La subrogación del crédito y el pago con subrogación

Establishing the nature of the theoretical perspectives which underpin methodology is an essential element of all credible research (Crotty, 1998; Denscombe, 2002; Robson, 2005). Crotty defines theoretical perspective as:

A way of looking at the world and making sense of it. It involves knowledge, therefore, and embodies a certain understanding of what is entailed in knowing, that is, how we know what we know. (Crotty, 1998, p8)

Theoretical perspectives influence strongly ‘what sort of thing society is (‘the ontological assumptions’) and how one goes about gaining knowledge of it (‘the epistemological assumptions’). It follows that research can never being considered as a neutral tool because theorizing is part of the research process that involves not just ways of looking at the world but also ways of approaching the research process as a whole (Woodiwiss, 2005). Fundamentally, how we approach research determines its outcomes. In Scoping the Social: an introduction to the practice of social theory (2005), Woodiwiss provides a convincing discussion about the importance of this perspectival framing. He argues:

101 ‘Theory’ consists of words formed into a set of interlinked concepts – change the words and you change the concepts and therefore the theory (Woodiwiss, 2005, p9)

A discussion about how we come to know place leads to deeper epistemological questions about our individual thinking as researchers, and the particular ontological premises that this brings with it. Logically, it matters that individual theoretical perspectives underpin the ways in which researchers represent and analyse their data. Dunne, Pryor and Yates (2005) discuss the importance of how we think we can have knowledge as researchers. They argue:

What sort of entity we think the social world is and how we think we can have knowledge of it is an a priori and continuing question in relation to the research process. The question is prior because how we answer it conditions the way we set up and conduct our research; and it is continuing because it can be modified by our reading and understanding and by the experience of research. (Dunne, Pryor and Yates, 2005 p 14)

Ontologically, it is important to consider is the object of the research, in this case, place, an independent entity which exists completely separately to the individual or is it a social construction? To consider place as an independent physical reality is a realist viewpoint that I do not personally share. I tend towards a more nominalist viewpoint which is to say that though I acknowledge the place can be interpreted as a physical entity – as a location for example – I view the concept in its totality as one which is a product of cognitive construction – ‘a way of seeing, knowing and understanding the world.’ (Cresswell,2004, p11).

As the conceptual analysis in the last chapter indicated, the theoretical landscape underpinning this research is complex. That discussion highlighted key areas of the academic literature which indicate that space and place can be interpreted from a broad and varied range of philosophical perspectives. Figure 2.1 identified the diverse nature of spatiality and highlighted the key philosophical dissymmetry between viewing the world objectively (as GIS is largely designed to do) versus broader, more relational interpretations of space and place. In the remainder of this discussion on ontology and epistemology I consider the nature of both objectivism and subjectivism and their relevance to the research in more detail and begin to elaborate on how both theoretical perspectives have had important roles to play in informing the methodology.

102 Epistemologically, objectivism holds that reality exists independently from human influence where elements of that reality (its ontological components) are seen as facts to be discovered, detached from human emotion or bias. Such an objective theoretical perspective suggests that causal relationships between objects or variables can be identified, hypotheses can be tested and scientific laws can be adhered to via positivist principles (Lather, 1991; Robson, 2005). Based on this type of objective thinking, the philosopher, Auguste Comte developed the theory of logical positivism to suggest that knowledge is acquired through direct experience of the observation of facts. Historically, objective knowledge has become for some almost synonymous with scientific knowledge. As a result, knowing the positivist world is value-free. Robson provides a useful summary of this way of thinking. He argues:

Essentially, positivists look for a constant relationship between events, or in the language of experimentation, between two variables. This can be relatively straightforward when dealing with the natural world, although calling for considerable ingenuity and the ability to control the conditions of the experiment – which is why laboratories exist. However, when people are the focus of the study, particularly when it is taking place in a social real world context, ‘constant conjunction’ in a strict sense is so rare as to be virtually non-existent (Robson, 2005, p 21) Robson highlights the philosophical gulf between the clinical nature of scientific knowledge and the less-easily categorised, messy nature of human knowledge. Whilst objectivism suggests that we come to know the world through discovery of an already fixed, objective reality, subjectivism suggests that knowing the world is a unique, personal experience. Specifically, it is through our individual conscious and sub-conscious thinking, that we filter and shape our own version of ‘knowledge.’ In his discussion about the significance of consciousness and the nature of subjective thinking about the world, Searle (1999) argues:

Conscious states are subjective in the sense that they are always experienced by a human or animal subject. Conscious states, therefore, have what we might call ‘first-person ontology.’ That is, they exist only from the point of view of some agent or organism or animal or self that has them. (Searle, 1999, p 42)

Throughout the thesis I argue that geographical information construction through GIS is strongly influenced by objectivism and a particular view of spatiality which strongly influences the nature of geographical knowledge that can be ‘made’ in a GIS. The empirical studies in this researchare

103 founded on finding out how teaching and learning within these frameworks influence the construction and interpretation of relational place knowledge in the geography classroom.

In summary, in line with Geertz’s interpretive approaches to adopting research methods suitable for developing complex social settings such as classrooms (Geertz, 1972) this interpretivist research is founded upon a constructionist epistemology which acknowledges that how we come to know the world is determined by human practices through which knowledge is shaped and determined by its social context (Crotty, 1998).