Abstract

The Transdisciplinary Philosophy-of-Science Paradigm for Research on Individuals builds on established concepts, approaches, and methods from various disciplines that are systematically integrated into coherent philosophical, metatheoretical, and methodological frameworks and that are further developed and complemented by novel ones. The TPS-Paradigm is aimed at supporting scientists exploring individuals to tackle the particular challenges of their field and to make explicit and critically reflect on their philosophical presuppositions, metatheories, and methodologies. The metatheoretical definition of ‘personality’ as individual-specificity is elaborated, highlighting that ‘personality’ is conceived and studied differently because different paradigms focus on individual-specificity in different kinds of phenomena. Critical analyses of the field’s strong reliance on assessments methods reveal fallacies, circular explanations in ‘trait’ concepts, and the fact that taxonomic models of most of the phenomena in which individual-specificity is conceived as ‘personality’ still need to be developed. The TPS-Paradigm is therefore aimed at reviving and broadening the portfolio of methodologies that can and should be complementarily applied to comprehensively explore individuals and their ‘personality.’ Such broad paradigms are needed to enable transdisciplinary collaboration and research that embraces the complex reality of individuals and their ‘personality.’