Scientific psychology and hermeneutical psychology: Causal explanation and the meaning of human action

Agency, Causality, and Meaning

“…Such representations must of their nature be partially indeterminate or 'openhorizoned' (Waismann, I 945) in order that potentialities of meaning change and development can be actualized to accommodate novel facts or features of reality. This is especially true with respect to the social world, in which the realities may be themselves modified and transformed through historical time (Greenwood, 1987b.…”

“…This is not however normally the case in social psychological science: the correct identification of an action as an instance of aggression or dishonesty tells us nothing of its causal explanation. This is simply a reflection of the fact that human actions form social psychological kinds rather than natural kinds: they are constituted by social relational and representational dimensions rather than causal dimensions (Greenwood, 1987b.…”

Agency, Causality, and Meaning

“…This is simply a reflection of the fact that human actions form social psychological kinds rather than natural kinds: they are constituted by social relational and representational dimensions rather than causal dimensions (Greenwood, 1987b. Many identifications of natural events also provide causal explanations of them, since theories of their causal origin are built into their definitions (eg., in the case of 'tuberculosis', 'oxidation', 'metal fatigue', etc).…”

“…'4 For a detailed discussion of this claim see Greenwood (1987b;1g88a;1988~). I5 This is not to deny that it is entirely legitimate for social psychologists to reclassiG instances of human aggression and dishonesty in terms of their causes (including agency) once these are established, in order to discriminate different forms of aggression and dishonesty (as medical researchers discriminate different forms of a disease in terms of different aetiologies).…”

Evaluating the processes and outcomes of vocational counselling: An action theory perspective

“…Rather, heretofore they have been framed differently. For example, consider the traditional dispute between the objective and subjective conceptions of science (Husserl, 1970), between explanative and understanding approaches (Fred, 1986;Greenwood, 1987;Griesmaier, 2006;von Wright, 1971), between political and value neutral approaches on the one hand and political activism or value adhering approaches on the other (Fox & Prilleltensky, 1997), between social and individualistic propositions (Burge, 1979;Dalton, Elias & Wandersman, 2001;Howarth, 2001;Putnam, 1975;Schein, 1996), between methodological monism and methodological pluralism (MacMartin & Winston, 2000;Slife & Gantt, 1999), between essentialist and constructivist views (Sayer, 1997), among others.…”