Showing papers on "Nomothetic and idiographic published in 1976"

History and Social Change

Abstract: In Social Change and History, Robert Nisbet challenged the new evolutionary theory on epistemological, methodological, and substantive grounds. This paper examines each of Nisbet's charges and concludes that his oft-praised volume provides a misleading view of the new evolutionism and a less than satisfactory guide to the study of social change. Above all, Nisbet's charge that the new evolutionism is based on metaphor and analogy ignores entirely the increasingly substantial empirical grounding to theory in archaeological, historical, and socilogical research. Also, his effort to force scholars to choose between the nomothetic concerns of evolutionists and the idiographic concerns of historians and some historical sociologist invites conflict where cooperation is needed.

Replicability Of Factors Derived From Individual P-Technique Analyses.

Abstract: Four hospitalized female schizophrenics performed self-ratings on a battery of variables for 60 consecutive days. The variables were factored, separately for each subject, and the factors were then rotated to solutions which were maximally invariant from each other. Factor matching among subjects was then assessed by congruence coefficients. The factors which replicated over persons appeared to be broad, second-order dimensions identifiable as Social Desirability, Extraversion and Anxiety. The results are discussed in relation to nomothetic vs. idiographic systems of psychology and the study of intraindividual change by P-technique as a methodology of clinical interest.

The philosophy of idealism

Abstract: JOHN CHAPPELL, Jr., has questioned the adequacy of my idealist philosophy as a foundation for human geography.' He suggests the term "idealism" is less appropriate than "idiographic" to describe an approach which is essentially atheoretical. The use of "idiographic," however, would not have done justice to the core of my position which stresses the need for a distinctive mode of explanation for events involving human beings, taking full account of the rational and theoretical dimensions of human activity. It is the theoretical character of human thought that precludes the possibility of human geographers developing general theory capable of meeting minimum criteria of scientific acceptability. The atheoretical or idiographic aspect of my position is a derivative of idealism, not a philosophy in itself. Moreover, the word "idiographic" is not restricted to studies of human activity; it is also used to describe certain kinds of case studies in geology and botany. It has no connotations of being limited to studies of human activity. In his major objection to my idealism Chappell wrongly interprets my position as conceding "nothing to the causative agents of the natural environment, or even of human physiology."2 The emphasis of the idealist approach is certainly on mind and, more particularly, on rethinking the thoughts of geographical agents, but not to the exclusion of their physiological or psychological components. I did suggest, however, that it would often be possible for a human geographer to assume that the physical and psychological attributes of a specific group were representative of the human race as a

Individuality, Individual Differences, and Computer Simulation

Abstract: The nomothetic and idiographic approaches to the study of individual differences and individuality are reviewed. The underlying assumptions of each approach are distinguished and then reconstructed to give eight different conceptual perspectives for the study of individual behavior. It is argued that the traditional nomothetic and idiographic techniques are limited to one or two of these perspectives while computer simulation provides the capability to deal with all of these conceptualizations and hence is a more powerful methodology. Two perspectives in particular are singled out for special consideration in order to demonstrate the value of computer simulation in the study of individual behavior. A number of potential applications of such computer models to educational research are discussed.

Implications of “quantitative revolution” in geography

Abstract: Purpose of this article is to examine philosophical implication of the “qunatitative revolution”. The paper is divided into three sections. ; first, the philoso-methodological implications of “qunatitative revolution” are identified. ; second, the traditional dicho-tomism of nomothetic-idiographic approaches is rejected because of obsolescence of the uniqueness thesis ; third as a substitution of the dichotomy, the paired concepts, “universal, abstract individual, concrete”, which show the two different geographer's concerns are introduced, and the philosophical implications of “revolution” are examined in terms of each of those concerns. Main points of arguments addressed in the paper are as follows; 1) The so-called “qunatitative revolution” provided us various useful mathematical-quantitative techniques, it aimed, however, essentially to reformulate our discipline with introduction of the so-called scientific method. 2) So that, the “qunatitative revolution” should be considered not only from the techni-cal viewpoint, but also from the methodological one. 3) The attempt of reformulation started from Schaefer (1953) who criticized the Het-tner-Hartshorne type of idiographic approach and completed by Harvey (1969) via Bunge (1962). 4) The “classical” geographers considered as Wrigley (1965) pointed it out, that the ultimate goal of the discipline was to find a set of laws which governed geographical phe-nomena, and they had conviction that there was no difference methodologically between what would now be called the social and the physical sciences. Thus, the recent attempt by Schaefer, Punge and Harvey can be considered a revival of the “classical” paradigm of the discipline.5) The trend was often expressed as the change from the nomothetic to the idiographic approach, but the traditional dichotomy of “nomothetic idiographic” is not adequate for describing the present situation. Because those concepts are already obsolete by rejection of the so-called uniqueness thesis and are not suitable to express the alternative concerns of the present geographers. 6) Therefore, the paired concepts, “uiversal, abstract individual, concrete” would be suggested to adopt for describing the present geographer's concerns. 7) we should keep it in our mind that we can not make any reasonable statement on our experiences without generalization, and that we are always seeking some kind of the regularity in our experiences. In terms of generalization and seeking the regularity, there-fore, there is no difference between the universal, abstract and the individual, concrete approaches. 8) There is, however, a definite difference between the universal statement (it should be abstract) and the individual one (it should be concrete). The geographers who have interest in the former are necessarily oriented to build “theory” and those who are concer-ned with the latter become “facts” oriented. Orientations toward theory and facts, often sited as though, they are complimentary are essentially contradicted with each other as like as figure and background. 9) Harvey (1969) wrote that his book concerned with methodology rather than with philosophy, but in his arguments on the methodology of science, the author seems to impli-citly assume that geographers are solely concerning with the universal, abstract statements. But we can not neglect that good many geographers are actually concerning the individual and concrete cases at least under the present circumstance. In this sense, Harvey (1969) raised the important philosophical issues which involve the arguments on the purpose or aimes of the geography.

The Methodological Structure of Historical Research

Abstract: We have presumably accumulated enough data to answer the question about the methodological structure of historical research, or, in other words, about the class or the family of sciences in which history is to be included. The most urgent of all is the answer to the question, whether (as it is claimed by representatives of the phenomenalist, i.e., inductionist concept of science) historical research is idiographic, that is, descriptive in nature and does not perform any theoretical and nomological functions.