On Epistemology

Epistemology is a philosophical view of how we know what we know. I find that I am mired in positivism. I believe this comes from many sources. My cultural identity as a WASP, situated in the lower middle class, in the United States, leads to this. I have been taught to value progress, and to define progress as problem identification and solution implementation. I have always been personally attracted to the sciences, specifically the physical sciences. For the most part, research in these areas is positivist in nature. In fact, as a science educator, I have explicitly taught students positivism, through the scientific method. Hypothesize, experiment, analyze, and report out. Upon reflection, I can see how this can lead to a very restrictive view of knowledge, truth, and the world.
As I am moving forward with this new path for my life, I realize that I must broaden my viewpoint in order to learn different types of knowledge. I have often prided myself as being more open to different ways of knowing, and now I must be able to act on that stated openness. I have already rejected the objective nature of reality; through interactions with many different types of people while traveling; through my (limited) research in the field of religion, where I wrestled with phenomenology; and through learning about quantum theory, where even the scientists are finding that observation fundamentally changes systems, and so an objective reality cannot, on a very fundamental level, be considered to exist.
I find that I am drawn to aspects of Critical Theory, more specifically its emancipatory goals (Merriam 11). Politically I identify with anarcho-socialism or Chomsky's anarcho-syndicalism, and I perceive the colonial and capitalist ideologies which shape our realities. I think that if individuals can learn about the ideologies and forces which oppress them, they can then free themselves from these forces. I also am attracted to the idea of participatory action research, since the people who are affected are the ones involved in researching and changing their reality. It also speaks to the punk rock ideals I continue to hold; that labels and structures are facades, and that individuals and self-selected groups can accomplish anything, if they can get the space to empower themselves.
Ultimately, though, interpretivism or constructivism seems to be the epistemological viewpoint that I will engage with at the current time. As mentioned before, I learned to value phenomenology (codes for constructivism) and reject outright reductivism (codes for critical theory) during my time studying religion. I believe that individuals co-create their reality with each other, with society, and with their physical surroundings. The best source of information about this reality is the individual, as they are invested in it. I also thin that this viewpoint is very useful in educational research, as more positivist methods have shown to yield bad results, and, at least when working in traditional educational institutions, a critical viewpoint could lead to difficult interactions with authority. I am interested in education as experienced by the learners, as ordered by instructors, and is the classroom their truth is the truth.