What Is Psychology About? Toward An Explicit Ontology

Abstract

Commentators have criticized psychology's overemphasis on method and its simultaneous neglect of questions regarding the subject matter and purpose of psychology. This article summarizes four problems that have resulted from the privileging of method, and in each case illustrates how an explicit ontology provides at least partial solutions to these problems. This article also suggests three metatheoretical assumptions based on the thinking of William James that would allow for the establishment of an explicit ontology and that would allow for psychological entities per se to be studied without the threat of biological or other kinds of reductionism. Finally, concerns that may arise in the formation of an explicit ontology are briefly addressed.

A Co-Inquiry into What Matters Most in Written Reflections: A Co-Inquiry into What Matters Most in Written Reflections: Helping Students Integrate Cognition and Affect

“…Psychologists Yanchar and Hill (2003) point to the absence of ontology in the dominant models of psychology that have framed, either implicitly or explicitly, most educational research into learning and teaching. They assert that neglect of subjective understandings of -existence‖ and -beingness‖ results in researching for -objective‖ methodological solutions to problems, rather than an ontological explication which includes -psychological phenomena such as intentionality, agency, morality, [and] spirituality‖ (p. 12).…”

On the Nature of a Critical Methodology

“…Indeed, critics within psychology have convincingly argued that the received scientific method does not permit meaningful accounts of many aspects of human life and experience (e.g. Fuller, 1990;Gantt & Williams, 2002;Giorgi, 1970;Harré & Secord, 1972;Koch, 1999;Morgan, 1983;Polkinghorne, 1983;Slife & Williams, 1995;Yanchar & Hill, 2003;Yuille, 1986). The use of a method that must first quantify or operationalize all variables or meaningful concepts, and that deals primarily in aggregates, ultimately results in what Sigmund Koch (1999) called 'ontology-distorting' theories and conceptual frameworks (p. 308)-that is, theories which obscure or obviate the rich meaning of human life ordinarily lived (see also Green, 1992a;Leahey, 1980;Spackman & Williams, 2001).…”

“…Hoshmand & Polkinghorne 1992;Koch, 1959;Manicas & Secord, 1983;Tolman, 1992); second, the adopted method has been used in a rigid, orthodox fashion (e.g. Bakan, 1972;Danziger, 1990;Rozin, 2001;Yanchar & Hill, 2003); third, little genuine scientific advancement has resulted from the adopted method's rigid use (e.g. Martin, 1996;Richardson, 1998;Robinson, 2000;Wallach & Wallach, 1998;Yuille, 1986); and, fourth, the adopted method distorts the nature and meaning of human existence (e.g.…”

Neuroessentialism: Theoretical and Clinical Considerations

“…The considerations discussed above are related to the negative consequences many authors have suggested essentialistic accounts of human experience and behavior may yield, whether that essentialism is described in chemical, biological, genetic, and/or neuronal terms. For example, Yanchar and Hill (2003) argued that an essentialistic approach to the mind “is problematic because it tends to predetermine what we take human nature to be without careful consideration of the consequences that this ontological commitment has for a variety of important issues” such as “intentionality, agency, morality, spiritualty, [and] the phenomenological essence of experience” (p. 18). Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011) argued that “essentialism may lead people to view outcomes as immutable and determined” when, in fact, this deterministic view is a drastic oversimplification (p. 804).…”