Abstract: | Argues that social psychology should be considered a polyparadigmatic enterprise based on human science social psychology theories and discusses the nature of a paradigm and the social character of paradigm-construction as a knowledge-building industry. Four major approaches of human science social psychology are presented: existential-phenomenology, hermeneutical dialectics, dialogal existentialism, and critical emancipatory theory. These approaches are discussed in terms of the changing meanings of intentionality. "Way of Life Psychology" is presented as a discipline capable of integrating the contributions of the various human science schools of thought in social psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |