The hyperspecialization, fragmentation, curious faddishness of major research topics, and perceived incommensurabilities of theories and methods in contemporary psychology are often seen as a discipline-specific crisis over our status as a single, identifiable “science.” These features can, however, be understood as the contemporary expression of early discussions by Giambattista Vico and Wilhelm Dilthey on the inherently self-referential basis of psychology, based on its emergent, even paradoxical, combination of the methods of physical science with the underlying themes of the humanities. This defining tension between “explanation” and “understanding” can account for these features of ostensible disunity, along with the unique importance of “ecological validity” in empirical methodology and the roots of theory in largely implicit worldviews and the matrix of ordinary language, quite different from the explicit role of law in physical science. Current neuroscience, although exemplifying “high consensus, rapid discovery” physical science, also illustrates this broader “hermeneutic” perspective.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AngyalA. (1965). Neurosis and treatment: A holistic theory. New York: Wiley.
2.
BambachC. (1995). Heidegger, Dilthey, and the crisis of historicism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
3.
Baron-CohenS. (2000). Autism: Deficits in folk psychology exist alongside superiority in folk physics. In Baron-CohenS., Tager-FlusbergH., & CohenD., Understanding other minds: Perspectives from developmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 73–82). New York: Oxford University Press.
4.
BionW. R. (1962). Learning from experience. London: Heineman.
5.
BittermanM. E. (1967). Learning in animals. In HelsonH. & BevanW., Contemporary approaches to psychology (pp. 139–179). Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
6.
BouveresseJ. (1995). Wittgenstein reads Freud: The myth of the unconscious. (CosmanC., Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
7.
BraunA., BalkinT., WesenstenN., CarsonR., VargaM., BaldwinP., (1997). Regional cerebral blood flow throughout the sleep-wake cycle. Brain, 120, 1173–1197.
8.
ChurchlandP. (1988). Reduction and the neurobiological basis of consciousness. In MarcelA. & Bisiach, Consciousness in contemporary science (pp. 273–304). Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon Press.
9.
CollinsR. (1994). Why the social sciences won't become high-consensus, rapid-discovery science. Sociological Forum, 9, 155–177.
10.
DanzigerK. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychology found its language. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
11.
DiltheyW. (1960). Dilthey's philosophy of existence (KlubackW. & WeinbaumM., Trans.). London: Vision Press. (Original work published 1911)
DiltheyW. (1988). Introduction to the human sciences (R. Betanzos, Ed. & Trans.). Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. (Original work published 1883)
14.
DollardJ., & MillerN. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
15.
Driver-LinnE. (2003). Where is psychology going? Structural fault lines revealed by psychologists' use of Kuhn. American Psychologist, 58, 269–278.
16.
ElderC. (1994). The grammar of the unconscious: The conceptual foundations of psychoanalysis. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
17.
ErdelyiH. (1985). Psychoanalysis: Freud's cognitive psychology. New York: Freeman.
18.
FarahM. (1988). Is visual imagery really visual? Overlooked evidence from neuropsychology. Psychological Review, 95, 307–317.
19.
FoucaultM. (1970). The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Pantheon Books.
20.
FreemanW. (1991). The physiology of perception. Scientific American, 264, 78–85.
21.
GardnerH. (1985). The mind's new science: A history of the cognitive revolution. New York: Basic Books.
22.
GardnerH. (1992). Scientific psychology: Should we bury or praise it?New Ideas in Psychology, 10, 179–190.
23.
GergenK. (1994). Exploring the postmodern: Perils or potentials?American Psychologist, 49, 412–416.
24.
GibsonJ. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
25.
HameroffS., KaszniakA., & ChalmersD.. (1999). Toward a science of consciousness: The third Tucson discussions and debates. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
26.
HeidbrederE. (1933). Seven psychologies. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
27.
HilgardE. (1987). Psychology in America: A historical survey. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
28.
HuntH. (1986). A cognitive reinterpretation of classical introspectionism. Annals of Theoretical Psychology, 4, 245–313.
29.
HuntH. (1989). The multiplicity of dreams: Memory, imagination, and consciousness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
30.
HuntH. (1995). On the nature of consciousness: Cognitive, phenomenological and transpersonal perspectives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
31.
HuntH. (2000). Experiences of radical personal transformation in mysticism, religious conversion, and psychosis. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 21, 353–398.
32.
HuntH. (2003). New multiplicities of dreaming and REMing. In Pace-SchottE., SolmsM., BlagroveM., & HarnadS., Sleep and dreaming: Scientific advances and reconsiderations (pp. 164–166). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
33.
HusserlE. (1962). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (GibsonW., Trans.). New York: Collier Books. (Original work published 1913)
34.
JamesW. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt.
35.
JamesW. (1907). Pragmatism. New York: Longmans, Green.
36.
JohnsonJ., GermerC., EfranJ., & OvertonW. (1988). Personality as the basis for theoretical predilections. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 824–835.
37.
KitcherP. (1992). Freud's dream: A complete interdisciplinary science of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
38.
KochS. (1999). Psychology in human context. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
39.
Koltko-RiveraM. (2004). The psychology of world views. Review of General Psychology, 8, 3–58.
40.
KuhnT. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
41.
LakoffG. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
42.
LeaheyT. (2000). A history of psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
43.
MaquetP., PetersJ., AertsJ., DelfioreG., DegeldreC., LuxenA., & FranckG. (1996). Functional neuroanatomy of human rapid-eye-movement sleep and dreaming. Nature, 383, 163–166.
44.
MillerG. (1985). The constitutive problem of psychology. In KochS. & LearyD., A century of psychology as science (pp. 40–45). New York: McGraw-Hill.
45.
NeisserU. (1976). Cognition and reality. San Francisco: Freeman.
46.
NisbettA., PengK., ChoiI., & NorenzayanA. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–310.
47.
PankseppJ. (1998). Affective neuroscience: The foundations of human and animal emotion. New York: Oxford University Press.
48.
PepperS. (1942). World hypotheses. Berkeley: University of California Press.
49.
PylyshynZ. (2002). Mental imagery: In search of a theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 25, 157–238.
50.
PiagetJ. (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. (GattegnoG. & HodgsonF., Trans.). New York: Norton.
51.
PiagetJ. (1970). Structuralism. (MaschlerC., Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.
52.
ReisbergD., & ChambersD. (1991). Neither pictures nor propositions: What can we learn from a mental image?Canadian Journal of Psychology, 45, 336–352.
53.
RickmanH. (1979). Wilhelm Dilthey. Berkeley: University of California Press.
54.
RicoeurP. (1984). Time and narrative. (Vol. 1, K. McLaughlin & D. Pellauer, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
55.
RicoeurP. (2004). Memory, history, forgetting. (BlameyK. & PellauerD., Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
56.
RortyR. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
57.
SassL. (1998). Schizophrenia, self-consciousness, and the modern mind. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 5, 543–565.
58.
SolmsM. (1997). The neuropsychology of dreams. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
59.
SpanosN., & BarberT. (1974). Toward a convergence in hypnosis research. American Psychologist, 7, 500–511.
60.
StaatsA. (1999). Unifying psychology requires new infrastructure, theory, method, and a research agenda. Review of General Psychology, 3, 3–13.
61.
StitchS. (1983). From folk psychology to cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
62.
VicoG. (1970). The new science (BerginT. & FischM., Trans.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1744)
63.
WellmanH., & InagakiK. (1997). The emergence of core domains of thought: Children's reasoning about physical, psychological, and biological phenomena. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
64.
WittgensteinL. (1953). Philosophical investigations. (AnscombeG., Trans.). New York: Macmillan.
65.
WittgensteinL. (1980). Remarks on the philosophy of psychology. (Vol. 1, AnscombeG., Trans.). Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell.
66.
YancharS. (2000). Progress, unity, and three questions about incommensurability. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 21, 243–259.
