Nature

And entering and opening it up deserved to get what you hear:

He fell asleep and he saw himself walking through a woods.

Dark night followed after clear day;

He was alone, and the dark woods all resounded

With the clashing sound of the varying voice of wild animals.

Stunned by these he was uncertain as to what he should do.

By chance catching sight of an old house, he came to it,

In the middle of the woods, surrounded by a small clearing

He saw that old house as if abandoned,

And coming to it he saw sort of a bit of light inside

And in its midst something like the figure of a naked virgin.

Eager to get a look, he sought to gain entry.

The wall was high and in it was a small hole

The woman had closed the door and kept it closed;

There came wild animals wanting to surround the

Walls of the house, ready to eat him as he stood outside.

Fearing them greatly, he sought to hide himself inside if he

could.

She being without clothes, turned her back to him seeking

with her hair and her hand to cover her nether regions,

And, as she was unwilling to bear the importunings and the

eyes of the man,

She offered him the following words, having taken note of him:

`Stand off, and no longer seek to bring shame on me.

I have scarcely allowed you to penetrate into my secrets,

And you ought to offer me true service and to hold ever in

pious love as your mother and your mistress;

But you, why did you not fear to hold me in low esteem,

To treat me as worthy of the name of prostitute,

For you acted as a prostitute by publishing abroad what you

knew of me.

Therefore, I will not suffer that you any longer see me up

close,

But cast afar, I will leave you to death and the beasts.’

Made anxious by the things he had heard and seen, the poet

awakened, frightened,

And he had learned that not all things are to be told to all, that

they might know.

What nature commands to be hidden, is for few and

trustworthy ones to expose, lest it become dirty in the vile

ear.

He who judges all will find a harsh judgment,

He will deservedly soil his own mouth who speaks evil.”

The author of this poem is acknowledging that we can stare directly at the secrets of nature. He is claiming that we ought not to do so. Nature is to be respected and guarded, like a treasured elderly grandparent, and not coldly dissected at the first chance. The poet seems to believe that any truth that can be learned from a direct gaze onto “Nuda Natura” herself can only be superficial and cheap knowledge, since it fails to take into account the inherent richness and complexity of nature. He is not saying that we are not incapable of doing such inquiry; instead, he is saying that such inquiry is wrong-headed and ultimately pointless.

The Window:

The message of “Nuda Natura” is a far cry from the scientific worldview. We can see this very clearly when we look at science from a mythic perspective. In spite of quarrels to the contrary, science does indeed have its share of mythic accounts.

By myth, I mean of course a story whose historical veracity is irrelevant. Did Newton really get hit in the head with an apple? Did Galileo really drop two stones from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa? Did Einstein really will his brain to science? It doesn’t matter which of these tales are true and which are false. They have points to make about the nature (and culture!) of science nonetheless.

There are many scientific myths that we could look at, but I will confine myself to two. The first I have already discussed a bit; let us call it “The Tale of Gary the Tropical Pool Snorkeler”. I was actually being a pretty good scientist when I put on my snorkel and mask and set out for the bottom of the Mameyes River pool. I was also using yet another venerable technology of looking; one that is a hallmark of scientific inquiry. My clear mask was functioning as a window. The window is the prototypical scientific visual device. Its job is to give as clear and undistorted a look as possible at something where such a look was not possible at all before the advent of said window. The clear front piece of my mask was a window, because it allowed me to look without my vision being obstructed by the water. A typical window is a piece of wall that, unlike the rest of the wall, is clear enough to look through. A microscope is a window that gives us a relatively undistorted look at something quite small, and a telescope is a window that gives us a relatively undistorted look at something far way. All of these windows allow our eyes to be somewhere and looking at something as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be doing so. This is an incredibly powerful enhancement of our ability to see.

Coupled hand in hand with this new way of looking is a new way of thinking about those things that we see. The warning of “Nuda Natura” now falls on unsympathetic ears. Our first priority is no longer the range of significance of what we see. Now, we are far more concerned with making sure that what we see has not been distorted by any substance or event that might occlude our window. What brought about such a remarkable change in perspective? To answer that question, lets turn to our second scientific myth.

From Bruno to de Fontenelle:

Our second myth is the familiar story of the rise of the heliocentric worldview during the 17th century. Then, as now, major changes were in the air, and there was no shortage of resistance to change. Being an innovator at that time could get you into trouble if you were not careful; it got Giordano Bruno burned at the stake in 1600.

This was also the era of Galileo, who helped craft a new way of thinking about the heavens and who backed up his thoughts with observations and data. Still, Galileo was more prudent than revolutionary. He only went public when he was convinced that the new pope, who was also his personal friend, would look favorably on his new findings. So, in 1632, Galileo decided to publish his ideas in the form of a dialogue and contest between two thinkers, where the thinker of the older geocentric school is bested at every turn by his scientific counterpart. He also published this work in Italian, to make it more accessible to the average reader.

This was also the time of Tycho Brahe, who tried to reconcile the Ptolemaic and Copernican worlds by creating a complex set of epicycles and the like that preserved the centrality of the earth while addressing the orbits of planets around the sun. It was the work of Tycho that gave the church intellectuals the courage to repudiate Galileo, and to demand that he recant his views, not in favor of the Ptolemaic model, but the epicycle model of Brahe. You might say that Tycho was the first mixed methods researcher on the scene.

We all know how this struggle turned out. Battle lines were drawn, and it was turned into a war of science vs. faith. Manifestos, conflicts, and incommensurable worldviews clashed in this high stakes war.

But toward the tail end of all this fuss, in 1686, we have the publication of a remarkable little book in France. Its author is Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, and the book is called Entretiens Sur La Pluralite Des Mondes or Conversations On The Plurality Of Worlds. This book is a huge success, and is translated into every major European language. Fontenelle himself personally creates seven more editions over the next 56 years, constantly updating facts to keep the work fresh and accurate. Where Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake and Galileo was humiliated and put under house arrest, Fontenelle was lionized and celebrated. Why?

When we turn to Conversations on the plurality of worlds, we are taken by surprise at every turn. To the contemporary ear, the title sounds as if it would be right at home with such relativist works as Nelson Goodman’s (1978) Ways Of Worldmaking or Richard Rorty’s (1979) Language And The Mirror Of Nature. Are we looking at a 17th century constructivist here?

By no means. Fontenelle is as scientific in temperament as Galileo or Newton. The plurality of worlds he talks about are those worlds which orbit stars. They are not fictional or constructed; he is convinced that they do indeed exist. But I am getting ahead of myself. We need to take the time to talk about these conversations and this book at its own pace and on its own level.

The book consists of a series of five conversations, held on five consecutive evenings on the grounds of a chalet in rural Normandy. The hostess is the remarkable Marquise of G****. She is a woman of formidable native intelligence, and the narrator, presumably Fontenelle, respects her intellect and power of reasoning throughout the work. These conversations all take place in a garden on the grounds of the chalet, and Fontenelle and the Marquise start off by engaging in the sort of formal flirtatious behavior that characterizes such liaisons by persons of leisure in the France of their time.

He begins by asking her if she does not find the night to be more beautiful than the day. They engage in a reverie of the night as the meeting place of lovers, as the guardian of secrets, and the home of the stars:

“I love the stars (she said), and I’m almost angry with the sun for overpowering them.”

“I can never forgive it,” I said, “for making me lose sight of all those worlds (p.10).”

Her curiosity aroused, the Marquise begs Fontenelle to explain himself. He demurs, and then agrees to proceed so long as she promises to keep secret his efforts to explain the nature of the heavens, when, by all rights, he should be wooing the favors of the beautiful Marquise. He describes the Copernican model in brief detail. She infers that the basic actions of nature, including the movements of planets and stars, are essentially mechanical in nature:

“So mechanical,” I replied, “that I fear we’ll soon grow ashamed of it. They want the world to be merely, on a large scale, what a watch is on a small scale, so that everything goes by regular movements based on the organization of its parts. Admit it! Didn’t you have a more grandiose concept of the universe, and didn’t you give it more respect than it deserved? Most men esteem it less since they’ve come to know it.”

“Well I hold it in much higher regard,” she answered, “now that I know its like a watch; it’s superb that, wonderful as it is, the whole order of nature is based on such simple things.”

“I don’t know who has given you such healthy ideas,” I said, “but I’m sure few people have them besides you. Most cherish a false notion of mystery wrapped in obscurity. They only admire Nature because they believe she’s a kind of magic, and the minute they begin to understand her they lose all respect for her. But Madame, “ I continued, “you are so much more disposed to hear what I want to say that I need only draw back the curtain and show you the world (p. 12).”

And from here, Fontenelle begins to weave his tale of moons and planets and worlds and suns and galaxies; it is essentially the tale of the clockwork Copernican universe. The Nature of “Nuda Natura” is dead; she is replaced by a nature whose apparent complexity is only on the surface, and whose real nature lies the handful of simple principles that holds together cabbages and kings, waterfalls and worlds, clocks and the cosmos. In one brief fell swoop, Fontenelle crafts a vision of science in the 17th century that would be right at home with, say, Carl Sagan in the late 20th century.

The Window versus the Mirror:

So we have a clash of visions; of the world as the inscrutable but fascinating and always enlightening Book of God vs. the world as a perfect and harmonious Cosmic Clockwork, ticking off its apparent complexity in simple and orderly applications of principles. But why did these visions have to clash? Could they not have co-existed within the world of empirical inquiry?

The reason for the “war” between the “mirror” researchers and the “window” researchers can be found in the fact that these two visions inevitably lead to different positions about reality and truth. In a later lesson, we will address this issue head on, and in some detail, but we need to sketch out a few points here about the relation of such positions to a vision of empirical inquiry.

We have already seen that reality in the world of Natural Philosophy is rich and complex. But the natural philosopher was able to make sense of the world by assuming that there are certain universal principles that are true in and of themselves. Once you know the applicable universal principles, and understand how those universal principles operate in the world, then the task of empirical inquiry becomes much easier. These views fall within the philosophical position known as Realism. Realists start by sorting out the real from the apparent, and by identifying universal principles about those things that are real.

Speculative inquiry is both foundational and realistic in nature. We have to find “real” mirrors that give us “genuine” reflections. The world is full of mirrors that give us a look at appearances only, and not at the universal principles underneath that serve as the foundation for the real world. We must learn to identify and discard these erroneous mirrors, by staying close to our prior understanding of what is real and what principles we already know to be universal. Only after basic issues of what is real and what is universal have been settled can we really pay attention to things in the empirical world on their own level.

Reality in the scientific world is no longer rich and complex for its own sake; it is merely an orderly aggregate of simpler factors. The simpler the factors, the more real they are. Complex structures are built out of these simpler factors. Looking upon these complex structures as universals is nothing more, to the window researcher, than not seeing clearly what is there before your eyes.

The scientist says that all so-called universals are just labels for collections of simpler things. We do not need to know beforehand the basic and universal principles of reality in order to do research. What we do instead is discover simple processes at work, and then verify that they truly work in the ways we think they do. Keeping our gaze clear and transparent -- in the fashion of the window -- is our best safeguard from error.

In philosophy, this view is called Nominalism. Concepts, instead of being foundational and real on their own terms, are just names ('"nomine" is Latin for "name") for these collections of simpler, and more real, things. In many ways, the so-called clash of science and faith that characterizes the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment was really the war between Realism, the basic school of thought of both the Classical and the Medieval world and therefore of the mirror vision of inquiry, with the emerging Nominalism of the scientific world and the window vision of inquiry. This clash continues to this day. There is no way to be a Realist and a Nominalist at the same time. These views cancel each other out.

This brings us to the present time. We can say that Nominalism has won out within the tenets of empirical inquiry, but that Realist thought has never been totally suppressed. While Realism has not played any direct role in empirical inquiry for centuries, it has not totally vanished either. One reason for the lingering presence of Realism is the fact that science has not been able to claim a complete victory over all other visions of empirical inquiry.

It is no secret that Nominalistic science has been less successful in explaining the actions of human beings, than it has been in explaining the movements of the cosmos. Walker Percy (1991) points this out quite clearly in his Jefferson lecture on “The San Andreas fault in the modern mind:”

“...our view of the world, which we get consciously or unconsciously from modern science, is radically incoherent. A corollary of this proposition is that modern science is itself radically incoherent, not when it seeks to understand things and subhuman organisms and the cosmos itself, but when it seeks to understand man, not man’s physiology or neurology or his bloodstream, but man qua man, man when he is particularly human. In short, the sciences of man are incoherent (p. 271).”

We are now at the center of the problem. One vision by itself apparently cannot do the whole job within empirical inquiry. Furthermore, there are areas within empirical inquiry where neither the mirror nor the window can give us a clear picture. Therefore, we seem to be in need of yet another way of looking.

But let us not be too hasty in requiring yet another vision for empirical inquiry. Can we instead fix what we already have? Why, we might argue, can't we just return to the mirror, to Realist-guided speculative inquiry, and commit ourselves once again to the search for universals in the empirical world? We started with the mirror, and it showed us our own reflection in the world. This is an extraordinarily valuable tool. At the same time, the mirror presents us with an impenetrable surface. In other words, the mirror can only reflect, whether it is useful to reflect or not.

Another possible solution is to try to fix those things that are wrong with the Nominalist-guided window vision, so that it works better to describe those factors that are most important in studying and understanding human beings. We need windows to look thought things. And when we discovered the window, we could look through almost everything. Except the mirror. The other side of the mirror, or “man qua man” in Walker Percy’s terms, remains dark.

The Lantern:

So, let us tentatively conclude that there are areas within empirical inquiry where neither the mirror nor the window can improve our vision.

The logical result is to seek out a third approach. We need to turn to a third basic technology of looking in order to deal with the complexities of understanding human beings in their complex lifeworlds.

When we look at qualitative researchers over the decades as they have struggled to craft conceptual tools for their trade, we find an implicit reaching for such a third vision. We see them use such words as “illumination” and “insight” and “understanding.” We see researchers going to faraway places and ordinary settings, trying to make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. We find researchers struggling to see the world through the eyes of others, to understand acts in terms of strange motives and to fathom cultures in terms of strange presuppositions. We find other qualitative researchers using interpretative tools and techniques to decipher cultural codes and social mores from marriage rituals to dealing with uncommunicative students.

Our definition of qualitative research as a systematic inquiry into meaning also suggests a new vision for inquiry that uniquely applies to qualitative inquiry. Where speculative inquiry is grounded by the vision of the mirror, and science is grounded by the vision of the window, qualitative research is grounded by the vision of the lantern. From its simplest beginnings as a hand held flaming torch to its contemporary form as a high tech halogen flashlight, the basic nature of the lantern has remained unchanged. Its role is to shed light where no light is currently available. Sometimes, this means shining light where no light has shone before.

Therefore, the goal of qualitative research is insight, enlightenment, illumination. We are neither contemplative Mirror researchers nor unbiased Window researchers. We are searchers and discoverers and reconcilers of meaning where no meaning has been clearly understood before, and we do not feel that our understanding of meaning is complete until we understand its role in practice and experience.

In subsequent lessons, we will see that our emphasis on meaning puts us squarely in the camp of Pragmatism, as understood by the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce (1955, 1992.,1998).

There are pitfalls aplenty on the qualitative trail. One problem that we will return to, over and over again in this work, is the temptation of falling back into more traditional positions. This first pitfall is pretty obvious. Unlike most empirical inquirers, we cannot think that the human lifeworld is simple and simply just made up or "constructed" of complicated combinations of simple factors. Most efforts to create a non-numerical type of qualitative research, which is no different in principle from other forms of science, make this type of error. Most, if not all, so-called “mixed” designs ultimately fall prey to this error, as do many forms of grounded theory studies and nearly all computer-driven coded analysis schemes.

But we cannot make the compensatory error of assuming that the human lifeworld is somehow artificial and constructed. This is to hold a conceptual error that, because reality is not simple a la the rules of Nominalist thought, that reality is not natural. To make this error, as many constructivists do, is also to refuse to turn away from Nominalism. Another form of this error is to assume that there are many realities, and that each of us lives in our own reality. This is nothing more than solipsism, and really does not represent anything more than trying to make the results of our inquiry align with the dictates of our will. This is more of a definition of magic than inquiry.

Over the course of this textbook, we will try to maintain our serious commitment to the notion that qualitative research is a systematic empirical inquiry into meaning. It has its own unique guiding vision, it is grounded in its own philosophical position, and it privileges its own unique form of logic. Because it is different from both speculative inquiry and science, it can ask questions that make no sense from either prior position.

Why should we adopt such a broad and revolutionary understanding of qualitative research? One answer will suffice. By taking this broad position, we are in the best position to realize its vast potential as a new form of inquiry. We will be much less concerned here with learning all the details and techniques that we currently call qualitative research, and much more concerned with discovering and shaping what the field can come to be.

What do all of the efforts have in common? Simply put, they all deal with expanding our understanding of meaning in empirical settings. So let this be our basic definition of qualitative inquiry: it is the systematic empirical inquiry into meaning.

The Big Deal about Meaning:

Meaning is the most overrated and the most underrated concept in contemporary Western thought. So it is no surprise that a systematic empirical inquiry into meaning ends up being a complex task to navigate. We will address some of these issues later, but for now we need to be a bit more practical. What are some key aspects about meaning that all empirical researchers, and particularly qualitative researchers, need to keep in mind at all times? Here is a short list:

• The path to truth always goes through meaning. Qualitative research is not an excuse to discard the concept of truth. Deep in our hearts, no matter how much we might rail against and denigrate the notion of truth, ultimately we cannot deny its existence. The problem is that we have not properly understood the role of meaning in the search for truth. We cannot really understand and perform qualitative research until we have a clear sense of the role of meaning in our inquiry.

• The world is full of meaning. One of the worst mistakes we can make as qualitative researchers is to assume that there is no meaning in the world at large, or in the little part of the world that we are studying, unless we put it there. The world is perfused with meaning. It is intelligible, but only on its own terms. Why would we assume that the world was put together in such a way as to make it easy to be understood by humans?

• We only know something to the degree that we understand it. This is a paraphrase of the first point. It does, however, point us toward the necessity of taking the act of understanding, of discerning and reconciling meaning, seriously and on its own terms. Changes in knowledge are incremental and accumulative; we know more and more about something. Changes in understanding are powerful and revolutionary. How often are we awash in facts and true claims, only to lack the understanding to see what all these facts and claims really mean?

• Sometimes, things are only meaningful. Even in the empirical world, there are things that matter only as sources of meaning. Because we are continually oriented toward the approach of taking care of meaning as quickly as possible, we overlook these things in the empirical world. Did the Three Little Pigs really talk? Did they really live? Do we know anything factual about their lives? These are silly questions, because the “truths” embodied in parables, like the Three Little Pigs, are truths that are rooted only in meaning. How many of these parables are waiting to be discovered in the empirical world, serving in their own ways as guides to insight into practice and understanding?

One Last Look at the Rainforest:

There are many other places where we could go, but for now let me return to the place where we started our little mythic journey. We are back at the banks of our rainforest pool on the Mameyes River. I am sitting on a rock, my mask pushed up my forehead and my snorkel tube in my hand. I know that wild horses, so to speak, could not drag me back into that deep spot in the river. But I also know that I, and countless others, have been able to swim in this pool with peace and safety. What am I to believe? What am I to make of the genuine doubt that I feel about my safety or lack of safety in swimming in this pool?

What does this mean?

The Simple Point:

Meaning is important for its own sake.

The Judgment:

Good researchers seek to correct their weaknesses.
Great researchers build upon their strengths.