ABSTRACT

In academic circles, the word perspective is often used to capture the sense of holding, applying or offering a particular world-view. Furthermore, the etymology of the word – with its connotations of looking clearly through something – remains alive and well in the rather clichéd use of the word lens to describe a theoretical or methodological research instrument through which one encounters the world. Thus, almost by stealth the word perspective seems to have also taken up the burden of scientific instrumentalism. Nothing new is being claimed here. Heidegger, in his essay The Age of the World Picture (1977), already famously examined not only what we might mean by concepts like world-view or perspective in the context suggested here, but also how the very possibility of having such a resolute, collective perspective has emerged hand-in-hand with the metaphysics of modernity, resulting in a kind of narrowing of the mind. It is fitting then, that we reflect upon the distinguishing features of scientific and social scientific research in this chapter.