The cult of empiricism in psychology, and beyond.

Abstract

intimately related to, and dependent upon, psychology. Conversely, psychology itself, in his scheme, was and should be susceptible to philosophical analysis. The depth of Wundt's belief in this two-way interdependence between psychology and philosophy was perhaps best illustrated in his (191 3) vehement opposition to the proposed separation of psychology and philosophy in German universities (see Ash, 1980). According to Wundt, neither empirical observation (or experiment) nor rational analysis alone could constitute true, complete science. Neither psychology nor philosophy could fulfill its task withollt the other. In taking this stand, Wundt showed that he was clearly aware of the historical dependence of psychology-even the new experimental psychology-upon the discipline of philosophy. (On the indebtedness of the so-called "new psychology" to philosophy, see Leary, 1978Leary, , 1979Leary, , 1980aLeary, , 1980bLeary, , 1982 To put the point in a word, Wundt was not a "positivist," though he did share with Ernst Mach (and many others) a view of experience as the primary "given" from which the different natural sciences arrive at their respective subject matters by various distinctive modes of abstraction. Although he was cautious in his metaphysical speculation, he did not shrink from the discussion of the nature of his subject matter, which he construed as consciousness, or the mind. Besides formulating a rather dynamic view of the mind as "actuality," he also pointed out the practical (as well as intellectual) necessity for a philosophical doctrine about the relation between mind and body: methodological decisions-i. e., day-to-day empirical procedures-are dependent upon such a doctrine. For himself, he preferred and argued for a psychophysical parallelism, at least on a pragmatic level; ultimately, this parallelism reflected Wundt's double-aspect monism (Blumenthal, 1980;Richards, 1980). Still, the point is that Wundt, the "physiological psychologist," argued on essentially philosophical grounds for an autonomous psychology, i.e., a nonreductionistic psychology; and he saw no other way to argue the point, pro or con.In addition to his belief in the integral relationship between psychology and philosophy-and in addition to his belief that psychologists should continue to address the epistemological, ethical, and ontological issues that had given rise to psychological science in the first place-Wundt held yet another supposition that helped to define his research program. We are referring to the distinction he made between different aspects of mental life, i.e., between those that do and those that do not lend themselves to investigation by experimental methods. His view was that purely experimental methods were appropriate only to a restricted range of mental activities and phenomena. In particular, he excluded from their scope just about all those aspects of mental life that are nowadays classified under the heading of "higher mental functions." These other aspects of mental life could be brought within the...

From tools to theories: A heuristic of discovery in cognitive psychology.

“…In American psychology, the study of cognitive processes was suppressed in the early 20th century by the allied forces of operationalism and behaviorism. The operationalism and the inductivism of the Vienna School, as well as the replacement of the Wundtian experiment by experimentation with treatment groups (Danziger, 1990), paved the way for the institutionalization of inferential statistics in American experimental psychology between 1940 and 1955 (Gigerenzer, 1987a;Toulmin & Leary, 1985). In experimental psychology, inferential statistics became almost synonymous with scientific method.…”

“…(p. 111). Both the logical empiricists and Kuhn were highly influential on psychology (see Toulmin & Leary, 1985), but neither's view has emphasized the role of tools and experimental conduct. Their role in the development of science has been grossly underestimated until recently (Danziger, 1985;Lenoir, 1988).…”

La psicología social de la ciencia: una revisión bibliográfica de su estado actual

“…La estructura de los artículos es la de un esquema de una historia (Mandler, 1983), que transmiten una imagen lógica, linear y secuencial que nos llevan desde la presentación del problema, la recogida de los datos y la discusión que pretende hacer una nueva contribución. A pesar de haberse puesto en evidencia que la elaboración de los trabajos de investigación y artículos raramente coincide con este esquema racional (Skinner, 1956, Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984Knorr-Cetina, 1981), pero lo importante es que este esquema en forma de historia acaba favoreciendo una aproximación empírica a la psicología (Hilgard, 1987;Lehman, Lempert & Nisbett, 1988;Toulmin & Leary, 1985;Madigan, Johnson & Linton, 1995 ).…”

Finding Meaning in Psychology.

“…The mechanistic approach comes to us from the tradition of logic and positivistic philosophy. Psychology may be the only empirical science with entrenched bands of organized resistance still holding firmly to this tradition (Toulmin & Leary, 1985). This is not to say that models and formal systems are not valuable in trying to understand complex systems.…”