Skip to main content
Log in

Pragmatism, Realism and Hermeneutics

  • Published:
Foundations of Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper explores themethodological consequences of AmericanPragmatism for the social sciences. It alsocriticises some rival perspectives onmethodology of social research, in particularfalsificationist, realist and someanti-naturalist views. It is argued thatAmerican Pragmatism shows striking affinitieswith the genealogical method of history and thereflexive turn in cultural anthropology. It isalso argued that Pragmatism forces us to thinkdifferently about the relationship betweentheory and empirical research.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Archer, M. et al.: 1998, Critical Realism; Essential Readings. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baert, P.: 1996, Realism as a Philosophy of Social Sciences and Economics: A Critical Evaluation. Cambridge Journal of Economics 20(3): 513–522.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baert, P.: 1998, Social Theory in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumer, H.: 1969, Symbolic Interactionism. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulmer, M.: 1984, The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, Diversity, and the Rise of Sociological Research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collier, A.: 1994, Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar's Philosophy. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1908, Does Reality Possess Practical Character? In Essays, Philosophical and Psychological, in Honor of William James, Professor in Harvard University, by his Colleagues at Columbia University. New York: Longmans, Green and Co, pp. 53–80.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1930, The Quest for Certainty; A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action. New York: Minton, Balch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1966, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1967, Dewey on Education: Selections (with an introduction and notes by M.S. Dworkin). New York: Teacher College Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dewey, J.: 1976, Experience and Education. London: Collier MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diggins, J.P.: 1994, The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feyerabend, P.: 1993, Against Method. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleetwood, S. (ed.): 1999, Critical Realism in Economics: Development and Debate. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M.: 1977, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, H.-G.: 1989, Truth and Method (2nd edition). New York: Sheed and Ward.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A.: 1977, Studies in Social and Political Theory. London: Hutchinson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A.: 1993, New Rules of Sociological Method (2nd edition). London: Hutchinson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, R.B. (ed.): 1995, Pragmatism: A Contemporary Reader. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • James, W.: 1907, Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. New York: Longmans, Green and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, D.L.: 1994, Richard Rorty: Prophet and Poet of the New Pragmatism. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hollinger, R. and D. Depew (eds.): 1995, Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawson, A.: 1997, Economics and Reality. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, J. and R. Smith (eds.): 1980, American Sociology and Pragmatism: Mead, Chicago Sociology and Symbolic Interactionism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovejoy, A.: 1963, The Thirteen Pragmatisms. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marcus, G.E. and M.J. Fischer: 1986, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Mead, G.H.: 1934, Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, G.H.: 1938, The Philosophy of the Act. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meltzer, B.N., J.W. Petras and L.T. Reynolds: 1975, Symbolic Interactionism; Genesis, Varieties and Criticism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, C. (ed.): 1996, Deconstruction and Pragmatism. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nietzsche, F.: 1967, Beyond Good and Evil. London: George Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nietzsche, F.: 1969, The Genealogy of Morals. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nietzsche, F.: 1983, Untimely Meditations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Niiniluoto, I.: 1999, Critical Scientific Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Hear, A.: 1991, Father of Child-Centredness: John Dewey and the Ideology of Modern Education. London: Centre for Policy Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Outhwaite, W.: 1987, New Philosophies of Social Science. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peirce, C.S.: 1931–1958, Collected Papers. In C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss and A. Burks (eds.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pihlstrom, S.: 1998, Pragmatism and Philosophical Anthropology: Understanding our Human Life in a Human World. New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plummer, K. (ed.): 1997, The Chicago School: Critical Assessments. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K.: 1959, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K.: 1963, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.: 1982, Consequences of Pragmatism. Hempel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rorty, R.: 1999, Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schiller, F.C.S.: 1907, Studies in Humanism. London: MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seigfried, C.: 1996, Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shusterman, R.: 1997, Practising Philosophy; Pragmatism and the Philosophical Life. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, D.: 1988, The Chicago School: A Liberal Critique of Capitalism. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Baert, P. Pragmatism, Realism and Hermeneutics. Foundations of Science 8, 89–106 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022445814115

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022445814115

Navigation