Heilpädagogik online - sonderpaedagoge.de!

American Pragmatism, Sociology and the Development of Disability Studies
or build a new one. If, on the other hand, the tests and data
support the theory, scientists will continue to use the theory on the
basis of its undefeated hypotheses to further test and extend the
theory. According to PIERCE, the extension of this approach leads
to the development of “laws” and points to what is true. Thus,
pragmatism inculcated an early interest among sociologists in
gathering “objective” data through observations, surveys and
censuses that would describe social phenomena, help develop
theory and serve as evidence testing an argument.
Second, the pragmatists exemplified particularly by William JAMES,
encouraged the anchoring of analysis in practical realities and
social policies. JAMES stated that a pragmatist “turns away from
abstraction and insufficiency, from verbal solutions, from bad a
priori reasons, from fixed principles, closed systems, and pretended
absolutes and origins. He turns towards concreteness and
adequacy, towards facts, towards action, and towards power”
(JAMES 1907: 31). Through such arguments, JAMES laid the
foundations for grounded theory, the study of social problems,
observing behavior and gathering data in the “real” world,
formulating social policies and testing their effects on behavior and
an examination of the distribution and exercise of power in society.
For JAMES, pragmatism involved seeing if theories and policies
really made a difference. In this sense, JAMES encouraged social
action theory among pragmatists and sociologists alike.
Third, the evolution of pragmatist thinking moved away from the
strict “objectivism” and application of the scientific method
advocated by PIERCE towards the recognition of the importance of
subjective experience, relativistic and culturally different conceptions
of behavior, paradigm shifts in the gathering and interpreting
- 28 -
Heilpädagogik online 03/ 03