Meaning(fullness) Without Metaphysics: Another Look at Hume’s “Meaning Empiricism”

Although Hume has no developed semantic theory, in the heyday of analytic philosophy he was criticized for his “meaning empiricism,” which supposedly committed him to a private world of ideas, led him to champion a genetic account of meaning instead of an analytic one, and confused “impressions” with “perceptions of an objective realm.” But another look at Hume’s “meaning empiricism” reveals that his criterion for cognitive content, the cornerstone both of his resolutely anti-metaphysical stance and his naturalistic “science of human nature,” provides the basis for a successful response to his critics. Central to his program for reforming philosophy, Hume’s use of the criterion has two distinct aspects: a critical or negative aspect, which assesses the content of the central notions of metaphysical theories to demonstrate their unintelligibility; and a constructive or positive aspect, which accurately determines the cognitive content of terms and ideas.     

Underdetermination and Rational Choice of Theories

The underdetermination of theory by data argument (UD) is traditionally construed as an argument that tells us that we ought to favour an anti-realist position over a realist position. I argue that when UD is constructed as an argument saying that theory choice is to proceed between theories that are empirically equivalent and adequate to the phenomena up until now, the argument will not favour constructive empiricism over realism. A constructive empiricist cannot account for why scientists are reasonable in expecting one theory to be empirically adequate rather than another, given the criteria he suggests for theory choice.

Building International Collaborative Capacity: Contributions of Community Psychologists to a European Network

Europe is in the process of building a more participative, just, and inclusive European Union. The European Social Fund, which is an initiative developed to actively promote multinational partnerships that address pressing social issues, is a good example of the European transformation. This article describes the steps taken to develop and evaluate the activities of an international network promoting collaborative capacity among regional partners involved in the prevention of labor discrimination toward immigrants in three European countries—Spain, Belgium, and Italy. An international team of community psychologists proposed an empowering approach to assess the collaborative capacity of the network. This approach consisted of three steps: (1) establishing a collaborative relationship among partners, (2) building collaborative capacity, and (3) evaluating the collaborative capacity of the network. We conclude with lessons learned from the process and provide recommendations for addressing the challenges inherent in international collaboration processes.     

Phrasal Unit Boundaries and Organization of Turns and Sequences in Korean Conversation

This paper examines an aspect of the grammar-interaction interface with respect to how participants orient to intra-turn phrasal unit boundaries as a locus that has interactional import for turn and sequence organization in Korean conversation. Phrasal unit boundaries in Korean serve as a space within a turn in which the speaker of the turn in-progress invites the recipient to acknowledge the speaker's point expressed up-to-that-point and collaboratively display his/her understanding thereof. In a sequentially and topically 'ripe' context, such unit boundaries often constitute places where more active participation on the part of the recipient is invited in the form of collaborative completion in which the recipient co-constructs the primary speaker's on-going turn. Phrasal unit boundaries also provide interactional resources which the speaker may exploit to sequentially delete out a problem in talk, e.g., by a sort of tying operation in which a subsequently added phrasal unit ties back to the speaker's previous utterance to the effect that the intervening talk containing a problem is canceled out by way of being shown to have been an interruption of the speaker's turn in-progress. This practice points to an aspect of the way in which the 'agglutinative' grammatical process involving the use of phrasal units shapes interactional patterns as observed in the course of organizing turns/sequences and managing problems in talk.     

DIRECTIONS IN HISTORICISM: LANGUAGE, EXPERIENCE, AND PRAGMATIC ADJUDICATION

Abstract. This article examines the current affirmation within theology of historicism, with its assumption that the historical realm, broadly construed, is the only arena of human activity and knowledge and its repudiation of traditional forms of foundationalism and correspondence theories of truth. The essay performs this task by analyzing the work of Gordon Kaufman and William Dean, setting forth their commonly shared historicism, pragmatism, and constructivist approaches to theology, as well as their differences concerning nonlinguistic dimensions of experience. The essay also focuses on the move by both thinkers to include nature in their understanding of history and to offer biocultural interpretations of human existence.     

Rationalism and empiricism: A new perspective

Though classical and twentieth-century versions of empiricism and rationalism fail in their aims, as does the Kantian attempt at a compromise between those views, there are residues of those views that play important roles in the scientific enterprise. Those residue, and their scientific roles, are examined in this paper.     

Community Science, Philosophy of Science, and the Practice of Research

Embedded in community science are implicit theories on the nature of reality (ontology), the justification of knowledge claims (epistemology), and how knowledge is constructed (methodology). These implicit theories influence the conceptualization and practice of research, and open up or constrain its possibilities. The purpose of this paper is to make some of these theories explicit, trace their intellectual history, and propose a shift in the way research in the social and behavioral sciences, and community science in particular, is conceptualized and practiced. After describing the influence and decline of logical empiricism, the underlying philosophical framework for science for the past century, I summarize contemporary views in the philosophy of science that are alternatives to logical empiricism. These include contextualism, normative naturalism, and scientific realism, and propose that a modified version of contextualism, known as perspectivism, affords the philosophical framework for an emerging community science. I then discuss the implications of perspectivism for community science in the form of four propositions to guide the practice of research.Portions of this paper are based on an invited paper presented at the May 1997 Pre-Conference Workshop of the Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action, Columbia, South Carolina.     

Empowerment meets narrative: Listening to stories and creating settings

Comments on and summarizes some of the themes of a special issue on empowerment. Extends empowerment theory with the suggestion that both research and practice would benefit from a narrative approach that links process to practice and attends to the voices of the people of interest. Narrative theory and method tends to open the field to a more inclusive attitude as to what counts as data and to cross-disciplinary insights as well as citizen collaboration. Communal narratives are defined at various levels of analysis, including the community, the organizational, and the cultural. A definition of empowerment that includes a concern with resources calls attention to the fact that communal narratives and personal stories are resources. Implications for personal and social change are suggested.     

RELIGION AND EMPIRICISM IN THE WORKS OF PETER BERGER

Abstract. Peter Berger established himself in the sociological profession in large part through his functional interpretations of religion and its ostensible demise in relation to the empirical bent of modern intellectual thought. Yet, in his ef–fort to expand the scope of empiricism such that it might address nontrivial concerns, Berger found himself attempting to understand the "substance" of religiori—that is, the conviction that there exists an "other" which confronts us unconditionally and consequently forms the basis of all issues concerning value and meaning. Berger's writings deserve critical attention in that they disclose both the problems and the promises of utilizing empirical methods for the task of rehabilitating, rather than debunking, humanity's religious propensities.     

HOW EMPIRICAL IS WIEMAN'S THEOLOGY?

Abstract. The essay is a response to the papers written by Nancy Frankenberry and Charley Hardwick in the March 1987 issue of Zygon. Questions are raised about whether Wieman's theology is functionalist in the way described by Frankenberry and whether Hardwick's proposal to establish the logical possibility of naturalism as a framework for an existential interpretation of the Christian message is satisfactory. The most basic question raised by both papers is whether Wieman's theology is fully empirical when viewed from the point of view of the radical empiricist.