The recent drastic development of agriculture,

together with the growing societal interest in agricultural

practices and their consequences, pose a challenge to

agricultural science. There is a need for rethinking the

general methodology of agricultural research. This paper

takes some steps towards developing a systemic research

methodology that can meet this challenge — a general

self-reflexive methodology that forms a basis for doing

holistic or (with a better term) wholeness-oriented research

and provides appropriate criteria of scientific quality. From

a philosophy of research perspective, science is seen as an

interactive learning process with both a cognitive and a

social communicative aspect. This means, first of all, that

science plays a role in the world that it studies. A science that

influences its own subject area, such as agricultural science,

is named a systemic science. From this perspective, there is

a need to reconsider the role of values in science. Science is

not objective in the sense of being value-free. Values play,

and ought to play, an important role in science — not only in

form of constitutive values such as the norms of good

science, but also in the form of contextual values that enter

into the very process of science. This goes against the

traditional criterion of objectivity. Therefore, reflexive

objectivity is suggested as a new criterion for doing good

science, along with the criterion of relevance. Reflexive

objectivity implies that the communication of science must

include the cognitive context, which comprises the societal,

intentional, and observational context.

Internet:www.springerlink.com/(ki41qf55sf3ene3ldnx4vy55)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,2,12;journal,15,80;linkingpublicationresults,1:102841,1 (with adaptations).