Philosophical analysis was used to interpret a large-scale attitudinal survey that dealt with, among other factors, teachers' attitudes toward computers in the classroom. This analysis of the study considers the role of philosophical analysis in the context of empirical inquiry. To measure the impact of computers in the classroom on teachers in an urban and six adjacent school districts in a southwestern state, 10 items were attached to an attitudinal survey that was administered to 2,000 teachers in seven school districts. Overall, 1,060 teachers responded to the survey. Principal-component analysis was used to extract three factors from the 10 items. PCWKLOAD was the dependent variable examined in the study. As a standardized variable, it dealt with how the use of classroom computers adds to the teacher's workload. The responses of the teachers, who expressed great apprehension over the introduction of computers into their classrooms, were counterintuitive to the stated causal model of the researchers. Results of this nature may reveal underlying causal factors that were not understood or expected by the researcher before analysis of the data. The final task of the researcher in an empirical inquiry is to interpret and appraise the facts. This is a philosophical task, as opposed to the original empirical task. Empirical and philosophical inquiry, it is argued, play equally indispensable parts in research. Four tables present results from the study of teachers' attitudes. (SLD)