Logos and Real Research

You will remember when early in the semester we contrasted "real research" against mere reporting. As this is a research course designed to prepare you for writing for the academy, it is absolutely imperative that your research papers reflect the research ethos of the academic community, that is, that your contributions be original, offering new or fresh insight on the topic of your choice. While it will be anchored in previous research, it must above all depart from that research in "covering ground" not previously examined by the work of scholars before you. By way of review, the following blog will examine the research ethos of the academy and link it to the nature of logical discourse. I offer these remarks because, as your paper deadline draws to a close, you will want to be sure that your paper is a fair specimen of original, real research.

The Research Ethos

In past lectures, we have spoken of ethos as a persuasive mode in which the moral character of the speaker/writer comes to bear on the text (as differentiated from logos—the argument—and pathos—appeals to emotion). Here, I mean this a little bit differently. In this context, I mean "the the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution" (Merriam-Webster Online). Others have defined it as the "moods or motivation" of a person or group. For the academy (the community composed of the university and scholars within the university), knowledge is constantly in a state of flux; that is, knowledge is always changing. What we "know" at one point during the history of the academy may well differ significantly at another point. For example, it was "known" centuries ago that the earth was the center of the universe, and that all of the heavenly bodies revolved around our planet. However, with the research of Copernicus and Galileo, it was determined instead that the earth was merely one planet in a system of other planets, the center of which was the sun. In later years, models of the universe have undergone further modification due to further discovery made possible by new instruments and methods of calculation (Newton, Einstein, Hawking, the Hubble telescope, etc.). This knowledge was not arrived at through the work of a single person, but is viewed instead as a collaborative effort, the labor of an entire community over many years (even centuries!).

Even while knowledge-construction is viewed as a collaborative effort, some suggest that "collaborative" might paint things in too positive a light. Many believe that creating knowledge is not merely a matter of steady accumulation, not a slowly-but-surely-emerging picture of facts nicely assembled through the efforts of scholars and thinkers in a neat fashion. As Thomas Kuhn has famously argued, knowledge sometimes undergoes bitter "revolutions" in which the dominant views of one school of thought are overturned through debate or the death of the old school. In this way, knowledge-construction is not steady, but violent, and the dominant knowledge-construct (or "paradigm") changes like a political regime. This view is not by any means the final statement on the matter, but it has much to commend it in several contexts. (It was in science that Kuhn identified these paradigm shifts in knowledge.)

Whichever view you take of knowledge-construction, you must recognize that each scholar is limited through his or her own education, experience, and bias. As such, no single human being, no matter his or her list of impressive credentials, can be seen as the final voice on any given subject. Instead, those with expertise within their field (or even those outside it) can be looked to for information on how to interpret a given problem that has emerged for the scholastic community. Therefore, any scholar who wishes to undertake offering an insight would best approach this through recognizing (1) his or her own limitations and (2) those of other scholars. Ideally, scholarship should not be an ego-driven enterprise. Because perspectives are limited by time, place, and experience, it is almost certain that, even if a scholar is deemed to have "gotten it right" by the larger community, there will always be more to say on the subject as other scholars revisit the subject.

Because scholarly knowledge takes place within a community, knowledge takes place by consensus. Minority voices have the potential to win the majority, but it must be done according to the community standards. So long as a view is held in the minority, it will be marginalized and seen to be "out of fashion" or "incorrect." However, through persistence and continued research, marginal views can emerge as dominant and thus drive the community's thought on a given issue.

Ideally, knowledge-construction is driven by the desire for accuracy and "truest" representation of the facts. "Pictures" (or theoretical models) of the problem or issue are seen as human construction, and with the emerging of new information, it is possible for theoretical models to be modified or thrown out in exchange for those which seem to work "better." Of course, the question is never seen as finally answered, since it is always possible for more information and another perspective to emerge which gives us a different perspective on what "the whole picture" really looks like. For that reason, knowledge gained through research is seen as provisional—not what we "know" but what we "know right now."

Logos in Real Research

Limitation of knowledge is directly related to the kind of discourse used in real research. In research, again, the final word has not been said (and will never be said). As such, research is not seen as the academy's repository for absolute knowledge. Absolutist, once-for-all statements are seen as philosophically inimical to the community's enterprise of knowledge-construction. It is seen as arrogance and presumption to say "this is how it should be seen, once and for all," because, theoretically, new information could always come to the fore and send theoreticians and researchers "back to the drawing board." For this kind of situation, the discourse used is that of logos, which has been described for some of its characteristics in the first blog, "By Way of Review: Discourse Communities Lesson." For a more full explanation of logos, I turn now to Karen Armstrong, who describes it in this way:

"Logos [is] the rational, pragmatic, and scientific thought that enabled men and women to function well in the world. [...] Logos must relate exactly to facts and correspond to external realities if it is to be effective. It must work efficiently in the mundane world. We use this logical, discursive reasoning when we have to make things happen, get something done, or persuade other people to adopt a particular course of action. Logos is practical. Unlike myth, which looks back to the beginnings and to the foundations, logos forges ahead and tries to find something new: to elaborate on old insights, achieve a greater control over our environment, discover something fresh, and invent something novel" (xiv-xv).

In the academy, it is now considered a problematic statement that logos should "relate exactly to facts" since even "facts" now are considered, to some extent, to be human constructions and already interpreted. Therefore, it is now considered more proper to speak of logos relating to the facts as far as we can tell, while allowing that more information may possibly modify or overturn our current understanding. Given this view of knowledge, the research/knowledge-constructing task of the academy will carry on indefinitely, with no end in sight to the proliferation of ideas, insights, and new arguments. The ancient Hebrew philosopher Qoheleth's words "of the making of books there is no end" come to mind. Because of the limitations of logos, and because of the academy's insistence on its use to the exclusion of other discourses, the search for new insight or fresh takes on old research will continue.

How This Applies to You

The question of real, original research and its embeddedness in logical discourse then confronts you as you take on your research projects. For your papers, you must remember that the information you find for your papers must be itself anchored primarily in scholarly, logical discourse, since it is from this material that you will build your own arguments. Furthermore, your insights and arguments—in other words, what you conclude from your research—must not be found within previous scholarship. If what you offer is available someplace else, then you have not carried on the work of the scholar. I repeat: if what you offer is available someplace else, then you have not carried out the work of the scholar. While a "review of the literature" may be for some of you a very important component of your research projects, your papers must ultimately go beyond prior research and add to the scholarly community's understanding of the subject. In the realm of scholarship, no peer-reviewed journal would accept a submitted article whose topic had been covered and argued for in exactly the same way either in the same journal or in another journal. Due to the nature of the research project, information must be new and up-to-date—not seen before.

So, when you are writing your papers, ask yourself whether you are merely regurgitating previously stated information (reporting) or whether you are offering a new insight into a subject. As I see it, the difference between regurgitation and presenting an original argument lies at the bottom of the paper itself, in what we're calling the "research question," that is, what it is you are endeavoring to find out. If, when undertaking a research project, you are looking to find out "what's new" in a given area, that will involve, as stated previously, reading up on what experts have said about it. But, if you are going to say anything new about it and not merely report what has been said, you are going to have to step up to the plate as an expert yourself. While I realize you are undergraduate students still working on a degree, to be a scholar means to be both interested and involved in the discourse of a given subject—you know a thing or two about it. As such, you can offer your own assessments of the information.

Regurgitation amounts to little more than reporting what others have said without any judgment on what they have said or any original findings of your own. Again, your paper is going to have to be anchored in scholarly discourse, which means there will be the element of reporting what others have said (these skills we dealt with in the overview paper).

There are a few ways of going beyond regurgitation:

1. Evaluation of previous scholarship. Not only do you state what a person says, but you go beyond the surface, beyond face value. You examine whether the premises are valid. At this point, you are free to bring in information from other scholarship or bring your own arguments to bear. This is generating new knowledge.
2. Synthesizing previous scholarship. Somewhat related to evaluation, you take the valid premises—those that have passed your scrutiny—and bring them together to form a more complete picture. Yes, you are using others as a basis, but through your synthesis, you have created something that paints a more complete picture of the issue. In this way, new knowledge is also generated.
3. Original observation. This is where you venture off into completely new territory. When taking this approach, you may involve yourself in all kinds of observation and direct study. This could involve surveys, questionnaires, interviews, and other forms of direct observation. Sometimes, this may involve viewing different forms of media and writing your assessment of them. For this kind of project, the empirical paper works well (see previous blog, "The Empirical Paper"). Of course, not all original observation has to be fitted to the empirical paper format. Sometimes, your original observations will be better suited to the theoretical paper, where you will be driving your paper by theory rather than data (the province of the empirical paper).
   

A good way to determine whether a paper is substantially original or substantially unoriginal is to look at how much it makes use of scholarly sources. How much of the stuff is summary, paraphrase, and/or direct quotation? If the paper is merely a stringing together of secondary sources, then no new knowledge has been substantially generated. Some synthesis has occurred, but not enough to justify reading your paper over just reading the sources referenced themselves. If, on the other hand, a paper involves more discussion of previous findings than it does reporting them, then it's likely you have a paper that, in the discussion process, is generating new knowledge. Remember, as your paper enters the discourse, it too is supposed to rank among other sources. Therefore, your paper should contain sufficient discussion and/or other reported information that does not originate in other sources. So, in theory, other authors should be able to reference your source by saying, "As (Your name here) argues, '...'" (5). If all you did was present outside information and none of your own assessment, discussion, or original findings, there'd be no point in referencing you at all. And, if there's no point in referencing you for scholarly purposes, then there's no point in reading you for scholarly purposes, either.

So, when it's all said and done, could your paper be a source on the topic you are covering? Does it have an original point to make which is at the center of its purpose, thereby making it a legitimate specimen of scholarly discourse? If so, congratulations: you're doing real research. If not, then you need to go back and examine just what your research question is and then modify it until you seek to answer a question in a way that has not been previously answered.

Work Cited

Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God. New York: Knopf, 2000.