Relations and Representations: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Psychological Science

This introduction to the philosophy of social psychological science takes an original approach to the subject, repudiating traditional empiricist and hermeneutical accounts. Instead, the author advances and defends a realist philosophy of social psychological science that maintains objectivity while at the same time stressing the social dimensions of mind and action. John Greenwood provides perspectives on the problems and potential of those sciences concerned with human behaviours that are constituted as meaningful actions by their social, relational and representational dimensions. He focuses in particular on the social identity of human actions and psychological states, on the objectivity of theoretical description and causal explanation, and on the role of experimentation. This approach aims to reconcile scientific interest with human intuition.