Theory & Psychology

R.G. Collingwood's antagonism to scientific psychology is notorious. As a philosopher, especially an Oxford philosopher, such antagonism was hardly exceptional. Yet, in fact, Collingwood's attitude to the new science of psychology was remarkably ambivalent. He showed a keen interest in developments in the new science, regarded Freud as one of the greatest living scientists, and indeed himself pursued a full course of analysis. Nevertheless, Collingwood's criticisms of scientific psychology were searching, and involved a variety of distinct (though largely complementary) arguments. In relation to particular theorists, he objected to self-contradictions, pursuit of `red herrings' arising from prevarication in the use of established terms, and `plagiarism'. More fundamentally, he rejected the `covert scepticism' of psychology in its adoption of a purely empirical, `non-criteriological', approach to the study of thinking, an approach he regarded as appropriate solely to a science of `feeling'. Closely linked to this was his other main criticism of psychology, its presumption that the objects of study are transhistorical universals. In The Idea of History, however, Collingwood raised, though hardly elaborated, an alternative conception for a scientific psychology, as an essentially historical study, whose aim `would be to detect types or patterns of activity, repeated over and over again in history itself' (Collingwood, 1946, p. 224). Collingwood's historical conception of psychology is explored in the light of his objections to scientific psychology.

The paper critically examines the inferential logic underlying Mill's methods of agreement and difference as it is applied in present-day behavioral science where the methods in question are embodied in the socalled `treatment-control random design' (Mayo, 1996). The reputed goal of the design is to be able to arrive at judgments of sufficient causation (e.g. `X is a sufficient cause of [condition for] Y'). This is accomplished by `neutralizing' the influence of the extraneous variables inherent in a particular (experimental) set of conditions by way of creating another (control) set of conditions which is identical to the experimental prototype in every way except for one element (the independent variable). Any difference between the effects of the two sets (the experimental effect) is, then, said to reflect or be a product of the independent variable in question. As I argue, the above-mentioned inference is rooted in the generally tacit assumption of effect independence, that is, the view that the `extraneous' and the `independent variable' components comprising the experimental condition end up exerting completely separate or isolated effects on the dependent variable under consideration. It is argued that the said assumption, given both the inherent conceivability and the empirical ubiquity of various interaction effects, has no logical foundation and, thus, cannot be affirmed with any degree of certainty. The non-acceptance of the assumption calls into question the logical viability of clinical process research.

The ascription of normative mental states is an integral part of the psychology of development and personality. Pragmatic rules for the ascription of mental states are outlined and a distinction is made between direct and counterdefined mental states. According to these rules, counterdefined mental states can only be ascribed to persons in a meaningful way when certain conditions hold. Violations of the rules are called pseudoascriptions. Six counterdefined groups of mental states are discussed: secure, self-confident, authentic, free, intentional and identity. It is argued that certain psycho-social conditions create the need for ascriptions of these mental states, and that pseudoascriptions give rise to Cartesian narratives of the self. The rules for the ascription of counterdefined states has implications for the universality claims of normative descriptions of developmental psychology.

Wittgenstein is famous for eschewing `scientific' explanations of language in philosophy and for commending, as an alternative, the examination of ordinary language, `the language of everyday'. `Scientific' explanations should be avoided, according to Wittgenstein, because they lead our attention into paradoxical ontologies and away from the one place where solutions and clear understandings will be found. This desire to avoid going into such ontological mires I term `going nowhere' and I suggest that it is one of the most insightful yet most misunderstood aspects of Wittgenstein's later work. This paper examines the arguments in favour of `going nowhere' and in the process rebuts the charge that Wittgenstein himself was involved in providing explanations. The discussion then focuses on the conceptual benefits to be gained in psychology from `going nowhere', including that of the demystification of psychological phenomena. Finally, the paper explores the sense in which `going nowhere' leaves psychologists in the `world' of ordinary language, an everyday `world' that is surprisingly robust in the face of irrealism without succumbing to the temptations of ontological realism.

In this article, we first examine current cognitive and social constructionist (SC) notions of self and we suggest that although `self is central to both approaches, it is not satisfactorily defined by either because the discussion of self remains at an epistemological level. The lack of genuine definition leads to difficulties specifying the properties `self possesses and to dilemmas about how to draw boundaries between public and private experience and explain that discourse is both personalized yet socially constructed. In the second part of the article, we examine phenomenological claims for an ontological position which transcends views of the self as a unit `known about' and which grounds self-knowledge in Being. Being is revealed by projects in the world and does not distinguish a priori between subject and object. Such divisions are invoked by projects such as `knowing the world' which require a temporal and spatial version of the world in order to come about. Projects are always in the process of coming about; therefore, self s defining quality is what it is about to become rather than what it is. Hence the finite self is an illusion; but a necessary one. We draw an analogy between the way the illusion of self is created and revealed through the project of `knowing the self' and the way a conjuror, through his/her lead-up, convinces an audience to see what should be there. Only because sense of self is an illusion, we speculate, can it exert such a powerful sway over our lives.

This comment on Parker's `Against Postmodernism: Psychology in Cultural Context' (Parker, 1998) contextualizes Parker's `againstism' (critical) stance. Parker characterizes postmodernism as theoretical play that has gone too far. Having exhausted its progressive potential, it's become a breeding ground for reactionary ideas now threatening psychology and a radical political agenda. Parker, recognizing that what he fears postmodernism has spawned are products of modernism, employs `dialectical critique' to historically contextualize postmodernism and its dangers. As postmodernists Parker takes to task, the authors argue that the relevant points of difference between him and them have more to do with their differing institutional locations and conception/practices of dialectics than with postmodernism.

Fred Newman and Lois Holzman's (2000) comment on my `Against PostModernism: Psychology in Cultural Context' (Parker, 1998) neatly displays the very dialectical processes they want to deny. Their refusal of `critical distance' exemplifies postModern avoidance of a political assessment of theories and practices (academic or otherwise), and their complaints about the institutional location of critiques of postmodernism draw attention to their own trajectory into the sphere of academic argument and into the arms of mystifying and depoliticizing postModern ideology.