To see a dark room, the first thing we usually try to do is turn on the lights, or open the windows.

Sometimes we have to feel around in the dark to find a light switch, which works best if we already know something about the room’s layout, and about what kind of switches and window latches we can expect to find (otherwise we might not recognize what we are looking for even when we feel it). In this kind of case we rarely stand in one place. We walk around the room, and explore it by feel before we can explore it by sight.

Sometimes, if we are lucky enough to have (or discover in our groping) a flashlight or lamp, we can direct light to different areas of the room, in search of the room’s own light sources. If such light sources do not exist, or if their light is dim or casts dark shadows, we will explore the room by the light of our own lamp.

Generally speaking, we prefer to see a room by its own light, and failing that we examine it by our own light. And if no light is available, we are forced to explore it by feel. And often we treat these preferences as discrete modes. We EITHER find the light and look around, OR we just point our flashlight at various points in the room to see what’s there, OR we feel around. But the most thorough examination involves all three: seeing the room from its usual perspectives in its usual mode of illumination, looking at the room from as many perspectives as possible, illuminating the shadowy areas with our own light, touching and experimenting with the objects of the room. Further, we can move these objects around, turn them in our hands or walk around them, viewing them from various angles.

And then a whole other world of possibilities opens when you of viewing images or maps of the room made by others, or hearing about the room from others. And nearly all of what was outlined above presupposes knowledge of rooms, windows, lights, etc. But now the metaphor is fuzzing up, so we’re probably violating its terms of use…

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I think what I’m doing here is feeling out a possibility of a formal relationship between metaphors of illumination, metaphors of perspective, metaphors of uncovering, metaphors of feeling out. I’ve had a vague sense, in the form of slight anxiety around some of my own favorite terms (perspective, horizon, insight, clarification), that perhaps I’ve been conflating or confusing concepts of understanding. I’ve been really irritable about the use of the word insight (which I think is perspectival knowledge on a subject’s sense of objectivity) for gaining facts about other people (which treats people as objects with attributes). And I have a hunch that clarifying these relationships will help me understand the variety of research methods better.

There’s a big difference between matters that are not clearly understood because nobody has looked at the matter closely or systematically enough, versus matters that have been looked at very closely but not from an angle that reveals what is most relevant or productive, versus matters that are essentially discovery of an angle of view versus knowing about the objects viewed from that angle (and I think this is the essential difference between qualitative and quantitative research), versus matters that are being overshadowed by considerations that perhaps obscure what most needs seeing.

Dig?