Scientificity of Psychology in the Context of Science Philosophy

This essay addresses a readership interested in the social sciences. It is written, however, by experimental psychophysiologists whose primary fields of research are in natural science. Our purpose is to theorize about the links which exist between living organisms as natural beings and as social beings, and thereby to lay the foundations for a metatheory of psychology compatible with Marxism. These relations will be analyzed within the context of the problem of objectivity versus subjectivity in psychalogy. The fact that psychology is a link between the natural and social sciences will be emphasized. By describing psychic activity as the most evolved form of "information exchange," an attempt will be · made to modernize Lenin's reflection theory. The specific application of materialism to psychology will be demonstrated, along with the role of realism ·and radical determinism.

Theory & Psychology, 1992

There is, unfortunately, a large vestigial heritage of positivist errors, and distortions of positivist errors, concerning the nature of science that still permeate psychology. This article contributes to contemporary debates concerning the metascience of psychology not by proposing a positive program of scientific norms and values, but by addressing and countering a number of these errors, these residual myths, concerning the nature of science.

Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2004

A new form of knowledge technology is used to diagnose psychology's epistemological woes and provide a solution to the difficulties. The argument presented is that psychology has traditionally spanned two separate but intimately related problems: (a) the problem of animal behavior and (b) the problem of human behavior. Accordingly, the solution offered divides the field into two broad, logically consistent domains. The first domain is psychological formalism, which is defined as the science of mind, corresponds to animal behavior, and consists of the basic psychological sciences. The second domain is human psychology, which is defined as the science of human behavior at the individual level and is proposed as a hybrid that exists between psychological formalism and the social sciences.

The Humanistic Psychologist, 2014

First of all, I would like to thank Dr. Leswin Laubscher, the current Chair of the Psychology Department at Duquesne University, for inviting me to speak to the department more than half a century after I started my career here as a phenomenological psychologist. It is also my first visit to the department in more than a quarter of a century, so you must forgive me if certain nostalgic feelings come through. However, it is good to see that there is still a phenomenological presence in the department because the development of a phenomenological psychology was the very raison d'être of the department. In my talk today, I shall try to indicate how we believed that the application of phenomenological philosophical thought to psychology would be helpful to a psychology that wanted to understand human persons in an adequate way. If in the 1950s some of us found psychology to be lacking, what was wrong with it and how would one go about correcting it? What was holding back its vigorous development? Why was our understanding of the human person not advancing the way that our knowledge of nature was progressing? Well, for one thing, the human person was not so much the theme of the research psychologists of that era as an animal was, and if a human was thematized, it was not the essential human that was studied so much as human phenomena with primarily sensorial and physiological manifestations. Why did this state of affairs exist? Because psychology strove to become a natural science and the phenomena that were studied had to show characteristics that were similar to nature and they had to have an empirical basis. In that era, whether or not such an approach clarified human phenomena was not as important as psychology's scientific status. More important than the clarification of human phenomena was psychology's determination to be a natural science, although mainstream psychologists honestly believed they were doing both.

Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2004

Psychology," like many abstract terms, is difficult to define precisely. Henriques' (this issue, pp. 1207-1221) argument that psychology, though unified and coherent, actually spans two realms-psychological formalism ("the science of mind," this issue, p. 1211) and human psychology ("the science of human behavior at the individual level," this issue, p. 1208)seems likely to improve the clarity of the concept. The strongest contribution of his analysis may be its placing "psychology" in the larger conceptual framework of the Tree of Knowledge taxonomy.

Abstract The disciples of Psychology and Sociology and the social sciences more generally, are and have been for some time, in a state of flux, especially with regard to research methods. The tension, in the view if many, is between the approaches to research in terms of positivist verses naturalist [1,2]. This tension has to a considerable degree remains unsolved and has been exacerbated by the postmodernist’s discourse as exemplified in the works of Foucault [3] and Lyotard [4] (see Rosenberg, 2003 for an overview of this discourse). This short commentary cannot address all of these issues. Instead, it will [5] provide an introduction to the history of 19th century and early 20th century social sciences focusing on key differences and similarities in research methods and their philosophic underpinning [6]. This will be followed by a short statement regarding the nature of mid 20th century evolution of the social sciences, touching on both the philosophical and practical aspects of research [7]. This essay will end with an overview of some psychology research conducted within the parameters of the Human sciences. Keywords: Jerome Bruner; John Dewy; GH Mead; Shawn Rosenberg; Michael Westerman; Peter Wench; Cultural psychology; Social psychology; Psychological anthropology; Meaning; Narrative, Mind, Culture

Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 2018

The turn of qualitative inquiry suggests a more open, plural conception of psychology than just the science of the mind and behavior as it is most commonly defined. Historical, ontological and epistemological binding of this conception of psychology to the positivist method of natural science may have exhausted its possibilities, and after having contributed to its prestige as a science, has now become an obstacle. It is proposed that psychology be reconceived as a science of subject and comportment in the framework of a contextual hermeneutic, social, human behavioral science. Thus, without rejecting quantitative inquiry, psychology recovers territory left aside like introspection and pre-reflective self-awareness, and reconnects with traditions marginalized from the main stream. From this perspective psychology might also recover its credibility as a human science in view of current skepticism.

Psychology is a modern discipline in a state of crisis. As a science still in its "pre-paradigmatic" stage of development, psychology has not yet settled on a paradigm (or model) of behavior that satisfies, even tentatively, the fundamental questions that have been raised about psychological life. The previous century marked a period of proliferation of theories and methods in the social sciences, leading to a confusing state of affairs for the person who wishes to be introduced to current scientific perspectives on human nature.

Annals of Psychology/Roczniki Psychologiczne, 2022

The principal goal of psychological science is not application but theory. This is because a good theory yields accurate predictions and control, two preconditions for applications. Thus, good psychological science is one that produces good theories. Against the background of reproducibility crisis and the apparent non-existence of an integrated subfield of psychology addressing those issues, I submit psychological theoretics (or psycho-theoretics) as a potential solution. The scope of psychological theoretics is outlined and distinguished from other closely related subfields. It was argued that psychological theoretics has the potential to make a unique contribution to the advancement of good psychological science. It is also worth noting that even if the global community of psychologists might not be ready for psychological theoretics as a new subfield, the reforms proposed under its rubrics would still remain relevant today and in the future. Indeed, the question of whether it is completely new will surely be the subject of scientific debate.