Toward a Pragmatic Psychology

Abstract

In this article I want to expand on the pragmatism that runs through Being Human: Human Being in order to think about what a pragmatic psychology might look like. Baert (2005) argued that a pragmatist science has to begin with an acknowledgment of the different interests that might be behind inquiry. The aims of inquiry are linked to useful and appropriate methods. I argue that in personality and social psychology the focus should primarily be on achieving hermeneutic understanding, rather than on finding causal explanation.