Varieties of Contextualism
Analytic goals are vitally important to the contextualistic world view. This is because the analytic tools of contextualism—its root metaphor and truth criterion—both hinge on the purpose of the analysis, and neither can be mounted effectively without a clearly specified analytic goal. The pragmatic Reese, 1993, p. 77).
Likewise, the root metaphor of the "act-in-context" is rendered meaningless in an analysis without an explicit goal because there would be no basis on which to restrict the analysis to a subset of the infinite expanse of the act’s historical and environmental context (Hayes, 1993b).
Contextualists can, and do, adopt different analytic goals, and the many different varieties of contextualism can be distinguished by their goals (functional contextualism).
| Descriptive Contextualism | Functional Contextualism | |
| Example | Social Constructionism | Behavior Analysis |
|
Analytic goal |
To understand the complexity and richness of a whole event through an appreciation of its participants and features | To predict and influence events with precision, scope, and depth using empirically-based concepts and rules |
| Knowledge constructed | Personal, ephemeral, specific, local, and spatiotemporally restricted (e.g., a historical narrative) | General, abstract, and spatiotemporally unrestricted (e.g., a scientific principle) |
| Content and focus | Individual-in-context | Behavior-in-context |
| Preferred methods | Qualitative and narrative | Quantitative and experimental |
| Disciplinary type | Natural history | Natural science |