Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding

Dilthey, Wilhelm; Zaner, Richard M.; Heiges, Kenneth L.; Makkreel, Rudolf A.

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-9658-8

Cited by 70 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Furthermore, to understand the object of research is to be capable of successful predictions, which, in turn, are offered to society for their potential use in controlling the course of future events. However, with roots in Dilthey's (1894Dilthey's ( /1977 distinction between understanding (Verstehen) and explanation (Erklaren), many qualitative researchers believe that knowledge of human action is incomplete without understanding the lived experience of others. The precise measurement of an individual's behavior through time and space would never allow one to understand, for example, the way in which an individual's life is built around a search for spiritual salvation.…”

Section: Hermeneutics and Social Understandingmentioning

confidence: 98%

The promises of qualitative inquiry.

Gergen¹,

Josselson²,

Freeman³

2015

American Psychologist

264

179

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We address the significance and implications of the formal entry of qualitative inquiry into the American Psychological Association. In our view, the discipline is enriched in new and important ways. Most prominently, the qualitative movement brings with it a pluralist orientation to knowledge and to practices of inquiry. Adding to the traditional view of knowledge as empirically supported theory are research practices congenial with varying accounts of knowledge, including, for example, knowledge as hermeneutic understanding, social construction, and practice-based experience. Added to the goal of prediction are investments in increasing cultural understanding, challenging cultural conventions, and directly fostering social change. The qualitative movement also enriches the discipline as a whole through the special ways in which it inspires new ranges of theory, fosters minority inclusion, and invites interdisciplinary collaboration. Finally, the movement holds promise in terms of the discipline's contribution to society at large. Here we focus on the advantages of knowing with others in addition to about them, and on ways in which qualitative work enhances communication with the society and the world. Realizing these potentials will depend on developments in responsible research and reporting, academic and journal policies, along with the discipline's capacities for appreciating a more comprehensive orientation to inquiry.

show abstract

Section: Hermeneutics and Social Understandingmentioning

confidence: 98%

The promises of qualitative inquiry.

Gergen¹,

Josselson²,

Freeman³

2015

American Psychologist

264

179

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In psychology these can be first traced to the ideas of Dilthey (1894Dilthey ( /1977, who in arguments with the early experimentalists, such as Ebbinghause, maintained that the human sciences would be mistaken to exclusively pursue causal explanation at the expense of establishing understanding (Verstehen or meaning). This idea subsequently became significant in interpretive phenomenology (Schutz, 1962), as well as in the ideographic school of 1950s and 1960s psychology.…”

Section: Background To the Approachmentioning

confidence: 98%

Grounded theory in psychological research.

Henwood

Pidgeon

2003

Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding Perspectives in Methodology and Design.

246

191

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Generating theory that is grounded in semistructured interviews, fieldwork observations, case-study notes, or other forms of textual documentation is one important principle of much qualitative social science today. It is often specifically associated with the methodological approach adopted by the American sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss during their investigation of the institutional care of the terminally ill (1965), which they subsequently termed grounded theory (1967). Grounded theory studies are often prompted by quite general research interests at the outset. These might include identifying actors' views or perspectives on a topic or investigating processes or phenomena of interest within their local contexts and settings, and from there arriving at insights and explanatory schemes that are relevant to ("grounded in") realworld problems, a previously unresearched topic area, or both.Since the late-1980s psychologists have been interested in using the principles and practices of grounded theory (see Henwood & Pidgeon, 1992;Rennie, Phillips, & Quartaro, 1988). In this chapter we argue that its usefulness for psychologists is both as a node around which there are discussions of a wide range of contemporary methodological issues (e.g., epistemology, design, interpretive practice, and validity) and as a resource for framing studies and analytical strategies that deal in principled and practical ways with the exigencies of conducting systematic but creative qualitative research that has clear relevance to substantive problem domains. In so doing we also hope to avoid presenting grounded theory as a unitary method (for some it is the method of thematic qualitative inquiry), instead preferring to reflect contemporary developments in thinking about the place of the approach within qualitative inquiry in general.We wish to thank Marcus Sangster, Huw Davies, Paul Finch (of the Forestry Commission), Sarah Pearce, Ffion M. Roberts, Sue Hunter, and all of the individuals who contributed to both the North Wales Community Focus Groups and the Stakeholder Panel. Our colleague Barry Turner, who died unexpectedly in 1995, shared with us many of his insightful thoughts on the use of grounded theory method. Mildred Blaxter has been a valued commentator and discussant. The opinions expressed here are, however, solely ours.

show abstract

“…This idea can be related to Dilthey's thoughts concerning hermeneutic Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 04:57 17 November 2014 interpretation in the human sciences. According to Dilthey (1977), an interpreter may be able to understand an actor more completely than the actor herself because the interpreter may have access to multiple perspectives (including those sociocultural realities that provide the context for behaviors) that are not available to the actor. Thus, one might think of psychotherapists bringing to therapeutic conversations perspectives that are not yet available to their clients, and inviting a collaborative interpretive dialogue that shifts both their own and their clients' horizons of intelligibility (cf.…”

Section: Psychotherapy As Practical Reflection On Existence With Othersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Applied historically to the study of sacred texts, hermeneutic scholars (hermeneuts) in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries have been especially concerned with the interpretation of what it is to be human and under what conditions human understanding is possible. Wilhelm Dilthey's (1977Dilthey's ( /1894Dilthey's ( & 1927 "descriptive and analytic psychology" begins with an examination of the totality of life-experience. Life-experience presents itself as a reality that precedes distinctions between mind and body, and self and world.…”

Section: Continental Hermeneutics In Briefmentioning

confidence: 99%