New Pragmatism and Accountants' Truth

This paper offers a rigorous philosophical defence for the approaches and methods of classical financial accounting research, drawn from New Pragmatism and, in particular, the ideas of Huw Price and Michael Lynch’s functional theory of truth. Such an underpinning is important because classical approaches and methods are often characterised as unscientific and lacking theoretical support. It can justify the resumption of scholarly efforts to employ classical approaches and methods to contribute to the development and refinement of accounting practice, including, and especially, accounting’s conceptual framework, as part of the mainstream of the academy’s work. In addition, giving explicit attention to aspects of the functional theory of truth in the design of accounting research may improve its rigour and coherence.