Horace Romano Harré

Horace Romano Harré

Full name	Horace Romano Harré
Born	1927 New Zealand
Era	20th century
Region	Western Philosophy
School	precursor to Critical Realism
Influenced by J.L. Austin, G. H. Mead
Influenced Roy Bhaskar

Horace Romano Harré (born 1927 in New Zealand), known widely as Rom Harré, is a distinguished philosopher and psychologist.

Studies

He graduated in mathematics and physics and he afterwards lectured at the University of Punjab, Pakistan. He continued his studies studying philosophy and anthropology and eventually he did a B. Phil. at the University of Oxford under the supervision of J.L. Austin. For a short period, he lectured part-time at American University in Washington, D.C. He is at present a professor at Georgetown University and the director of the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics.

Intellectual interests

Harré has written on a wide variety of subjects which includes: philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, ontology, psychology, social psychology, sociology and philosophy. He was an important early influence on the British philosophical movement Critical Realism, publishing Causal Powers with Madden in 1975, the same year as A Realist Theory of Science. He supervised Roy Bhaskar's doctoral studies, and has continued to maintain close involvement with realism. He also supervised Patrick Baert and Jonathan Smith (psychologist)'s doctoral studies, respectively in social theory and social psychology. Another one of Harré's distinctive contributions was to the understanding of the social self in microsociology, which he called "ethogenics:" this method attempts to understand the systems of belief or means by which individuals can attach significance to their actions and form their identities, in addition to the structure of rules and cultural resources that underlie these actions.

Publications (selection)

• Key Thinkers in Psychology, London: Sage, 2006.
• (With M. Tissaw) Wittgenstein and Psychology, Basingstoke, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
• Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction, Los Angeles: Sage, 2001.
• Princess Diana and the emotionology of contemporary Britain, International Journal of Group Tensions, 30, 29-38, 2001.
• (With L. van Langenhove) Positioning Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
• (With Charles R. Varela) "Conflicting Varieties of Realism: Causal Powers and the Problems of Social Structure." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 26.3 (September 1996): 313-325.
• (With Grant Gillett) The Discursive Mind London: Sage, 1994.
• Varieties of Realism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
• (With Jerrold L. Aronson & Eileen Cornell Way) Realism rescued: how scientific progress is possible London, Duckworth, 1994
• (With Michael Krausz) Varieties of Relativism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
• (Ed.) The Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
• (With David Clarke and Nicola De Carlo) Motives and Mechanisms: An Introduction to the Psychology of Action. London: Metheun, 1985.
• Personal Being, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
• Physical Being: a theory for a corporal psychology, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991.
• The Philosophies of Science: An Introductory Survey, Oxford, 1989.
• Social Being: A Theory for a Social Psychology II, Oxford: Blackwell, 1979.
• (With Edward H. Madden) Causal Powers, Oxford: Blackwell, 1975.
• (With Paul F. Secord) The Explanation of Social Behaviour, Oxford: Blackwell, 1972.

External links

• Harre's page at Georgetown University
• An article by Caroline New

Academic Genealogy
Notable teachers	Notable students
J.L. Austin	Roy Bhaskar, Patrick Baert, Jonathan Smith (psychologist)