Philosophy and History of Psychology

Selected works of Elizabeth Valentine

Elizabeth R Valentine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000082944
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria della psicologia

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions.

Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings together some of her best work over the last thirty years.

A specially written introduction gives an overview of her career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. The first section on 'Philosophy' covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology, introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. The second section, 'From Philosophy to History', includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout and James Sully, among others. The third section on 'History' covers Valentine's more recent historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional and biographical – and includes accounts of both Bedford College and University College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists.

The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to anyone with interests in these areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in conceptual and historical issues.

Part I
Philosophy

1 Philosophy and psychology

The background text raises the question of the relation between philosophy and psychology, in particular, whether this is one of dependence or independence. Can psychological experiments refute philosophical claims? Are psychological findings relevant to philosophy? Can philosophy alter psychology? Or do they pass each other by?

At first sight, a verdict of independence may be returned. It might be said that the two disciplines differ with respect to both their aims and methods. Thus, philosophy is concerned with conceptual clarification, with questions of the form: ‘What does it mean to say that x?’, whereas psychology is concerned with the empirical discovery of facts. Philosophy employs logic as its main tool, whereas psychology employs observation, quantification and controlled experimentation. Although there are numerous areas of apparent common subject-matter (for example, perception, thinking, language and knowledge), philosophical and psychological questions, although superficially similar, generally demand very different kinds of answer. There is a temptation for each to see the other as irrelevant. Thus, the question of the conditions for knowledge, for the philosopher, requires a consideration of the grounds of knowledge, and falls in the domain of epistemology, which may make recommendations as to how knowledge is best acquired. For the psychologist, on the other hand, an empirical study of the conditions in which knowledge is actually acquired is required. This exercise is descriptive, whereas the philosophical pursuit may be prescriptive. As Hume (1739) demonstrated, ‘ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is’.

However, facts cannot be discovered in a theoretical vacuum, nor are purely armchair theories of much use. The notion that the philosopher is concerned to discover what is the case in all possible worlds is incoherent. Quine (1951) demonstrated that it is difficult to defend the distinction between analytic and synthetic. Moreover, it is not easy to decide whether the relationship between an experience and the mechanism that mediates it is purely contingent or whether there are some necessary constraints. An example of the latter approach is O’Keeefe (1985) exploration of the analogy between the anatomy and physiology of the hippocampus and optical holography, on the grounds that similar principles of information storage are involved, such as non-topological representation; and his identification of consciousness with theta activity in the hippocampus, following an examination of parallels in their principles of operation. The unified and holistic nature of consciousness he identifies with the distributed nature of representation, such that information about an environment is stored across the entire surface of the hippocampus and each neuron may participate in the storage of many environments.

Two lines of evidence are open to the supporter of the ‘dependence’ position: philosophical influences on psychology and psychological influences on philosophy. That empirical discoveries are dependent on philosophical presuppositions is now not disputed: Kuhn demonstrated that any knowledge worth having is parasitic upon a particular paradigm. Philosophy can make important contributions to metapsychology, for example, by clarifying distinctions between different types of explanation. Boden’s (1972) explication of the relation between purposive and mechanistic explanations, or Gauld and Shotter’s (1977) contrast of hermeneutic and positivist approaches, are cases in point. Or it may make explicit the implications of particular views as, for example, in the distinction between type identity (the view that each mental event is a particular type of physical event), and token identity (the view that each mental event is one physical event), as applied to the mind-body problem. The former rules out artificial intelligence (i.e. the possession of mental properties by machines): the latter does not.

On the other hand, psychology may contribute facts that lead to the revision of commonly held philosophical notions. (Indeed, one might go so far as to say that the discovery of empirical facts is more likely than armchair logic to lead to conceptual revision.) Several of these relate to the role of consciousness in behaviour. Freud’s theories forced the acceptance of the notion of unconscious causes and reasons for behaviour. Work on subliminal perception has demonstrated the possibility of perception, or at least discrimination, without awareness. The same might be said of ‘blindsight’, where patients with damage to the occipital lobe can respond correctly to visual stimuli, given a forced choice, in situations where they lack the experience of seeing. An alternative interpretation in some cases may be that such people are aware but are unable to describe their experiences. They frequently report that they had a sort of feeling but not one that is normally called ‘seeing’. Perhaps a subdivision into two types of awareness is called for.

I conclude that, although the separatist view has prima facie validity, the integral view is the correct one and that the dependence is mutual.

References

1. Boden, M. (1972). Purposive explanation in psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
2. Gauld, A. and Shotter, J. (1977). Human action and its psychological investigation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
3. Hume, D. (1739). Treatise of human nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge (Ed.) Oxford: Clarendon.
4. O’Keefe, J. (1985). Is consciousness the gateway to the hippocampal cognitive map? A speculative essay on the neural basis of mind. In D. A. Oakley (Ed.) Brain and mind. London: Methuen.
5. Quine, W. V. O. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. Philosophical Review, 60, 20–43.

2 Psychology as science

Is psychology different from other sciences? Many of its theoretical problems are based on such a belief. What particular problems does the nature of its subject matter raise and how may they be resolved? In this chapter we shall introduce a number of issues that will be dealt with in more detail later in the book and indicate the main approaches to be taken to them. Our first concern will be to consider psychology as science and what assumptions underlie such treatment. For convenience, these may be classified as: (1) metaphysical – fundamental views about the nature of the subject matter, (2) theoretical – relating to the nature of scientific theories, and (3) methodological – pertaining to observation and experimentation.

Metaphysical assumptions

The scientific treatment of psychology assumes that its subject matter, the behaviour of humans and other animals, is similar in relevant respects to the subject matter of other sciences, namely, other natural phenomena. Human behaviour is indeed one of the most recently added areas of scientific investigation, partly due to theological objections: it was formerly considered sacred and not appropriate subject matter for science. (For the history of, and rationale for, the dichotomy between human beings as the possessors of a soul and reason, and other animals whose behaviour is guided by instinct, see Beach, 1955.) This dichotomy was challenged by Darwin’s assertion of continuity between human and infrahuman species, which led to the ‘brutalisation of Man’ and the ‘humanisation of animals’ (Peters, 1953).

An important respect in which this similarity must be assumed is that of determinism, which implies that behaviour is caused and is therefore predictable in principle. This appears to raise a difficulty for free will (how can a person be ‘free’ if behaviour is completely determined?) and similarly for moral responsibility (how can people be held responsible for their actions or praise and blame be apportioned?). Possible resolutions of this dilemma will be discussed in Chapter 2,¹ where it will be argued that the obverse of determinism is randomness, that free will may require rather than preclude determinism (the issue becoming one of the nature rather than the existence of determination) and that determinism does not imply compulsion, coercion or any mysterious force.

Determinism does imply predictability, at least in principle though not necessarily in practice. It is interesting to speculate as to whether our failures to predict are due to lack of skill on our part or the inherent nature of the subject matter. One successful prediction does not imply determinism (one might predict correctly by chance) but repeated successful prediction does imply an underlying regularity.

There are, however, a number of difficulties here, namely, areas of unpredictability. One of these is the possibility of the falsification of predictions (which has sometimes been used as an argument in favour of, or at least a test of, free will). The process of making a prediction may be subject to interfering effects which invalidate it. Attempts to take these into account lead to an infinite regress. A similar difficulty arises from Gödel’s theorem, which demonstrates that within some consistent systems of logic there are propositions that can be seen to be true but are not provable within the system. Neither of these, it will be argued, endangers determinism but both suggest that there are limits to the possible completeness of descriptions.

A discovery in quantum mechanics, namely, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, threw doubt on the universality of determinism: at the level of sub-atomic physics there are certain conjugate properties such as the position and momentum of a particle that cannot be simultaneously determined. Thus, there is some evidence for indeterminism in some aspects of the universe. The implications of this micro-level for the macro-level of human behaviour are, however, remote and obscure to say the least.

The possibility of prediction raises the possibility of control, and the consequent ethical problems of deciding who does the controlling, frequently levelled against Skinner’s Utopia (Skinner, 1948, 1971). In a symposium with Rogers (1956) the latter points out that science, and Skinner, must presuppose values. Science can investigate the determinants and effects of values and hence may provide knowledge relevant to their selection and implementation (see Day, 1976) but it cannot itself determine what they shall be (see also Heather, 1976, who argues forcefully against the notion that psychology is value free).

A fundamental problem in the philosophy of psychology has been whether laws of a different nature from those that apply to inorganic matter are required. An adequate solution to this problem may depend on advances in the philosophy of biology. Generally in science a mechanistic model has been preferred, which enables the prediction of future events on the basis of antecedent conditions and assumes the universal applicability of causal laws. (It is worth noting, however, that physics has advanced beyond causal explanations. Psychology has frequently sought to ape outdated models from other sciences.) There are a number of features of the behaviour of organisms that have raised doubts about the appropriateness of the mechanistic model. One is purposiveness, essential to survival, which involves flexibility, sensitivity to consequences and the direction of behaviour towards goals; this has tempted explanation by reference to future events. On first sight it looks as though purposive and causal explanations are diametrically opposed and, indeed, many philosophers have taken the view that actions are intentional and fundamentally different from movements or happenings. Much heat has been generated on this question. We shall argue that the two types of explanation are compatible but different. Indeed, purposive phenomena depend on mechanistic ones. It can thus be argued that the truth of a mechanistic account is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the truth of a purposive one.

This intentionality of behaviour leads on to the issue of consciousness. What treatment it should be afforded in psychology and its relation to behaviour are considered in Chapter 4, and its relation to physiological processes as an aspect of the mind-body problem in Chapter 3. One particularly thorny issue is whether conscious processes should properly be assigned causal efficacy. This view has not found much favour amongst psychologists for a variety of reasons: (1) the difficulty of operationalisation (i.e. specifying observations that would be relevant to the truth of statements about a concept); (2) the difficulty of independent identification of mental states and resulting circularity of explanations in these terms; and (3) the successful prediction of behaviour without recourse to conscious states, though this does not preclude the possibility o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I Philosophy
• Part II From philosophy to history
• Part III History
• Index