Examining arguments against quantitative research: “Case studies” illustrating the challenge of finding a sound philosophical basis for a human sciences approach to psychology

• Arguments against quantitative research put forward by three critics, Michell, Marecek, and Morawski, are examined closely.
• The three critics' positions, although different in many respects, are flawed due to shared commitments to Cartesianism.
• The participatory perspective, a non-Cartesian viewpoint, leads to a reconceptualization of quantitative research.
• Quantitative methods can contribute a great deal when they are employed in explicitly interpretive quantitative research.
• The participatory perspective also can provide the basis for a human sciences approach to issues besides research methods.

This article offers a close examination of critiques of quantitative research by Michell, 2011 and Marecek, 2011, and Morawski (2011). One goal is to show that these three critics actually share with most mainstream quantitative researchers commitments to the Cartesian framework, even though this is not obvious because Cartesianism can appear in different guises. As a result of these commitments, the three theorists advance criticisms of mainstream quantitative research that fail to identify its key failings, put forward flawed views about how we should conduct research, and offer misguided criticisms of an approach I advocate called explicitly interpretive quantitative research. Another goal is to use the examination of the three critiques as a vehicle for clarifying the participatory perspective, a philosophical viewpoint that departs from the Cartesian framework. With regard to research methodology, the participatory perspective provides the basis for explicitly interpretive quantitative research, leads to ideas about changes we should make in how we conduct qualitative research, and treats quantitative and qualitative research as fundamentally similar because both should be pursued as interpretive modes of inquiry. I suggest that my analyses of the three critiques of quantitative research – or “case studies,” as I call these analyses – also may prove useful to researchers and theorists who want to develop a human sciences approach to other issues besides research methodology by helping them (1) recognize when lines of thinking that seem to depart from the mainstream actually represent variants of Cartesianism, and (2) consider what the participatory perspective might have to offer if they were to use it as the philosophical basis for their efforts.