A social reconstructive essayist, John D’Agata (D’Agata and Fingal, 2012), pushes it even further. For D’Agata it is not just a matter of influence—it also a matter of understanding and appreciation:
“Numbers and stats can only go so far in illustrating who a person is or what a community is about. At some point, we must . . . leap into the skin of a person or a community in an attempt to embody them. That’s obviously an incredibly violent procedure, but I think that unless we are willing to do that . . . then we’re not actually doing our job. ”
D’Agata might accept the cautionary note offered by Jim Fingal, his fact-checking colleague. Fingal counters D’Agata with his concern about getting the facts right and portraying reality. D’Agata then counters Fingal by emphasizing the need for a genuine (rather than superficial) understanding of reality. Put simply, do we really learn anything from a number rather than a narrative? When faced with an Essential issue, do we really understand what has happened when we are generating statistics rather than watching, listening, and feeling what is actually occurring out there in the world?
Ideographic vs. Nomothetic
Clarity in the midst of ambiguity also can be addressed through the choice of specific modes of analysis when seeking to make predictions based on what is “real.” Psychologists offer a distinction between Ideographic and nomothetic modes of analysis. Is “reality” and are facts to be found in large numbers (nomothetic perspective) or in the specific case (ideographic)? The noted psychologist Robert Coles (e.g. Coles, 1967) embraces an ideographic perspective. He focuses on individual cases and provides a general observation only after many individual cases have been presented. Guided by the ideographic methods engaged by Henry Murray (2007), Coles and his colleague at Harvard University—such as Erik Erikson, Gordon Allport and Robert White—featured extended narratives in their presentation of insights gained from intensive study of single individuals.
We encounter a quite different mode of analysis when we leave the ivy-covered halls of Harvard and travel West to the wheat fields of Middle American. It is in the public universities of the Mid-West (especially Minnesota and Illinois) that we find the heartland of nomothetic analyses—embedded in what has been called “Dustbowl” empiricism. Behavioral scientists at these universities were strongly influenced by the logical positivists of the early 20th Century Vienna Circle. Many of these positivistic philosophers and scientists escaped Europe before World War II and found academic positions at growing Mid-West universities. The behavioral scientists in these universities were particularly influenced by these positivist perspectives. They tended to assert that statements of fact are legitimate only if they are based on verifiable evidence.
Download Article 1K Club
