Explanation and Experiment in Social Psychological Science

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Scientific Empiricism and Scientific Psychology

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 1-28

3. Relativism

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 29-37

4. Realism

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 38-42

5. Causal Explanation

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 43-68

6. Theory

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 69-108

7. Hermeneutical Psychology

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 109-116

8. Causal Explanation and the Meaning of Human Action

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 117-126

9. The Social Constitution of Action

   • John D. Greenwood

   Pages 127-150

10. Agency, Causality, and Meaning

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 151-167

11. Explanation, Prediction, and Control

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 168-175

12. The Experimental Analysis of Human Action

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 176-195

13. Intensional Simulation

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 196-211

14. The Evaluation of Psychological Therapy

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 212-224

15. Epilogue

    • John D. Greenwood

    Pages 225-226

16. Back Matter

    Pages 227-264

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This book is about explanation and experiment in a science of human action. It aims to provide a philosophy of social psychological science that both embodies sound principles of scientific reasoning and is sensitive to the social psychological dimensions of human action. The guiding principle of this book is the belief that the logical forms of causal explanation and experimental evaluation can be ef­ fectively employed in the scientific analysis of meaningful human action. According to most accounts, social psychological science has been in a more or less constant state of crisis for the past decades, having been subject to a host of criticisms on moral, political, methodological, and philosophical grounds. Many of these critiques have been directed against the still dominant conception of social psychological enquiry as a causal and objective scientific discipline that is closely analogous to (if not to be identified as a branch ot) the natural sciences. Thus, many of the most vigorous debates have concerned the nature of explanation and the utility of experimentation in a social psychological discipline.

• philosophy
• poverty
• psychology
• simulation
• social psychology
• therapy

• Department of Philosophy, City College, City University of New York, New York, USA

  John D. Greenwood

Policies and ethics