The issues I treat in this book qualitative versus quantitative methods, facts versus values, science versus politics, subjectivity versus objectivity, postm- ernism versus pragmatism, to name a few are at the core of a lively, sometimes divisive, conversation that has been unfolding in the theory and practice of e- cational research for some time. These issues fall squarely within the province of philosophy, and thus philosophical investigation has an especially useful contribution to make. But these issues are by no means the exclusive province of philosophy; they are ones in which a...