西方心理学中的现代主义、后现代主义及其超越

当代西方心理学中存在着现代主义取向和后现代主义取向的对立和冲突。冯特以来的西方心理学流派大多属于现代主义的范畴。现代主义的特征是：(1)重视科学的价值，强调科学的方法；(2)信奉经验主义；(3)个体的中心地位。后现代主义取向的核心是社会建构主义，其主要特征为：(1)批判的倾向，对现代心理学的理论基础进行解构；(2)把社会建构论作为认识论的基础；(3)促进心理学实践的四个转变。尽管两种倾向形成鲜明的对照，但两者也存在着一些共同的方面，从而构成了超越两者的基础。两种取向的超越需要以科学实在论作为元理论的基础，并需要双方互补、合作和开放的态度。

MODERNISM,POSTMODERNISM IN WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY AND BEYOND

This paper considered confrontations and conflicts between modernism and postmodernism in western psychology, describing the characteristics of modernist psychology and postmodern psychology, and searching the way beyond them. Almost all the schools of psychology, appearing after the establishment of Wundt" experimental psychology, except postmodern psychology, belong to modernism, including not only mainstream psychology, but also the humanist approach in psychology. The characteristics of modernism in psychology are: (1) it pays exclusive attention to the value of science and believes that we can uncover the objective truth about human psychology and behavior by scientific methods; (2) it accepts empiricism as its epistemological foundation and emphasizes observation and experimentation in psychological investigation;(3) it puts the individual in the center of its attention, and individual mind becomes the subject matter of psychology . In contrast, the postmodern approach in psychology demonstrates its characteristics as following: (1) postmodern approach deconstructs the modernist psychology by criticizing its foundationalism, essentialism and dualism, and shows itself as anti-realism and anti-scientism. (2) it takes social constructionism as its epistemological foundation, and explains knowledge, truth and meaning as a product of a social construction. (3) modernist psychology has typically regarded language as the passive vehicle for our thoughts and emotions, but from the point of view of postmodernism, language is more than simply a way of expressing ourselves. In addition, postmodern approach claims three other kinds of shift in the practices of psychology, that is, the shift from individual to relationships, from an objective world to a world of social construction, and from empiricist methodology to discourse analysis. In the author's opinion, although there are sharp differences between the two approaches, there are still some common places between them on which we may integrate them and go beyond their opposites. We may take the scientific realism as the epistemological foundation for the integration. For the purpose of the integration, the attitude of the openness, co-operation and tolerance are needed.