ONT Re: Sequential Interactions Generating Hypotheses
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SIGH. Note 4
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One of the things that strikes you as soon as you look at anything
like a realworld dataset is that you cannot engage in any form of
data gathering, much less data analysis, without being involved
in all sorts of enabling hypotheses, conscious or unconscious,
that go far beyond the focal hypothesis of the study at hand.
There are enabling hypotheses involved in the choice of a
particular apparatus, codebook, or instrument. There are
enabling hypotheses involved in the use of a particular
method for arranging and analyzing the data collected.
An enabling hypothesis may be something as simple as:
1. I guess that this codebook will be a useful template
for viewing this particular part of the world through.
2. I guess that this way of looking at the data will disclose
an aspect of the phenomenon or the reality that produced it.
It is too much to expect that all of our enabling hypotheses can be made explicit.
As Peirce observed, abduction shades off into perception and instinct. And yet,
at any moment, it is the nature of recalcitrant experience that any one of our
peripheral hypotheses, so long taken for granted that it may never have been
part of our conscious reflection, can rise into prominence as the one that
most acutely demands to be bought into focus.
Jon Awbrey
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