Web Site The interested reader is urged to contact the author and join a Pragmatic Psychology Dialogue Group at the following web site: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dfishman/ "At long last, a tightly reasoned, thoroughly grounded treatise showing that complex social programs can be understood far more profoundly and usefully than past mindsets have allowed." --Lisbeth B. Schorr, author of Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America "Fishman creates a new paradigm for advancing clinical science. Every mental health professional aspiring to be accountable and a scientist practitioner in their work should be aware of the ideas in this readable and entertaining book." --David H. Barlow, editor of Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders "Daniel Fishman cuts through rhetoric with clear writing and a razor-sharp wit. The chapter on education is like the welcome beam of a lighthouse in a fog." --Maurice J. Elias, coauthor of Social Problem Solving: Interventions in the Schools "Fishman makes the case for a pragmatic psychology in unusually lucid and forceful prose. This book should be read not only by professional psychologists but by anyone interested in the future of mind-related science." --John Horgan, author of The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age "Fishman's liberating insights will free his readers to set aside the intellectual quandaries that plague philosophers and psychologists at the end of the 20th century, and turn back with confidence to the practice of their work." --Stephen Toulmin, author of Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity "As we try to steer a course through the public policy debates of the 21st century, Fishman's pragmatic psychology for enhancing human services provides a far-reaching new resource for meeting this challenge." --Pat Schroeder, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. Former Congresswoman from Colorado. About the Book A cursory survey of the field of psychology reveals raging debate among psychologists about the methods, goals, and significance of the discipline, psychology's own version of the science wars. The turn-of-the-century unification of the discipline has given way to a proliferation of competing approaches, a postmodern carnival of theories and methods that calls into question the positivist psychological tradition. Bridging the gap between the traditional and the novel, Daniel B. Fishman proposes an invigorated, hybrid model for the practice of psychology–a radical, pragmatic reinvention of psychology based on databases of rigorous, solution-focused case studies. In The Case for Pragmatic Psychology, Fishman demonstrates how pragmatism returns psychology to a focus on contextualized knowledge about particular individuals, groups, organizations, and communities in specific situations, sensitive to the complexities and ambiguities of the real world. Fishman fleshes out his theory by applying pragmatic psychology to two contemporary psychosocial dilemmas —the controversies surrounding the "psychotherapy crisis" generated by the growth of managed care, and the heated culture wars over educational reform. Moving with ease from the theoretical to the nuts and bolts of actual psychological intervention programs, Fishman proffers a strong argument for a new kind of psychology with far-reaching implications for enhancing human services and restructuring public policy.

Web Site The interested reader is urged to contact the author and join a Pragmatic Psychology Dialogue Group at the following web site: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dfishman/ "At long last, a tightly reasoned, thoroughly grounded treatise showing that complex social programs can be understood far more profoundly and usefully than past mindsets have allowed." --Lisbeth B. Schorr, author of Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America "Fishman creates a new paradigm for advancing clinical science. Every mental health professional aspiring to be accountable and a scientist practitioner in their work should be aware of the ideas in this readable and entertaining book." --David H. Barlow, editor of Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders "Daniel Fishman cuts through rhetoric with clear writing and a razor-sharp wit. The chapter on education is like the welcome beam of a lighthouse in a fog." --Maurice J. Elias, coauthor of Social Problem Solving: Interventions in the Schools "Fishman makes the case for a pragmatic psychology in unusually lucid and forceful prose. This book should be read not only by professional psychologists but by anyone interested in the future of mind-related science." --John Horgan, author of The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age "Fishman's liberating insights will free his readers to set aside the intellectual quandaries that plague philosophers and psychologists at the end of the 20th century, and turn back with confidence to the practice of their work." --Stephen Toulmin, author of Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity "As we try to steer a course through the public policy debates of the 21st century, Fishman's pragmatic psychology for enhancing human services provides a far-reaching new resource for meeting this challenge." --Pat Schroeder, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. Former Congresswoman from Colorado. About the Book A cursory survey of the field of psychology reveals raging debate among psychologists about the methods, goals, and significance of the discipline, psychology's own version of the science wars. The turn-of-the-century unification of the discipline has given way to a proliferation of competing approaches, a postmodern carnival of theories and methods that calls into question the positivist psychological tradition. Bridging the gap between the traditional and the novel, Daniel B. Fishman proposes an invigorated, hybrid model for the practice of psychology–a radical, pragmatic reinvention of psychology based on databases of rigorous, solution-focused case studies. In The Case for Pragmatic Psychology, Fishman demonstrates how pragmatism returns psychology to a focus on contextualized knowledge about particular individuals, groups, organizations, and communities in specific situations, sensitive to the complexities and ambiguities of the real world. Fishman fleshes out his theory by applying pragmatic psychology to two contemporary psychosocial dilemmas —the controversies surrounding the "psychotherapy crisis" generated by the growth of managed care, and the heated culture wars over educational reform. Moving with ease from the theoretical to the nuts and bolts of actual psychological intervention programs, Fishman proffers a strong argument for a new kind of psychology with far-reaching implications for enhancing human services and restructuring public policy.

English professor Mark Bauerlein studies the pragmatism of Emerson, James, and Peirce and its overlooked relevance for the neopragmatism of later thinkers. Bauerlein argues that those "original" pragmatists are often cited casually and imprecisely as mere precursors to contemporary intellectuals, but, in fact, many broad social and academic reforms hailed by new pragmatists were actually grounded in the "old" school.

F. Thomas Burke examines the writings of William James and Charles S. Peirce to determine how the original "maxim of pragmatism" was understood differently by these two earliest pragmatists. Burke reconciles these differences by casting pragmatism as a philosophical stance that endorses distinctive conceptions of belief and meaning. In particular, a pragmatist conception of meaning should be understood as both inferentialist and operationalist in character. Burke unravels a complex early history of this philosophical tradition, discusses contemporary conceptions of pragmatism found in current US political discourse, and explores what this quintessentially American philosophy means today.

Focusing on research designs for projects that collect both qualitative and quantitative data, this practical book discusses strategies for bringing qualitative and quantitative methods together so that their combined strengths accomplish more than is possible with a single method. The approach is broadly interdisciplinary, reflecting the interest in mixed methods research of social scientists from anthropology, communication, criminal justice, education, evaluation, nursing, organizational behavior, psychology, political science, public administration, public health, sociology, social work, and urban studies. In contrast to an "anything goes" approach or a naïve hope that "two methods are better than one," the author argues that projects using mixed methods must pay even more attention to research design than single method approaches. The book’s practical emphasis on mixed methods makes it useful both to active researchers and to students who intend to pursue such a career.

From Descartes to Popper, philosophers have criticized and tried to improve the strategies of reasoning invoked in science and in everyday life. In recent years leading cognitive psychologists have painted a detailed, controversial, and highly critical portrait of common sense reasoning. Stephen Stich begins with a spirited defense of this work and a critique of those writers who argue that widespread irrationality is a biological or conceptual impossibility. Stich then explores the nature of rationality and irrationality: What is it that distinguishes good reasoning from bad? He rejects the most widely accepted approaches to this question approaches which unpack rationality by appeal to truth, to reflective equilibrium or conceptual analysis. The alternative he defends grows out of the pragmatic tradition in which reasoning is viewed as a cognitive tool. Stich's version of pragmatism leads to a radical epistemic relativism and he argues that the widespread abhorrence of relativism is ill founded. Stephen Stich is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and author of From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science.

Web Site The interested reader is urged to contact the author and join a Pragmatic Psychology Dialogue Group at the following web site: http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dfishman/ "At long last, a tightly reasoned, thoroughly grounded treatise showing that complex social programs can be understood far more profoundly and usefully than past mindsets have allowed." --Lisbeth B. Schorr, author of Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America "Fishman creates a new paradigm for advancing clinical science. Every mental health professional aspiring to be accountable and a scientist practitioner in their work should be aware of the ideas in this readable and entertaining book." --David H. Barlow, editor of Clinical Handbook of Psychological Disorders "Daniel Fishman cuts through rhetoric with clear writing and a razor-sharp wit. The chapter on education is like the welcome beam of a lighthouse in a fog." --Maurice J. Elias, coauthor of Social Problem Solving: Interventions in the Schools "Fishman makes the case for a pragmatic psychology in unusually lucid and forceful prose. This book should be read not only by professional psychologists but by anyone interested in the future of mind-related science." --John Horgan, author of The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age "Fishman's liberating insights will free his readers to set aside the intellectual quandaries that plague philosophers and psychologists at the end of the 20th century, and turn back with confidence to the practice of their work." --Stephen Toulmin, author of Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity "As we try to steer a course through the public policy debates of the 21st century, Fishman's pragmatic psychology for enhancing human services provides a far-reaching new resource for meeting this challenge." --Pat Schroeder, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. Former Congresswoman from Colorado. About the Book A cursory survey of the field of psychology reveals raging debate among psychologists about the methods, goals, and significance of the discipline, psychology's own version of the science wars. The turn-of-the-century unification of the discipline has given way to a proliferation of competing approaches, a postmodern carnival of theories and methods that calls into question the positivist psychological tradition. Bridging the gap between the traditional and the novel, Daniel B. Fishman proposes an invigorated, hybrid model for the practice of psychology–a radical, pragmatic reinvention of psychology based on databases of rigorous, solution-focused case studies. In The Case for Pragmatic Psychology, Fishman demonstrates how pragmatism returns psychology to a focus on contextualized knowledge about particular individuals, groups, organizations, and communities in specific situations, sensitive to the complexities and ambiguities of the real world. Fishman fleshes out his theory by applying pragmatic psychology to two contemporary psychosocial dilemmas —the controversies surrounding the "psychotherapy crisis" generated by the growth of managed care, and the heated culture wars over educational reform. Moving with ease from the theoretical to the nuts and bolts of actual psychological intervention programs, Fishman proffers a strong argument for a new kind of psychology with far-reaching implications for enhancing human services and restructuring public policy.