The Use of Hermeneutics in Psychology: The Case of Ergonomics

Abstract

As I have argued elsewhere¹, we can look upon hermeneutics as one of the possible approaches to reality. The choice for an interpretative, or, alternatively, for an empirical-analytical approach, could be regarded as a pragmatical matter. A more radical approach claims that there are hermeneutical aspects in run-of-the-mill empirical-analytical research. Here I want to investigate the truth of this claim by looking at an example of what seems to be, on first sight, standard empirical-analytical research in ergonomics. The choice of the example is inspired by the feeling that it would be surprising for many of those involved that what is presented here is a form of interpretative psychology. I have chosen my case from the field of decision research, more precisely, from the ergonomic study of accidents. I will argue that even the most quantitative and analytical research has its interpretative aspects, because it is useless and uninteresting to quantify or analyse without knowing how and what. Therefore, in some way, be it implicitly or explicitly, quantitative research must be preceded by an interpretative stage. Sometimes research is entirely restricted to interpretation because there is no possibility or no need for predictions or hypothesis testing by prediction. On the other hand, there are also cases where the interpretative work is prepared in earlier work, and consequently research may be restricted to measurement of variables that are defined already. Normally we find a combination.