The messages that began with ways to link individual and community
in the same analytic framework that transitioned into the narrative/
qualitative/quantitative discussion have been very difficult for me
to keep straight in my mind-- so many issues woven together! :-)
The Phil Jackson versus us viewers of Bulls games, example, for example,
reminded me that the word "theory" has its origins in a Greek word
for spectator, evoking the spectator/participant distinction, which
works for some parts of what is being discussed. But Jackson is somehow
"in between" since he is not on the floor playing, but next to the
floor "coaching" which is some mixture of teoria and praxis, and a
praxis of its own, etc.
Graham is right that in Cultural
Psychology, especially the last chapter, I try to resolve the logics
of the two psychologies which, in some ways line up with the qualitative/
quntitative distinction, but only in some ways. My effort there is
to formulate a theory-in-practice methodology.
Methodology, as opposed to methods, is not a term that has appeared
in the discussion. I take methodology to refer to the pattern of
methods that link theory and data. For me at least, a crucial missing
part of the discussion so far is that nowhere is practice brought
in as a crucial part of the overall methodology.
Gary-- I think I am a realist of the Piercian variety, but I am less
than semi-literate in Pierce. I clearly use both narrative and
various forms of quantification drawn from, or triangulated with
narrative, in my work. Does that make me a nominalist? I ask that
question totally without irony.
In any and all events, I am reading with interest and hopes of clarification.
mike