Final reflection

This course began with abstract discussions based on the works of Socrates and Kant. We reasoned around what knowledge was, how we interpret it and where we gain knowledge from. As we read Theaetetus, a dialogue between Socrates and Theaetetus where they discuss three definitions of knowledge. Together with this dialogue and Kant’s forms of intuition and faculties of knowledge we engaged in philosophical discussions of knowledge acquirement for babies raised in solitude to whether a pen that lies on a table is a pen or not and how that determination varies depending on who makes the observation, when and how. The terms a priori and posteriori were new to me and highly participant during the theme. They enabled for interesting discussions when debating what knowledge we acquired a priori versus posteriori. Even though we had learnt the distinction, it was still hard to give any example of posteriori-knowledge that didn’t circle back to being a priori. Through this theme, and mainly the seminar, I feel that I look upon knowledge in a new way. I now reflect on what the knowledge I have and how I received it. It had influence in the continuation of the course and will most likely have influence in my future work.

During the second theme we studied the dialectic of enlightenment and nominalism. In addition to what we previously knew of the enlightenment as an epoch where people began questioning religion in favor of science and that which was possible to prove, we discussed enlightenment as a necessity to question everything we are faced with; all the knowledge we perceive. Parallel to enlightenment we discussed nominalism - a view in which the only thing objects have in common is the name by which we call it. Here we used the analogy of Plato’s cave, where we are exposed by the mindset that the world is only as we perceive it. The truth we know is only the truth we have perceived, no matter what the world might be like in reality. The reality that you perceive is the reality you present in. And how we perceive the world varies of course between each individual. These food-for-thought discussions enable us to become more aware of how to tackle future problems; we must be critical to all that we face and acknowledge that what might be claimed as truth does not necessarily apply to everyone. Choose the approach that is optimal for your specific task.

Until now, near all that we had been through was new to me. But as we went on to the third theme and learnt what theory is, my initial feeling was that this theme processed an area that I had previous experience within from writing all kinds of reports as well as an overall understanding of theory from everyday life. Even so, I had never before thought about the concept in that kind of depth as done during the lecture and following seminar. It turned out that defining what theory is, is not as black and white and certain as I had previously imagined. Trying to define theory was no easy task even though I have worked with many different theories in many various tasks and also daily life. Even though I feel that I have an understanding and know how to use and apply theories it still turned out to be hard to describe. I found this interesting and made the seminar discussions more intriguing.

As we passed to the second half of the course and began working with quantitative and qualitative research methods I felt more familiar with what we were lectured on as well as what we read in the articles. However, similarly to how I interpreted theory when analyzing the concept further, I had a hard time seeing the clear distinction between the two. This in spite of having conducted researches of both methods before. The same applied for case studies. One insight I know will follow me is the eye-opening for quantitative methods. The choice of method obviously varies depending on what the research concerns but not until now have I really grasped the strength and potential this methods holds. In addition, combining the two, can often strengthen even more, certainly a piece of knowledge I will bring with me for the future. Design research, is a process that I felt confident about beforehand. And as we worked with theme 5, it turned out to align quite well with my prerequisites. Through multiple courses at KTH we have performed different types of design researches to improve our further work which apparently has contributed to my understanding of the method.

When I look back at what we have done during this course and what we have learnt, I feel that even though most themes regarded concepts I have previously worked in before, my perspectives have broadened. New light has been shed, making my understanding more versatile. In short, I can summarize my newly acquired knowledge for optimizing a research process in a few steps: put effort in defining your problem definition, it will help you on your project path; analyze your definition and investigate what you aim to achieve, this in order to determine what research method suits your project best. Combine methods if necessary to ensure optimal results. Be critical of your work and try to view the work from multiple angles to find flaws and weaknesses. Look for the best one and be thorough. These and more will surely be of use in future work, especially for the upcoming master’s thesis during next semester!