Psychotherapy*: ‐there: Sensing,hearing, understanding

Presented here is a careful examination of George Kelly's contributions to and differences from humanistic psychology and some of his more radical challenges to mainstream psychology in general. We begin by looking at the word constructive and how various definitions help us to understand what Kelly meant by a constructive understanding of the person. We then examine how truly different Kelly's basic assumptions are from those of traditional psychology. Finally, we examine how personal construct psychology is both similar to and different from traditional humanistic psychology. We conclude that, although there are some significant differences, Kelly's vision of life as an audacious adventure, and his emphasis on hope and on the future, make him very much a humanistic psychologist.     

Heideggerian Meditations on an Alternative Ontology for Ecological Psychology: A Response to Turvey's (1992) Proposal

In his last book, Gibson (1979/1986) clearly described crucial elements for an ontology for ecological psychology, but left his overarching ontology implicit and incomplete. As a partial remedy, Turvey (1992) presented a compact, well- packaged outline of an ontology for ecological psychology derived in part from the work of Bunge. In appreciation of Turvey's pioneering and thought-provoking attack on this difficult issue, we offer our own reflections on Turvey's propertied realism. In reviewing Turvey's work we use both the insights of Heidegger and recent experimental findings in ecological psychology to argue for the need for a different ontological foundation. We argue that a Heideggerian ontology can provide us with a broader and more complete ontological foundation with which to deal with complex issues, such as prospective control, than can Turvey's proposed ontology. Also, we suggest that a Heideggerian ontology can be used to supply what is missing or understated in Gibson. We argue against propertied realism as a basis for ecological psychology's ontology and contend that a proper conception of intentionality provides a way to transcend traditional object-subject ontologies. We propose that fields should be considered real ontological entities that differ from matter. Finally, we reflect on how the highly nonscientific language of Heidegger might possibly be formalized to make it more suitable for scientific use.     

Dewey and the Question of Realism

An interpretation is given of John Dewey's views about “realism” in metaphysics, and of how these views relate to contemporary debates. Dewey rejected standard formulations of realism as a general metaphysical position, and interpreters have often been taken him to be sympathetic to some form of verificationism or constructivism. I argue that these interpretations are mistaken, as Dewey's unease with standard formulations of realism comes from his philosophical emphasis on intelligent control of events, by means of ordinary action. Because of his views about relations, Dewey's views in this area do risk collapsing into an overly holistic position. I discuss how these problems might be avoided, and consider also how Dewey's views about naturalism and realism might usefully inform ongoing work.     

Sigmund Koch as critical humanist

Just as Sigmund Koch was a good scientist without succumbing to scientism, he was a good humanist without succumbing to the popular distortions trading on the name of humanism. When humanistic psychology was seduced by the touchy-feely encounter group movement, Koch derided its technology of authenticity as shamelessly meretricious. Later, when postmodern humanists of deconstruction and textual analysis began to be heard in psychology, Koch wryly expressed his preference for the old-fashioned kind of humanism. Koch's interests and his conception of the domain of psychology thus transcended scientific and humanistic labels and boundaries. To be good science, human psychological studies have to start with and be guided by openness to all aspects of being human. No less in the present and future than during his lifetime, the implications of Koch's vision of psychological inquiry warrant discerning and disciplined attention.     

Rortian Realism

This paper motivates and defends “Rortian realism,” a position that is Rortian in respect of its underlying philosophical theses but non‐Rortian in terms of the lessons it draws from these for cultural politics. The philosophical theses amount to what the paper calls Rorty's “anti‐representationalism” (AR), arguing that AR is robust to critique as being anti‐realist, relativist, or sceptical, invoking Rorty's historicism/ethnocentrism as part of the defence. The latter, however, creates problems for Rorty in so far as his reformative views on the nature of philosophical and academic activity are meant to be foisted on an academy that ex hypothesi holds views different from these. The paper suggests we can motivate a different conception of the consequences of AR more amenable to the academy: Rortian realism, a view that makes greater concessions to realism and a kind of scientific naturalism than Rorty would like, but that for those very reasons is more likely to allow AR to prevail.     

The Emergence and Development of Bekhterev's Psychoreflexology in Relation to Wundt's Experimental Psychology

After its foundation, the Laboratory for Experimental Psychology at Leipzig University became an international center for psychological research, attracting students from all over the world. The Russian physiologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev (1857–1927) was one of Wilhelm Wundt's students in 1885, and after returning to Russia he continued enthusiastically his experimental research on mental phenomena. However, he gradually distanced himself from Wundt's psychological project and developed a new concept of psychology: the so‐called Objective Psychology or Psychoreflexology. The goal of this paper is to analyze Bekhterev's position in relation to Wundt's experimental psychology, by showing how the former came to reject the latter's conception of psychology. The results indicate that Bekhterev's development of a philosophical program, including his growing interest in establishing a new Weltanschauung is the main reason behind his divergence with Wundt, which is reflected in his conception of scientific psychology. Despite this, Wundt remained alive in Bekhterev's mind as an ideal counterpoint.     

From Rechtsphilosophie to Staatsökonomie: Hegel and the philosophical foundations of political economy

Although Hegel is increasingly recognized as an important figure in the history of political economy, his economic views are never strictly economic. In contrast to other modern thinkers, his primary concern is not the economic efficacy of different practices or institutions but the extent to which they enable and promote the development of human freedom. In this article, I argue that Hegel's pioneering critique of modern liberal economy plays out simultaneously at a more empirical level, corresponding to the properly economic dimension of his analysis, and at a deeper, logical level, which grounds and guides his position. Moreover, I argue that the tendency to favour the first of these levels, found in most of the literature on Hegel's economic thought, reduces the Philosophy of Right's main argument to a more or less vigorous plea for economic interventionism. Against this kind of reading, I show that a renewed focus on the text's logical structure reveals a different and more radical philosophical proposition, which has yet to be fully acknowledged. In particular, I argue that Hegel's dialectical logic leads him beyond the liberalism-interventionism debate, towards a qualitatively different conception of social and economic relations     

Does empirical moral psychology rest on a mistake?

Many philosophers assume that philosophical theories about the psychological nature of moral judgment can be confirmed or disconfirmed by the kind of evidence gathered by natural and social scientists (especially experimental psychologists and neuroscientists). I argue that this assumption is mistaken. For the most part, empirical evidence can do no work in these philosophical debates, as the metaphorical heavy-lifting is done by the pre-experimental assumptions that make it possible to apply empirical data to these philosophical debates. For the purpose of this paper, I emphasize two putatively empirically-supported theories about the psychological nature of moral judgment. The first is the Sentimental Rules Account, which is defended by Shaun Nichols. The second is defended by Jesse Prinz, and is a form of sentimentalist moral relativism. I show that both of the arguments in favour of these theories rely on assumptions which would be rejected by their philosophical opponents. Further, these assumptions carry substantive moral commitments and thus cannot be confirmed by further empirical investigation. Because of this shared methodological assumption, I argue that a certain form of empirical moral psychology rests on a mistake.     

Carnap on theoretical terms: structuralism without metaphysics

Both realists and instrumentalists have found it difficult to understand (much less accept) Carnap’s developed view on theoretical terms, which attempts to stake out a neutral position between realism and instrumentalism. I argue that Carnap’s mature conception of a scientific theory as the conjunction of its Ramsey sentence and Carnap sentence can indeed achieve this neutral position. To see this, however, we need to see why the Newman problem raised in the context of recent work on structural realism is no problem for Carnap’s conception; and we also need to locate Carnap’s work on theoretical terms within his wider program of Wissenschaftslogik or the logic of science.     

A defence of epistemic responsibility: why laziness and ignorance are bad after all

It has been suggested, by Michael Bishop, that empirical evidence on human reasoning poses a threat to the internalist account of epistemic responsibility, which he takes to associate being epistemically responsible with coherence, evidence-fitting and reasons-responsiveness. Bishop claims that the empirical data challenges the importance of meeting these criteria by emphasising how it is possible to obtain true beliefs by diverging from them. He suggests that the internalist conception of responsibility should be replaced by one that properly reflects how we can reliably obtain true beliefs. In this paper I defend the internalist account by arguing that Bishop has misinterpreted the relevance of the empirical evidence to the philosophical theory. I argue that the empirical data actually provides support for the idea that, if we want to obtain true beliefs by being responsible, we should aim to meet the criteria that internalists associate with epistemic responsibility.     

Law Without Legitimacy or Justification? The Flawed Foundations of Philosophical Anarchism

In this article, I examine A. John Simmons’s philosophical anarchism, and specifically, the problems that result from the combination of its three foundational principles: the strong correlativity of legitimacy rights and political obligations; the strict distinction between justified existence and legitimate authority; and the doctrine of personal consent, more precisely, its supporting assumptions about the natural freedom of individuals and the non-natural states into which individuals are born. As I argue, these assumptions, when combined with the strong correlativity and strict distinction theses, undermine Simmons’s claim, which is central to his philosophical anarchism, that a state may be justified in enforcing the law, even if illegitimate or unjustified in existing.     

Understanding the representational mind: A phenomenological perspective

This paper reflects on the relationship between Husserlian phenomenology and scientific psychology. It tries to show how phenomenological results have relevance and validity for present-day cognitive developmental psychology by arguing that consciousness matters in the study of the representational mind. The paper presents some methodological remarks concerning empirical or applied phenomenology; it describes the conception of an exploratory developmental study with 3 to 9-year-old children viewing a complex pictorial display; it then illustrates how a phenomenological interpretation of the data works; in conclusion, it sketches a view of realism about conscious experiences which is taken to be inherent in the phenomenological perspective of understanding the representational mind.     

Dewey Between the Lines: George Kelly and the Pragmatist Tradition

In his own somewhat sly and sardonic way, George Kelly always insisted that personal construct theory could not be assimilated into any other kind of psychology. We believe this was not an example of Kelly being difficult or protecting his turf, but that he resisted such efforts at categorization because he formulated personal construct psychology from an entirely different set of assumptions than those which have traditionally guided the construction of psychological theories. We begin by looking at the unusual life path Kelly took in order to enter the field of psychology and what it reveals about the independent turn of mind he brought to creating his own theory of personality. We then examine what we believe is the single most important influence on Kelly's thinking—the tradition of American pragmatism, in general, and the philosophy and psychology of John Dewey, in particular. We argue that Kelly embraced the pragmatic epistemological assumptions that guided Dewey's work, and that he used these assumptions to develop the only pragmatic theory of personality and psychotherapy. It is, in fact, the influence of Dewey and the pragmatists that makes personal construct psychology so different from and, at times, more difficult to understand than other, more traditional, “realist” theories, but it is also this pragmatic orientation that makes Kelly's theory such an important contribution.     

THE CHARACTER OF VIRTUE: ANSWERING THE SITUATIONIST CHALLENGE TO VIRTUE ETHICS

Neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics makes essential reference to the notion of a stable, robust character‐trait. It also claims to be constrained by at least a minimal degree of psychological realism. Recent developments in empirical psychology have drawn into question the evidence for the existence of such robust traits, arguing that it rests on what has been called a ‘fundamental attribution error’. Virtue ethics has thus seemingly been made vulnerable to criticisms that it is essentially dependent on an erroneous, folk‐psychological, notion of character and, so, must either abandon their characteristic notion of virtue or forego any pretensions to psychological realism. I develop a two‐pronged response to this objection. First, I argue that there is reason to question much of the empirical evidence and that such evidence as does exist can easily be accommodated by virtue ethics. Next, I argue that even if we allow that neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethical theories does sometimes presuppose a stronger conception of character‐traits than is warranted by the evidence, this does not significantly undermine the virtue ethicist's project.     

Prototypes and conceptual analysis

In this paper, I explore the implications of recent empirical research on concept representation for the philosophical enterprise of conceptual analysis. I argue that conceptual analysis, as it is commonly practiced, is committed to certain assumptions about the nature of our intuitive categorization judgments. I then try to show how these assumptions clash with contemporary accounts of concept representation in cognitive psychology. After entertaining an objection to my argument, I close by considering ways in which conceptual analysis might be altered to accord better with the empirical work.Thanks are due to John Bickle, Marian David, Terence Horgan, Stephen Stich, John Tienson, Paul Weithman and an anonymous referee for several helpful comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at Central Michigan University, The University of Memphis, The University of Mississipi and The Second International Conference on Cognitive Science at San Sebastian, Spain. A great deal of useful feedback was provided by these audiences.     

Daydreams and Anarchy: A Defense of Anomalous Mental Causation

Must mental properties figure in psychological causal laws if they are causally efficacious? And do those psychological causal laws give the essence of mental properties? Contrary to the prevailing consensus, I argue that, on the usual conception of laws that is in play in these debates, there are in fact lawless causally efficacious properties both in and out of the philosophy of mind. I argue that this makes a great difference to the philosophical relevance of empirical psychology. 1 begin by making the case that revolutions and hurricanes are lawless phenomena, before arguing for a similar thesis about creativity, love, courage, dreams, daydreams, and musings. Furthermore, the empirical research on these phenomena suggests that the philosophical issues may be independent of what empirical psychology can tell us.     

Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness

In this paper two philosophical issues are discussed that hold special interest for empirical researchers studying happiness. The first issue concerns the question of how the psychological notion(s) of happiness invoked in empirical research relates to those traditionally employed by philosophers. The second concerns the question of how we ought to conceive of happiness, understood as a purely psychological phenomenon. With respect to the first, I argue that 'happiness', as used in the philosophical literature, has three importantly different senses that are often confused. Empirical research on happiness concerns only one of these senses, and serious misunderstandings about the significance of empirical results can arise from such confusion. I then argue that the second question is indeed philosophical and that, in order to understand the nature of (what I call) psychological happiness, we need first to determine what a theory of happiness is supposed to do: what are our theoretical and practical interests in the notion of happiness? I sketch an example of how such an inquiry might proceed, and argue that this approach can shed more light on the nature and significance of happiness (and related mental states) than traditional philosophical methods.     

Saint Thomas Aquinas’ ontological epistemology as clarified realism: The relating of subject to object for ontological knowledge

The Kantian revolution limited the possibility of ontological knowledge, severing subject from thing as is evident in its legacy in both continental and analytic philosophy. Consequently, if a thing cannot be known as it is, the philosophical status of empirical science as a study about existing natural things should be called into question. It could be construed, for instance, that a scientific theory is a construction about something to which the subjective constructor can never have ontological access. But, when empirical scientists develop evidence-based proofs for their theories the assumption of realism usually stands: scientific theories constructed by scientists are actually purported to represent natural entities back to these constructing scientists. Given that there is a danger of philosophy becoming isolated from empirical science, we attempt to bridge the gap between philosophical discourse and science-in-praxis through a recapitulation of Aquinas’ ontological epistemology. Aquinas argued for a clarified realism in which the epistemic is construed as an intersection between the thinking subject and the object. Contrary to naïve realism, then, it will be explicated how Aquinas’ realism was a precursor of “critical realism”, as he discerned the complex interaction of thinking subject and the being of the object as both bearing on the production of knowledge.     

Three Paradigms of Scientific Realism: A Truthmaking Account

This paper investigates the nature of scientific realism. I begin by considering the anomalous fact that Bas van Fraassen's account of scientific realism is strikingly similar to Arthur Fine's account of scientific non-realism. To resolve this puzzle, I demonstrate how the two theorists understand the nature of truth and its connection to ontology, and how that informs their conception of the realism debate. I then argue that the debate is much better captured by the theory of truthmaking, and not by any particular theory of truth. To be a scientific realist is to adopt a realism-relevant account of what makes true the scientific theories one accepts. The truthmaking approach restores realism's metaphysical core—distancing itself from linguistic conceptions of the debate—and thereby offers a better characterization of what is at stake in the question of scientific realism.