Towards Integrating Realities: Pragmatic Constructivism and Arendt's Theory of Action

The pragmatic constructivist approach provides us with a social science theory, the theory of reality, and its associated method, the conceptualising method. A key aspect in both the theory of reality and its associated conceptualising method is on the necessity of integratingfour dimensionsof reality –facts, logic, values and communication. But how? Nørreklit (2004) highlights the theoretical and methodological requirements for such integration of reality. Henriksen et al. (2004), on the other hand, describe the integration processes through a series of case stories. Buta thorough conceptualisation of the process of integration is itself not analysed or conceptualised to the same substantive extent as are the other elements ofthe theory of reality.The key questionaddressed here thereforebecomes: how might we betteranalyse and describe this process of integration? To address this question, Iidentify, albeit in skeletal outline,usefulsocial theoreticalcorrespondences between Arendt’s conceptualisation of action in The Human Condition(1958) and key attributes ofthe theory of reality, which, Iclaim, couldpossibly guide an entry into the ‘how’ of this elusive integration process.