Knowledge for What? Monist, Pluralist, Pragmatist Approaches to the Sciences of Behavior
Helen Longino
Philosophy of Behavioral Biology, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 282, 2012
Abstract
There are a variety of approaches to investigating human behavior as an object of scientific inquiry. This paper is about the puzzle provoked by the availability of apparently incompatible research approaches that nevertheless succeed in producing empirical results that have a confirmatory import. For monists, committed to there being one correct and comprehensive account of any given scientific phenomenon, this seems paradoxical. Pluralism seems better able to accommodate multiplicity of successful, but incompatible approaches, but it requires supplementation by pragmatism.
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