ABSTRACT
Natural science inquiry provides the dominant model for psychology and other forms of human inquiry. Nevertheless, there are differences in assumptions between natural science and human inquiry that have significant implications for our methodology. Perhaps the most important difference is that subjects of human inquiry are self-interpreting beings. In this chapter, I will describe the natural science model psychology tries to emulate and discuss how self-interpreting being transforms the practice of psychological inquiry in ways that are distinct from natural science inquiry. One particularly distinctive feature of any form of human inquiry is that such inquiry is not detached or disengaged theorizing but always a form of social theory as practice, a way of participating in our ever so human search for understanding and meaning in life. Taking this seriously reshapes psychological inquiry.
