George Ellett Coghill, Naturalist and Philosopher.

George Ellett Coghill.

The error statistical philosopher as normative naturalist

We argue for a naturalistic account for appraising scientific methods that carries non-trivial normative force. We develop our approach by comparison with Laudan’s (American Philosophical Quarterly 24:19–31, 1987, Philosophy of Science 57:20–33, 1990) “normative naturalism” based on correlating means (various scientific methods) with ends (e.g., reliability). We argue that such a meta-methodolo...

Fritz Heider : Philosopher and Psychologist

Fritz Heider was a wanderer, someone who liked to survey and take the measure of whatever he encountered. In his formative years, he was a wanderer in the geographical sense — hiking in his beloved Austrian mountains and traveling throughout much of Europe. In his professional years, he was a wanderer in the intellectual sense — taking daily walks for the purpose of analyzing a difficult concep...

Richard Owen: Victorian naturalist

Among the visitors who throng the British Museum of Natural History, to stand in awe before its spectacular displays, or marvel at its architecture, few give a thought to Richard Owen, the man who inspired the establishment of the greatest Victorian "cathedral of science". Some will notice Owen's statue and perhaps wonder what it is doing there. For surely this noble building must have been a t...

Naturalist Inquiry and Grounded Theory

The world of Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) methodology became quite taken with LINCOLN and GUBA's book "Naturalist Inquiry" (1985). I have no issue with it with respect to its application to QDA; it helped clarify and advance so many QDA issues. However, its application to Grounded Theory (GT) has been a major block on GT, as originated, by its cooptation and corruption hence remodeling of GT...