Psychological Kinds and `Discourse Dependence'

Abstract

In this reply to Martin and Sugarman (2009), I challenge two of their core assertions: (a) that on my view acts of interpretation (which contain linguistic, discursive, or conceptual elements) can in principle yield only subjective psychological knowledge; and (b) that because humans are socioculturally situated beings, we cannot make claims about human psychological existence that are objective in the conventional sense that I and others use the term “objective.” I reject both of these assertions. In Psychology's Interpretive Turn (Held, 2007), I instead argue that (a) interpretive acts can in principle help us attain objective psychological knowledge, and (b) because humans are not “simply” “what they interpret themselves as being, within their historical and sociocultural contexts” (Martin & Sugarman, 2009, p. 116), an objectivist ontology and epistemology of human social/ psychological kinds can obtain.