Naturalism and Educational Administration: New Directions

The purpose of this paper is to outline some new developments in a mature research program that sees administrative theory as cohering with natural science and uses a coherence theory of epistemic justification to shape the content and structure of administrative theory. Three main developments are discussed. First, the paper shows how to deal with the evaluation of theories (of, say, leadership) where there is a demand that a theory needs to be context relevant, but also comprehensive. The solution is to allow context to determine the scope of comprehensiveness. Second, the paper develops an argument structure employing a coherentist epistemology for how ethical claims can be incorporated into administrative theories. Finally, the paper, drawing on research in neuroscience, argues for the relevance of emotion in rational decision-making. Contrary to the belief that emotion compromises rationality, the paper argues that it is essential for rationality.