Universal reason

Abstract: Kenneth J. Gergen: Relational Being. Beyond Self and Community Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, $ 45.00, pp. 448, ISBN 978-0-19-530538-8 While the belief in the power of science, even in the social field, reached a peak in the period after World War II, there also emerged a critique. Contributors like Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Toulmin, Polanyi and others directed their attacks against the tools of science, in particular such ideas as the objective language, the neutral observer, the unequivocal empirical observation, and the necessary logics. Their focus was on the discontinuities of science. They focused, however, less on the other major problem of discontinuity: that of the objects. In particular in the social field, those that are under investigation: people, groups, organizations, societies, are not stable, either. They are continuously on the move, continuously taking on new shapes and forms. How can this be handled from a research perspective? How can we create knowledge about phenomena that will, in all likelihood, have undergone change by the time the paper is published? One response to the challenges associated with "the double discontinuity" were trends like post-modernism, post-structuralism, deconstructivism, and similar. In spite of major contributions to the critique of concepts like absolute truth, unequivocal justice, universal reason and linear progress, it can be argued that the deconstruction aspect became so overriding that the need for people to also construct something tended to be forgotten. People have a life to live, and institutions to build, and need to hold something as better, more true, or more reasonable, than something else. The fact that the world is "on the move" needs a positive understanding, not only a tearing down of all forms of understanding. Furthermore, since the contributors to the various "post-schools" seem, with some exception for psycho-therapy, not to have any research-related practical experiences of their own, they tend to imagine that the world can be enlightened by texts alone, something that in a sense goes contrary to their own argument. The "post schools" would have to be followed by something that puts more emphasis on positive, in this sense "constructive", understanding and continuity without, however, falling back on the more traditional versions of universal reason. In everyday research, there are emergent trends representing, in different ways, responses to this challenge: First, rather than focusing on the structural properties of the phenomena, focus shifts towards the mechanisms that generate these properties. The generative forces are thought to be more stable than the patterns they create each and every time. Second, increased emphasis is put on the actor (or agent) perspective, at the expense of the "objective, path dependency" type reasoning often characterizing the traditional, structurally oriented kind of research. What people do, is decided more by their Intentions, perceptions and relationships, and less by "objective forces". Third, and in line with this, choice becomes more important than determinants. Fourth, more emphasis is placed on what people create in interaction with each other, at the expense of what the individual, often "rational player", is creating on his or her own. Concepts like community and joint learning gain in importance. Fifth, more emphasis is put on agreement between the actors concerned, as the foundation for whatever can be identified in terms of structural characteristics of, say, an organization, or a society, at the expense of internal or external forces. Sixth, an increased emphasis is put on practices, as the spearhead of the transactions between people. For instance, most learning takes place as a result of what happens when new efforts are made, new tools tried out, new plans put into action. Finally research itself is no exception from these trends. Research has to find its place as an actor in interaction with other people, not as an observer that in some way or other stands outside the human community. …