The Third Way: Scientific Realism and Communication Theory

Several commentators have distinguished between two general philosophies of science, “logical empiricism” and “perspectivism,” and implied that communication theorists who use quantitative social scientific methods are, as a consequence, logical empiricists. This dichotomy ignores a third position, “scientific realism,” which is dominant in current philosophy of science. This essay distinguishes these three major philosophic movements and advances the argument that communication theorizing is realist when it presumes the reality and causal efficacy of critical theoretical concepts. An acceptance of the scientific realist approach implies a set of three commitments for the communication theorist: to the reality of one's theoretical concepts, to scientific explanation as causal process, and to the “reliability of meaning.” Relevant communication theorizing is discussed in light of these commitments.

[1]  Mark R. Leary,et al.  The Conceptual Distinctions Are Important: Another Look at Communication Apprehension and Related Constructs. , 1983 .

[2]  D. O’Keefe.  Logical empiricism and the study of human communication , 1975 .

[3]  John O. Greene,et al.  A discrepancy‐arousal explanation of mutual influence in expressive behavior for adult and infant‐adult interaction 1 , 1982 .

[4]  N. Cartwright.  How the laws of physics lie , 1984 .

[5]  A. Flew,et al.  Patterns of Discovery. , 1961 .

[6]  S. Toulmin,et al.  Foresight And Understanding , 1961 .

[7]  Charles Pavitt.  Describing Know-How about Group Discussion Procedure: Must the Representation Be Recursive?. , 1992 .

[8]  I. Lakatos,et al.  Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes , 1970 .

[9]  Lawrence R. Frey,et al.  The Naturalistic Paradigm , 1994 .

[10]  Michael Scriven,et al.  The Philosophy of Science , 1954 .

[11]  C. Berger,et al.  SOME EXPLORATIONS IN INITIAL INTERACTION AND BEYOND: TOWARD A DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY OF INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION , 1975 .

[12]  Jerold L. Hale,et al.  Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to immediacy behaviors , 1988 .

[13]  J. Gibson.  The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception , 1979 .

[14]  John O. Greene.  Evaluating cognitive explanations of communicative phenomena , 1984 .

[15]  W. Barnett Pearce,et al.  Generality and Necessity in Three Types of Theory About Human Communication, With Special Attention to Rules Theory. , 1977 .

[16]  Tom D. Daniels,et al.  Conventional social science inquiry in human communication: Theory and practice , 1984 .

[17]  Judee K. Burgoon,et al.  Interpersonal Deception Theory , 1996 .

[18]  J. Woodward,et al.  Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World , 1988 .

[19]  F. Suppe.  The semantic conception of theories and scientific realism , 1989 .

[20]  K. Tracy,et al.  The identity work of questioning in intellectual discussion , 1994 .

[21]  Gerald M. Phillips,et al.  Reticence: Pathology of the normal speaker , 1968 .

[22]  James B. Stiff.  Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Deceptive Communication: Comments on Interpersonal Deception Theory , 1996 .

[23]  Bella M. DePaulo,et al.  lnterpersonal Deception Theory: Theories About Deception and Paradigms for Studying It: A Critical Appraisal of Buller and Burgoon's lnterpersonal Deception Theory and Research , 1996 .

[24]  Dennis S. Gouran,et al.  The Evolution and Current Status of the Functional Perspective on Communication in Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Groups , 1993 .

[25]  Michael J. Beatty,et al.  It's in our nature: Verbal aggressiveness as temperamental expression , 1997 .

[26]  J. Burgoon,et al.  Interpersonal Deception Theory , 1996 .

[27]  Fred I. Dretske,et al.  Reasons and Causes , 1989 .

[28]  I. Hacking.  Experimentation and Scientific Realism , 1982 .

[29]  J. Searle.  Intentionality: Name index , 1983 .

[30]  J. Pollock.  Contemporary theories of knowledge , 1986 .

[31]  D. Dennett.  The Intentional Stance. , 1987 .

[32]  K. Bach,et al.  Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts , 1983 .

[33]  John O. Greene.  What sort of terms ought theories of human action incorporate , 1994 .

[34]  M. W. Lustig,et al.  THE MEASUREMENT OF VERBAL PREDISPOSITIONS: SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND APPLICATION , 1977 .

[35]  George B. Ray.  Vocally cued personality prototypes: An implicit personality theory approach , 1986 .

[36]  Dean E. Hewes,et al.  A Cognitive Approach to Communication Theory: Cogito Ergo Dico? , 1981 .

[37]  Rom Harré,et al.  Varieties of Realism , 1986 .

[38]  Bas C. van Fraassen,et al.  The Scientific Image , 1980 .

[39]  Penelope Brown,et al.  Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage , 1989 .

[40]  James A. Anderson,et al.  Communication Theory: Epistemological Foundations , 1996 .

[41]  Donald G. Ellis,et al.  Fixing Communicative Meaning , 1995 .

[42]  J. Cappella.  The Biological Origins of Automated Patterns of Human Interaction , 1991 .

[43]  C. Whitbeck,et al.  A Realist Theory of Science. , 1977 .

[44]  Lynne Kelly,et al.  A Rose by Any Other Name Is Still a Rose: A Comparative Analysis of Reticence, Communication Apprehension, Unwillingness to Communicate, and Shyness. , 1982 .

[45]  L. Donohew,et al.  The case for empiricism: Clarifying fundamental issues in communication theory , 1992 .

[46]  C. Hempel,et al.  Studies in the Logic of Explanation , 1948, Philosophy of Science.

[47]  Charles Pavitt,et al.  Implicit theories of communicative competence: Situational and competence level differences in judgments of prototype and target , 1986 .

[48]  C. Mundle.  Perception: facts and theories , 1971 .

[49]  Hilary Putnam,et al.  Explanation and Reference , 1973 .

[50]  Bernard Barber,et al.  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. , 1963 .

[51]  S. Planalp.  Relational schemata: A test of alternative forms of relational knowledge as guides to communication. , 1985 .

[52]  Philip Palmgreen,et al.  GRATIFICATIONS SOUGHT AND MEDIA EXPOSURE An Expectancy Value Model , 1982 .

[53]  R. Wyer.  Cognitive organization and change , 1974 .

[54]  Rebecca H. Holman,et al.  Perspectives on human communication , 1978 .

[55]  Steven A. Mccornack.  Information manipulation theory , 1992 .

[56]  Percy Williams Bridgman,et al.  The Logic of Modern Physics , 1927 .

[57]  Terry J. Christlieb,et al.  The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. , 1987 .

[58]  Judee K. Burgoon,et al.  The unwillingness‐to‐communicate scale: Development and validation , 1976 .

[59]  P. Achinstein.  The Nature Of Explanation , 1983 .

[60]  S. P. Schwartz.  Naming, necessity, and natural kinds , 1977 .

[61]  Michael J. Beatty,et al.  Communication apprehension as temperamental expression: A Communibiological paradigm , 1998 .

[62]  D. Shapere.  Reason and the search for knowledge , 1983 .

[63]  H. Grice.  Logic and conversation , 1975 .

[64]  Michael Scriven,et al.  Explanations, predictions, and laws , 1962 .

[65]  F. Suppe.  The Structure of Scientific Theories. , 1975 .

[66]  C. Hempel.  Philosophy of Natural Science , 1966 .

[67]  Hilary Putnam,et al.  What Theories are Not , 1966 .

[68]  L. Laudan.  Progress and Its Problems , 1977 .

[69]  James C. McCroskey,et al.  ORAL COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION: A SUMMARY OF RECENT THEORY AND RESEARCH , 1977 .

[70]  Paul K. Feyerabend,et al.  Explanation, reduction, and empiricism , 1962 .