Empirical evaluation and justification of methodologies in psychological science

The purpose of this article is to describe a relatively new movement in the history and philosophy of science, naturalism, a form of pragmatism emphas izing that methodological principles are empirical statements. Thus, method ological principles must be evaluated and justified on the same basis as ot her empirical statements. On this view, methodological statements may be le ss secure than the specific scientific theories to which they give rise. Th e authors examined the feasibility of a naturalistic approach to methodolog y using logical and historical analysis and by contrasting theories that pr edict new facts versus theories that explain already known facts. They prov ide examples of how differences over methodological issues in psychology an d in science generally may be resolved using a naturalistic, or empirical, approach.