ABSTRACT
Views of knowledge underlying research studies are an essential, though sometimes unstated, component of research methodology and procedure. Though data gained from both personal learning experiences and disciplined research investigations add to our knowledge, both personal and collective, data is not in itself knowledge, nor is information knowledge. Every kind of research has its own, stated truth criteria, and good research practice, which results in valid research knowledge, follows these truth criteria. Narrative research fits in interpretive epistemology. In terms of its truth criteria, it is unsuited to the criterion of causally justified true belief. Burgeoning ‘epistemologies’ could cause us to become lost in detail, in a house of mirrors. It would be more productive to fine tune our understanding of central epistemologies, which are described variously as scientific, interpretive and critical; positivism, pragmatism and hermeneutics; or as positivism/postpositivism and phenomenology, as well as others, and from there to flesh out methodological implications.
