Pearce Jacob, Tavares Walter
Acad Med. 2024 May 13. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000005765.
This article aims to outline perspectivism and perspectival thinking by drawing on established scholarship from the philosophy of science and to demonstrate its relevance to health professions education. Perspectivism embraces the notion that knowledge always inherently arises from particular perspectives. "Truth" always depends on an evaluative background. Perspectivism is a form of epistemic humility that sees epistemic claims (relating to knowledge) as fundamentally historically and contextually situated. This article contends that perspectivism is a fruitful and relevant lens to apply to health professions assessment. It is a way of thinking that is all around us, even if we do not realize it. It extends discourse around the value of subjectivity in assessment and may cut through many prevailing debates on assessment practice. Perspectivism is a sort of middle-ground that is not meant to be another idea or "-ism" to add to a list of ideas, but constitutes a shift in how philosophy can be applied by adopting a broader, more holistic perspective. Applying a perspectival lens to health professions education embraces the imperative to make interpretive processes in assessment philosophically explicit. This opens the possibility of adopting multiple philosophical stances concurrently and allows actors to appreciate different methodological viewpoints with more charity. This scholarly perspective encourages the assessment community to continue to innovate through an appreciation of the importance of a wide range of assessment perspectives by uncovering the drivers of specific commitments to philosophical positions. Although the focus is on assessment in the health professions, perspectival thinking has the potential to advance medical education discourse and practice more generally beyond assessment. The hope with this essay is that by encouraging more critical reflection, this description of perspectival thinking will further aid researchers and practitioners in health professions education to better understand what is happening philosophically with more frequency.
本文旨在借鉴科学哲学领域已有的学术成果，概述视角主义和视角性思维，并论证其与卫生专业教育的相关性。视角主义秉持这样一种观念，即知识总是内在地源于特定的视角。“真理”总是依赖于一个评价背景。视角主义是一种认知谦逊的形式，它将认知主张（与知识相关）视为从根本上受历史和情境制约的。本文认为，视角主义是应用于卫生专业评估的一个富有成效且相关的视角。它是一种在我们周围无处不在的思维方式，即便我们并未意识到。它拓展了关于评估中主观性价值的讨论范围，或许能突破许多关于评估实践的主流争论。视角主义是一种中间立场，并非要成为另一个需添加到观念列表中的观念或“主义”，而是通过采用更宽泛、更全面的视角，在哲学应用方式上构成一种转变。将视角性视角应用于卫生专业教育，包含着使评估中的解释过程在哲学层面明晰化这一必要要求。这开启了同时采用多种哲学立场的可能性，并使行动者能更宽容地理解不同的方法论观点。这种学术视角鼓励评估界通过认识到广泛评估视角的重要性来持续创新，揭示对哲学立场的特定承诺背后的驱动因素。尽管重点是卫生专业中的评估，但视角性思维有潜力在更广泛的层面上推动医学教育的讨论和实践，而不仅仅局限于评估。撰写本文的期望是，通过鼓励更多批判性反思，对视角性思维的这种描述将进一步帮助卫生专业教育领域的研究人员和从业者更频繁、更好地从哲学角度理解正在发生的事情。
