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Positivism needs further scrutiny. In recent years, there has been little consensus about the nature of positivism or about the precise forms its influence has taken on psychological theory. One symptom of this lack of clarity has been that ostensibly anti-positivist psychological theorizing is frequently found reproducing one or more distinctively positivist assumptions. The contributors to this volume believe that, while virtually every theoretically engaged psychologist today openly rejects positivism in both its 19th century and 20th century forms, it is indispensable to look at positivism from all sides and to appraise its role and importance in order to make possible the further development of psychological theory.
What Man Has Made of Man by Mortimer Jerome Adler Pdf
What Man Has Made of Man CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ix AUTHORS PREFACE xvii LECTURE i. THE CONCEPTION OF SCIENCE IN THE MODERN WORLD 3 LECTURE 2. THE POSITION OF PSYCHOLOGY IN PHILOSOPHY AND AMONG THE NATURAL SCIENCES 31 LECTURE 3. THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY 61 LECTURE 4. PSYCHOANALYSIS AS PSYCHOLOGY 94 SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 124 EPILOGUE 235 LIST OF PRINCIPAL NOTES 245 vu INTRODUCTION BY DR. FRANZ ALEXANDER IT is unusual to write an introduction to a book of an author whose conclusions, approach to his problems and whole outlook are diametrically opposite to those of the author of the introduction. Why did I then accept Mr. Adlers suggestion to write an intro duction to his book and why did Mr. Adler ask me to do so, are both questions which require an explanation. The circumstances under which these four lectures originated will elucidate this para dox. Engaged in psychoanalytic teaching and clinical studies for a long period of time, I gradually came to the conviction that in this field as in others where students are using a highly standardized technical procedure and are mainly absorbed in minute observa tion of facts, briefly in all preeminently empirical fields, the stu dents are apt to lose perspective towards their own work. This conviction goes back to those early days that I spent as a research worker in physiology in an experimental laboratory. There, I became first acquainted with the characteristic mentality of mod ern scientific research. There I learned the mores and virtues of modern research and first recognized the danger which con fronts the scientific worker of the present day. This danger is not restricted to scientific laboratories, it is a general problem of the presentage. Man, the inventor of the machine, has become the slave of the machine, and the scientist, in developing highly refined methods of investigation, has become not the master but the slave of his laboratory equipment. An extreme amount of specializa tion of interest and mechanization of activity has taken place and a scotoma for essentials has developed a naive belief in the magic omnipotence of specific technical procedures leads to a routine, often sterile submersion in details without interest in or under standing of larger connections. IX INTRODUCTION It is no exaggeration to say that in many scientific centers not the interest in certain fundamental problems but the fortuitous possession of some new apparatus directs the research work a new laboratory technique is introduced which spreads like a f ad to all laboratories then everywhere problems are selected which can be approached by this new technique or apparatus. Scientific inter est in the fundamentals is lost, research is dictated more or less at random by the technical facilities at the workers disposal. This attitude necessarily must lead to that caricature of scientific ethics which regards suspiciously everything that entails reason ing and not merely observation and is contemptuous about theories, not to say hypotheses that are not as yet proven. There is a naive adoration of pure facts which are collected without any leading ideas. Psychoanalysis is a highly empirical field in which the student is exposed to an extreme variety of observations and in a certain sense unique facts, as every patient presents a unique combina tion of common elements. Today the psychoanalytic clinician is undergoing a healthy reaction againstthe present abundance of theory and generalizations. He is in the process of accepting the mentality of the natural scientist and is assuming all the virtues and weaknesses of our era of laboratory research. Like his other clini cal colleagues also he uses a highly standardized and refined tech nique but pays a high price for his technical skill he is gradu ally losing perspective and correct judgment regarding the validity and limitations of his technique and of his scientific work in general...
Platonism and Positivism in Psychology by Julie Christian Pdf
Psychology is a field of many paradoxes. Since its earliest beginnings as a natural science, psychologists have been in search of their proper subject matter. Today they are in less agreement than ever. In this classic text, originally published as What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer J. Adler goes to the root of the problem. He shows that psychology is simultaneously a particular social science and a branch of philosophical knowledge. These two parts must be distinguished from, yet related to, each other if sound philosophical analysis is to replace bad "philosophizing," which scientific psychologists too often use to describe their research findings. Adler also examines the scientific contribution of psychoanalysis by distinguishing it from Freud's meta-psychology, which he shows to be an inadequate statement of the traditional or classical philosophical positions. Adler believes that psychology is crucially important in modern culture. It is theoretically important because it is central to the errors of modern philosophy. It has practical significance because economic, moral, and political doctrines are determined by the view that man reviews his own nature. To understand the history of modern times, and to correct its normative deviations, we must, according to Adler, consider what man has made of man. This engaging analytical study will be a valuable tool for psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and sociologists.
Historical Developmental Psychology by Willem Koops,Frank Kessel Pdf
This book explores and underlines the thesis that developmental psychology cannot function fruitfully without systematic historical scholarship. Scientific thinking not only depends on empirical-analytical research, but also requires self-reflection and critical thinking about the discipline’s foundations and history. The relevance of history was made especially clear in the writings of William Kessen, who analyzed how both children and child development are shaped "by the larger cultural forces of political maneuverings, practical economics, and implicit ideological commitments." As a corollary, he emphasized that the science of developmental psychology itself is culturally and historically shaped in significant ways. Discussing the implications of these insights in the book’s introduction, Koops and Kessel stress that we need a Historical Developmental Psychology. In the book’s following chapters, historians of childhood – Mintz, Stearns, Lassonde, Sandin, and Vicedo – demonstrate how conceptions of childhood vary across historical time and sociocultural space. These foundational variations are specified by these historians and by developmental psychologists – Harris and Keller – in the research domains of emotions, attachment, and parenting. This collection demonstrates the importance of bridging, both intellectually and institutionally, the gap between the research of historians, and both current and future research of developmental psychologists. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Platonism and Positivism in Psychology by Taylor & Francis Group Pdf
Psychology is a field of many paradoxes. Since its earliest beginnings as a natural science, psychologists have been in search of their proper subject matter. Today they are in less agreement than ever. In this classic text, originally published as What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer J. Adler goes to the root of the problem. He shows that psychology is simultaneously a particular social science and a branch of philosophical knowledge. These two parts must be distinguished from, yet related to, each other if sound philosophical analysis is to replace bad "philosophizing," which scientific psychologists too often use to describe their research findings. Adler also examines the scientific contribution of psychoanalysis by distinguishing it from Freud's meta-psychology, which he shows to be an inadequate statement of the traditional or classical philosophical positions. Adler believes that psychology is crucially important in modern culture. It is theoretically important because it is central to the errors of modern philosophy. It has practical significance because economic, moral, and political doctrines are determined by the view that man reviews his own nature. To understand the history of modern times, and to correct its normative deviations, we must, according to Adler, consider what man has made of man. This engaging analytical study will be a valuable tool for psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and sociologists.
Platonism and Positivism in Psychology by Julie Christian Pdf
"Psychology is a field of many paradoxes. Since its earliest beginnings as a natural science, psychologists have been in search of their proper subject matter. Today they are in less agreement than ever. In this classic text, originally published as What Man Has Made of Man, Mortimer J. Adler goes to the root of the problem. He shows that psychology is simultaneously a particular social science and a branch of philosophical knowledge.These two parts must be distinguished from, yet related to, each other if sound philosophical analysis is to replace bad "philosophizing," which scientific psychologists too often use to describe their research findings. Adler also examines the scientific contribution of psychoanalysis by distinguishing it from Freud's meta-psychology, which he shows to be an inadequate statement of the traditional or classical philosophical positions.Adler believes that psychology is crucially important in modern culture. It is theoretically important because it is central to the errors of modern philosophy. It has practical significance because economic, moral, and political doctrines are determined by the view that man reviews his own nature. To understand the history of modern times, and to correct its normative deviations, we must, according to Adler, consider what man has made of man. This engaging analytical study will be a valuable tool for psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and sociologists."--Provided by publisher.
Outline of Theoretical Psychology by Thomas Teo Pdf
Outline of Theoretical Psychology discusses basic philosophical problems in the discipline and profession of psychology. The author addresses such topics as what it means to be human in psychology; how psychological knowledge is possible and what it consists of; the role of social justice in psychology; and how aesthetic experience could help us to understand the human condition. Proposing possible solutions to a range of such issues, Thomas Teo situates theoretical questions within traditional branches of philosophical inquiry: ontology, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. This book argues that in order to improve psychology as a discipline and in practice, psychologists must reconceive the unit of psychological analysis, looking beyond individual capacity and even experience. By engaging with these basic philosophical problems, Teo demonstrates how psychology can avoid its common pitfalls and continue as a force for resistance and the good.
Unfolding Social Constructionism by Fiona J. Hibberd Pdf
For more than half of the 20* century, psychologists sought to locate the causes of behaviour in individuals and tended to neglect the possibility of locating the psy chological in the social. In the late 1960s, a reaction to that neglect brought about a "crisis" in social psychology. This "crisis" did not affect all social psychologists; some remained seemingly oblivious to its presence; others dismissed its signifi cance and continued much as before. But, in certain quarters, the psychological was re-conceptualised as the social, and the social was taken to be sui generis. Moreover, the possibility of developing general laws and theories to describe and explain social interaction was rejected on the grounds that, as social beings, our actions vary from occasion to occasion, and are, for many reasons, unrepeatable. There is, so it was thought, an inherent instability in the phenomena of interest. The nomothetic ideal was said to rest on individualistic cause-effect positivism of the kind which (arguably) characterised the natural sciences, but social psychology (so it was said) is an historical inquiry, and its conclusions are necessarily historically relative (Gergen, 1973). Events outside psychology converged to give impetus to the "crisis" within.
Clinical Psychology and the Philosophy of Science by William O'Donohue Pdf
The motivation for this volume is simple. For a variety of reasons, clinical psychologists have long shown considerable interest in the philosophy of science. When logical positivism gained currency in the 1930s, psychologists were among the most avid readers of what these philosophers had to say about science. Part of the critique of Skinner’s radical behaviorism and thus behavior therapy was that it relied on, and thus was logically dependent on, the truth of logical positivism—a claim decisively refuted both historically and logically by L.D. Smith (1986) in his important Behaviorism and Logical Positivism: A Reassessment of the Alliance.
Realism and Psychological Science by David J. F. Maree Pdf
The book provides an argument why realism is a viable metatheoretical framework for psychological science. By looking at some variations of realism such as scientific realism, critical realism, situational realism and Ferraris’ new realism, a realist view of science is outlined that can feature as a metatheory for psychological science. Realism is a necessary correction for the mythical image of science responsible for and maintained by a number of dichotomies and polarities in psychology. Thus, the quantitative-qualitative dichotomy, scientist-practitioner polarity and positivist-constructionist opposition feed off and maintains a mythic image of science on levels of practice, methods and metatheory. Realism makes a clear distinction between ontology and epistemic access to reality, the latter which easily fits with softer versions of constructionism, and the former which grounds science in resistance and possibility, loosely translated as criticism. By taking science as a critical activity an issue such as the quantitative imperative looses its defining force as a hallmark of science - it provides epistemic access to certain parts of reality. In addition, essentially critical activities characteristic of various qualitative approaches may be welcomed as proper science. Academics, professionals and researchers in psychology would find value in situating their scholarly work in a realist metatheory avoiding the pitfalls of traditional methodologies and theories.
