Pragmatic inquiry
本文提出复杂问题解决需遵循实用主义原则，并设计了五个相互关联的原则体系，通过案例展示其应用，适合关注跨学科方法论的研究者。
Inquiry into how people might act to solve a problem, which involves powerful communities of stakeholders, cannot be undertaken using only the principles of scientific inquiry. Science is useful for inquiry into physical activity but less so for inquiry into designing appropriate social systems such as a strategic plan or the appropriate solution to a social conflict. This paper argues that complex problem solving needs to draw on a set of pragmatic principles, which it explains. Pragmatism is an epistemology intended to deal with alternative interpretations of the same physical reality. It is increasingly coming back into the attention of soft operational researchers. After briefly explaining which thread of pragmatism is being drawn upon, this paper identifies five interrelated principles for undertaking a pragmatic inquiry. To explain these interrelations, the principles are designed into a linked system of pragmatic inquiry which is applied in a small case study.