ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the central relevance of traditional objective science to the complexities experienced on a daily basis by generalist practice, and to effective learning and change. It suggests that 'critical theory' and 'constructivism' offer equally valid and useful lenses with which to view the world. They relate to qualitative and participatory approaches to enquiry. Positivism is the dominant paradigm in medicine. It expects the world to be simply ordered and predictable. Change happens through a simple linear process of cause and effect. Practitioners will be more familiar with positivist approaches to enquiry. The chapter argues that knowledge generated by any of these approaches is not truth itself, but a snapshot of more complex and moving stories. To be epistemologically naive is to believe that knowledge can be isolated from context. To be epistemologically aware is to recognise that knowledge is bound by the context of its generation, and what leader sees depends on how they look.
