Epistemology and reading

EPISTEMOLOGY is the branch of philosophy that deals with what can be counted as knowledge, where knowledge is located, and how knowledge increases. In this study, the epistemology of reading theory, practice, and research was investigated. The authors derived seven main issues in epistemology. Each of the seven issues is a continuum along which important historical and current epistemologies differ. Together, the seven issues comprise a multivariate continuum along which lie the major theories of knowledge of the past and present. The authors divided this multivariate continuum into five clusters of epistemology. The seven issues, worded in the form of questions, and the five clusters then served as a tool for engaging in epistemological inquiry. The tool was primarily employed to examine the theories of knowledge implicit in two views of the reading process (Rosenblatt's and Rumelhart's). The tool was also used in a more general way to examine epistemological issues underlying reading instruction and research. It was concluded that differences between and among theories of reading, reading instructional approaches, and reading research paradigms often result from and obscure fundamental epistemological differences. Making these epistemological differences explicit may, somewhat paradoxically, foster both diversity and healthier competition.