Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Sérgio. Is a natural science of human really possible?. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2005, vol.5, n.2, pp. 8-17. ISSN 1808-4281.

In a brief way and based upon Clifford Geertz’s texts, this article aims at offering the reasons according to which human action is turned into a phony subject if conceived by the canonical stance of the natural sciences - mainly interested in universal descriptions. Contrariwise, it is reminded that complex action seems constitutively tied to local meanings and, exactly for this point, it is necessary to imagine “thick descriptions” capable of describing richly the particularities of those meanings, as if one were facing a literary text.

Keywords : Thick description; Human action; Interpretive anthropology; Cultural psychology.

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