Martin John Packer <mjpacker@umich.edu>

Martin John Packer (mjpacker@umich.edu)
Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:09:31 -0400 (EDT)

Greetings; I'm rejoining after about 5 years subscribing to xlchc. I'm a
developmental psychologist, interested in social and moral aspects of
development, though I view these broadly, so that even math turns out to
be moral and social!

I'm also interested in what is often called qualitative research methods,
specifically in the interpretive or hermeneutic approach to the
investigation of human phenomena. Human action, along with the artifacts
we deal with and the worlds we create and inhabit, require interpretation
to be understood, not (or not first) measurement and experimental (or
statistical) manipulation.

I've just joined the psychology department at Duquesne University. This
department has had, since the 60s, an existential-phenomenological focus:
this is closely related to the hermeneutics of Heidegger, Ricoeur,
Gadamer and others who i draw upon in my work.

Martin Packer
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, PA 15282
(412) 396-4852