The Epistemological Crisis in Psychology

JOHN G. KUNA, PSYD AND ASSOCIATES

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The Epistemological Crisis in Psychology

The Problem

Psychology seeks to: Work within a heuristic of a scientific method Maintain objectivity Predict behavior Cross cultural applications

Behaviorism tried, but had difficulty with:o Objectivity in measuring internal stateso Testability of immeasurable data (e.g., Memory)o Plethora of variables that influence human behavior make

prediction nearly impossible

The Results? The fragmentation of psychology. No single unified methodology (behaviorists, social

cognitivists, etc. etc.)

Mini-lit review of crisis literature: Ironically, even this is disjointed! Institutional/disciplinary issues to blame (Stam, 2004). Unified epistemology needed (Staats, 1983). Unified methodology needed (Kantor, 1979).

All this philosophy is great, but so what? Aren’t we still making progress in psychology

as a scientific body of knowledge? Thomas Kuhn (1996): “any science that holds

competing paradigms is only a pre-science until a uniform methodology is adopted.”

Popular opinion of psychologists as non-scientists (Leighton), leads to lack of credibility (Driver-Linn, 2003; Rychlak, 2005).

Practical issues: Advisement of policy makers Actual therapeutic work!

What is science?

What is first in intention is last in execution

What is science?

What type of science should Psychology aspire to be? Husserl: human beings are quite distinct from any other type

of object found in the physical world, and therefore require a unique methodology for accurate study

Should it even aspire to a science at all?

Or maybe some sort of tertiary, hybrid?

What is science

Not inductive! Fallacy of Newtonian physics. Apple falls, then inferences about the nature of

gravity are formed post facto.

Karl Poppper (1935) hypothetico-deductive system

Form hypotheses first Then careful experimentation Finally, discrete falsification

What is science?

Falsification Assumes inductive evidence is limited (cannot observe

all things at all times) Swan example Thus, only one instance of falsification is needed to

disprove an inductively based methodology

What is science?

K. Popper’s scientific method.

Six components 1. Empirical Evidence: Gathered through direct

observation, does not rely on belief or argumentation. 2. Objectivity: Data should speak for itself, even if it

differs from the investigators original intent. 3. Control extraneous variables: necessary to validly

establish cause (IV) and effect (DV).

What is science?

Six components of science, cont. 4. Prediction of future occurrences of the phenomenon. 5. Hypothesis testing:

hypothesis be made prior to the experiment, serves as a prediction, and is derived from theory. Both a Null and Alternative hypothesis must be

operationally defined and unambiguous so that they can be tested and replicated.

6. Replication: Ensures accuracy and confidence in creating a scientific

body of knowledge. Intense discoveries that cannot be replicated should not be

accepted by the scientific community.

Objective-Subjective divide

A problem for the hard sciences as well! Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (1958):

The scientific method of analyzing, explaining and classifying has become conscious of its limitations, which arise out of the fact that by its intervention science alters and refashions the object of investigation (p. 29).

Two extremes in psychology: Only what is observable and replicable is real

(behaviorists). Focus on the person through empathic interaction

with the individual (Humanistic approach of C. Rogers, A. Maslow). Argue that scientific psychology tends to objectify the person.

Bridging the gap-Lonergan’s transcendental Method

Alarcon (1997) , proposes three principles for a unified psychological methodology: 1. Philosophical anthropology 2. The domains within which psychology ought to

operate 3. Unified methodology

Lonergan--Background

Philosophically: He attempted to construct an epistemology that would

Take into account the Enlightenment ‘turn to the subject’,

While simultaneously avoiding the Kantian dilemma of system that collapses in on itself

Thus, metaphysics is no longer first in philosophy, but rather cognitional theory is the foundation for epistemology

Lonergan

Underlying presuppositions: 1. An unrestricted, unlimited, detached and

disinterested desire to know. 2. a normative and fixed pattern of recurring mental

and cognitional operations involved in the process of inquiry and investigation.

3. Immanent norms of intelligence, reasonableness and responsibility that guide the cognitive dimension of human consciousness (Lonergan, 1992).

Lonergan-Consciousness

Explicate first consciousness, then derive cognitional operations from that.

Conscious intentionality and cognitional operations, then, form the basis for a universal methodology (and a subsequent metaphysics and ethics).

Current trends in Consciousness

Mini lit review Again, current trends reveal the fractured and multi-

faceted account of consciousness, for instance: Searle (1997), appeals to perceptual models to

describe the imperceptibleness of consciousness. Chalmers (1996) argues that while attempts to explain

the invisible are all well and good, but what is physical is ultimately real.

Others (Dennett, 1991; Griffin, 1991; Hay, 2007) consistently maintain that mental images and representations are necessary to explain the invisibleness of consciousness

Lonergan on Consciousness

Consciousness: “interior experience, of oneself and one’s acts, where experience is taken in the strict sense of the word” (Lonergan, 2002, p. 157). ‘Strict sense’ insofar as it differs from an undefined

knowledge

Experiential insofar as it is a direct awareness of data, which initiates a process of intellectual inquiry to understand what has been experienced and to pronounce judgment on its reality.

Reflective vs. Non-Reflective Consciousness

Non-Reflective: Conscious awareness of awareness Does NOT imply an object, but rather it is an experiential awareness of one’s own

subjectivity. Introspection does not reveal subject as subject, but

rather only reveals the subject as object (try it!)

Non-Reflective Consciousness

Non-reflexive consciousness is achieved by increasing one’s activity:

An example: When I hear my dog bark, I can recognize not only the sounds [external stimuli], but I am also able to attend to the fact that I am hearing. Again, I can decide that my dog needs to be taken outside. In this instance, I am aware not only of the decision to take him out, but also of my own cognitional state of deciding and finally of myself as deciding (Lonergan, 1967, pp. 175-176).

Non-Reflective Consciousness

Demarcation from prevailing theories based on perceptual models: Not the same as direct knowing. Perceptual analogies fail

here, for in non-reflexive consciousness, there is no subject-object relationship governing the cognitive processes.

For Lonergan, Non-reflective consciousness is simply objectless awareness, with no objectified aspect of self.

A Crucial distinction (between reflective and non reflective)! It is from the subjective and conscious awareness (non-

reflecting consciousness) from which the objectification of cognitional acts of reflecting consciousness emerge.

Reflective consciousness and Intentionality Analysis

Reflective consciousness always implies an object.

The objectification of subjective stimuli, both external and internal, occurs as one’s reflexive consciousness unfolds through four distinct levels. Levels here are to be understood metaphorically. Spatial and temporal analogies of human conscious

tend to fail since they imply an ocular component to consciousness.

Reflective consciousness and Intentionality Analysis

The acts of reflexive consciousness that intends both internal and external objects are governed by four distinct levels of intentionality. 1. Conscious awareness

More than mere attending to data (whether internal or external), but implies an orientation of wonder, amazement, curiosity: the detached, disinterested, desire to know (Lonergan, 1992, p. 10).

2. Intelligent understanding understanding and insights produced by intelligently

probing the data received through conscious awareness opens up then further questions that can only be answered by advancement to the third level of reasonable judgment.

Intentionality Analysis, cont.

4 levels of conscious intentionality 3. Reasonable judgment

the insights, hypotheses, and theories propounded in the second level of conscious intentionality, intelligent understanding, are put to the strict demands of rational judgment

4. Responsible decision responsible decision implies that human beings can

freely choose a course of action that is either consistent or inconsistent to what has been determined to be reasonable understanding (second level) to the attended to data (Lonergan, 1972).

Empirical verification

Attempts to deny Lonergan’s cognitional structure would imply that the commentator has not attended to the data, is unintelligent, unreasonable, or sound asleep.

Attempts to refute Lonergan’s claims would necessarily involve the operations outlined above, namely—attending to the data presented, grasping the intelligibility of the theory, and making a reasonable judgment of its veracity (Lonergan, 1972, p. 17).

Transcendental Method

What is a method? A normative pattern of recurrent and related

operations yielding cumulative and progressive results” (Lonergan, 1972, p. 4). cumulative results entail a sustained succession of

discoveries progressive results indicate synthesis of each new insight

that builds upon previously validated insights Where the normative pattern from which the rules of the

methodology may be derived are cognitional operations outlined above.

Transcendental Method, cont.

“However true it is that one attends, understands, judges, decides differently in the natural sciences, in the human sciences…still the difference in no way imply or suggest a transition from attention to inattention, from intelligence to stupidity, from reasonableness to silliness, from responsibility to irresponsibility” (Lonergan, 1972, p. 23).

Transcendental Method, cont.

“Transcendental method offers a key to unified science…in harmony with all development is the human mind itself which effects the developments. In unity with all fields, however disparate, is again the human mind, which operates in all fields and in radically the same fashion in each” (Lonergan, 1972, p. 24).

Self-Appropriation

Self-appropriation as key for methodological control

Where self-appropriation is understood to be: heightening one’s conscious intentionality, directing one’s awareness to one’s own conscious and cognitional operations (Lonergan, 1972).

Self-Appropriation

Self-Appropriation enables one to employ the transcendental precepts: Be Attentive Be Intelligent Be Reasonable Be Responsible“The derivation of the categories is a matter of the human…subject effecting self-appropriation and employing this heightened consciousness both as a basis for methodological control…as well as an a priori whence he can understand other men [and women], their social relations, their history, their religion, their rituals, their destiny (Lonergan, 1972, p. 292).”

Recap

Psychological methodology and epistemology are completed fragmented

We investigated the scientific methods of the natural sciences to develop a heuristic for methodological control.

Historically, psychology has struggled to unify the objective and subjective aspects of the study of human behavior.

Recap, cont.

Lonergan’s distinction between reflective and non-reflective consciousness provides a framework within which one can attend to one’s own cognitional operations.

From the cognitional operations outlined above, one can derive a methodology—basic patterns and operations that are employed, cross culturally, in every cognitional enterprise.

Recap, cont.

Thus, by grounding objectivity within one’s own subjectivity and rational self-consciousness, Lonergan’s method provides a plausible, reliable and indeed first person empirical alternative to the varied epistemological and methodological approaches to the study of psychology.

In other words, such an approach mediates between the two extremes mentioned above (behaviorists and the humanistic approach a la C. Rogers).

One might expect such a view to have a certain appeal to psychologists.

Questions, comments, conerns?

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