Hess Jacob Z
Clinical-Community Psychology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA.
Am J Community Psychol. 2005 Jun;35(3-4):239-52. doi: 10.1007/s10464-005-3403-5.
As a confluence of unique values and activities, the collective practice of community psychology is difficult to characterize in a simple way. Increasingly, however, professional contexts are laden with pressure to define any practice--from library work to medical interventions--in the orderly, compact language of traditional science. This trend has historically been resisted in the field by those sensing a fundamental lack of fit between the fluid, emergent aspects of community psychological practice and the fixed, precise language of classic science. In response to this "language-practice gap," some have attempted to adapt the traditional language of science to better fit the field's practice, while others have explored alternative languages of practice seemingly more indigenous to the messy "swamp" of actual communities. While the former effort leaves some theoretical contradictions intact, the latter tends to discount scientific identity entirely. This paper proposes a potential step forward by resituating questions of disciplinary language and identity within a current philosophical discourse where the nature of social science itself remains sharply contested. This suggests shifting attention away from "should we be a science?" to "what kind of science might we be after all?"; in turn, alternative languages may be re-cast as legitimate contributors to a kind of science more authentic to human communities--even a viable "science in the swamp." One such language-philosophical hermeneutics--is presented as a particularly valuable supplement to traditional science. Illustrations highlight ways that hermeneutics may advance the formal language of the field towards a closer fit of what actually happens in practice, while preserving and even bolstering the empirical rigor and scientific identity of the field.
作为独特价值观和活动的融合，社区心理学的集体实践难以用简单的方式来描述。然而，越来越多的专业背景面临着用传统科学那种有序、简洁的语言来界定任何实践（从图书馆工作到医学干预）的压力。从历史上看，该领域中那些感觉到社区心理学实践中流动、新兴的方面与经典科学固定、精确的语言之间根本不匹配的人一直在抵制这种趋势。为了应对这种“语言 - 实践差距”，一些人试图调整传统科学语言以更好地适应该领域的实践，而另一些人则探索了似乎更适用于实际社区这个混乱“沼泽”的替代性实践语言。虽然前一种努力使一些理论矛盾原封不动地保留着，但后一种努力往往完全忽视科学身份。本文提出了一个可能的前进步骤，即将学科语言和身份问题重新置于当前哲学话语之中，在这种话语中，社会科学本身的性质仍然存在激烈争议。这意味着将注意力从“我们应该成为一门科学吗？”转移到“我们到底可能成为什么样的科学？”；相应地，替代性语言可能会被重新塑造为一种对人类社区更真实的科学的合法贡献者——甚至是一种可行的“沼泽中的科学”。一种这样的语言——哲学诠释学——被作为对传统科学特别有价值的补充呈现出来。实例突出了诠释学可以如何推动该领域的形式语言更贴近实践中实际发生的情况，同时保留甚至加强该领域的实证严谨性和科学身份。
