Abstract

A premise of qualitative research is that accounts given in natural language more accurately represent the psychological reality of the human realm than those given in mathematical language. In general, the relation between natural language and reality has become problematic for contemporary philosophy. Specifically, the assumption that language points to or represents a nonlinguistic reality has been called into question by postmodern philosophers. Yet because of its centrality for the qualitative research perspective, the capacity of natural language to describe the human realm is a foundational issue. If natural language originates simply as a cultural or literary invention and functions to create meaning out of an otherwise unconfigured reality, then portraits of the human realm given in natural language come under question, and with them a premise of the qualitative research program. The primary issue to be investigated in this paper is whether natural language descriptions "correspond" to the structure of the human realm or if they are literary impositions on a differently structured reality. Qualitative researchers have at times looked toward the philosophers taking a skeptical stance toward language as allies in the critique of positivism. Yet the skepticism of these philosophers is directed at all knowledge, including that argued for by qualitative researchers. The pessimistic critique of language requires a response and defense of natural language as a medium of knowledge of the human realm. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)