As Eric points out, an underlying assumption of my "Emergence in
psychology" paper is that it is possible to develop an objective
science of human behavior in social and cultural context. Readers
may have noted that there is nothing in that paper about
"interpretivism" or "subjectivism." The journal
Human Development publishes a "Commentary" on each of
their articles; my commentary was written by Edward Sampson and was
critical of my article because he is a radical social constructivist
about science (and I am only a partial social constructivist, along the
lines of Ian Hacking's book The social construction of
what?). In response to my concluding statements (that only
empirical study can tell us which approach is most appropriate), Sampson
writes: "I do not believe that the data will speak to us about which
explanatory paradigm works best. Those choices are made
elsewhere" as matters of "politics and ideology."
Just trying to give equal time to opposing views! Why not invite
Sampson to join XMCA for a bit?
At 04:22 PM 4/20/02 -0400, you wrote:
To
all;
Having been outspoken in the aspect of contextualisation and the
inseparability of knowledge and social context I would just like to take
this opportunity to salute R. [hmmmm what does the R stand for?] Keith
Sawyer's attempt at providing the concept of emergentism as a distinct
psychological phenomenon. I must add that even though I have in the past
been a bit of a purist regarding the social/individual connection; having
read Valsiner I believe his scientific study of individual psychological
as purposfully relevant to explaining how people learn and share their
knowledge. Possibly this concept of emergence is an opportunity to move
the field of psychology into scientific query rather then anthropological
ethnology.
Enjoying the discussion,
eric
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