Abstract
Three issues that are raised by Smedslund’s psychologic are addressed in this chapter: First, the analytic-synthetic distinction, although briefly addressed by Smedslund himself, has not been thoroughly appreciated. I argue that it is crucial to understanding a project like the psychologic. Second, I place Smedslund’s work in a historical perspective derived from the debates surrounding psychologism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century initiative to found human reason on a series of logical laws. I present a short history of this complicated chapter in philosophy. By placing psychologic in a historical perspective, it is clear that Smedslund’s notion of the a priori conceptual structure of psychology has some very influential forerunners, even if they constitute a different project in other ways. These historical forerunners provide a number of crucial lessons for contemporary psychologic as well as psychology. Third, I emphasize that following Wittgenstein, the nature of language throws up some serious obstacles to psychologic as it is currently conceived. Although Smedslund has begun to respond to his critics who have noted this problem, Smedslund does not go far enough in addressing this fundamental question. Finally, I agree with Smedslund that much of psychology is pseudoempirical but I see this as a result of the nature of psychological theorizing with its commitment to an indeterminate functional ontology.
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Notes
- 1.
The version of psychologism that I discuss here is the original concerns with psychologism as it was expressed in the late nineteenth century (Kusch, 1995). The use of the term by Sugarman (2017; Chap. 16) is quite different and represents one of the many generalizations of the term in the twentieth century (see Kusch 1995, 2015 for a discussion).
- 2.
See also chapters by Martin B. Smedlund and by Michael McEachrane (respectively, Chaps. 8 and 9 this volume).
- 3.
Smedslund (1991, p. 326) provides a formal definition of what is “pseudoempirical” which states, in part, that researchers take propositions to be empirical when they are in fact a priori and noncontingent. I take pseudoempiricism to include tests of hypotheses that cannot possibly be tested because they do not specify precise objects of investigation (see conclusion below).
- 4.
- 5.
Kusch’s 1995 volume makes clear that this is not an arcane debate about the relationship between psychology and logic but involved the allocation of chairs of philosophy to experimental psychologists. Philosophers fought back to protect their discipline using accusations of ‘psychologism’ to deter the appointment of psychologists. In the meantime the term “psychologism” came to refer to a wide variety of ‘errors.’
- 6.
I am indebted to Tobias Lindstad for pointing me to this passage (despite the fact that I had read it prior to its publication as the editor of the journal that published Smedslund 2012a).
- 7.
To be clear, contemporary forms of the debate in fact have little in common with late nineteenth and early twentieth century accounts of psychologism save for a family resemblance that appeals to naturalism or materialism as foundational moments for psychology.
- 8.
I am aware that the notion of “form of life” in Wittgenstein’s work is in fact a contested notion. However in this case, the question of a language game as an agreement about a form of life rather than an opinion about the contents of language are a propos (see Biletzki and Matar 2018).
- 9.
Stapel was a professor, and eventually dean, who held positions at two Dutch universities and fabricated data over the length of his career as an academic psychologist. According to the website Retraction Watch, at least 58 of his articles have been retracted from the published literature since the investigations into his activities began in 2011 (see http://retractionwatch.com/category/diederik-stapel/)
- 10.
The other is the problem of reflexivity, which will need considerably more space to expand on than is available here (however, see Stam 1996). In short, reflexivity (which is yet another contested concept) refers to the claim that in order to understand, research or practice psychology one must be an apt participant in the world/culture/community where psychology makes sense. As such psychological theories are always historically bound claims that are embedded in particular worlds. On such an account, psychologic could never claim to be an absolute set of axioms applicable across time and geography.
- 11.
It is not that psychologists have some disagreement about the ontological status of their objects of investigation by, for example, being eliminativists who must first define features of the world in functional terms. It is more that it just is not discussed or debated but taken for granted that the kind of indeterminate functionalism is what counts as psychological theorizing. In this way psychology in general, with notable exceptions, has continued a fuzzy framework of vague ontological entities whose status remains of no immediate concern to the discipline, so long as it can carry on business as usual.
- 12.
Which is not to deny that there are pockets of regularities, phenomena that recur predictably, and “findings” that are easily reproduced. Mostly, however, they have no relation to a larger frame of psychological understanding.
- 13.
Kim’s aims with his arguments, however, are entirely different from mine and seeks to ground a non-reductive version of physicalism. However, he ultimately concludes that such a perspective cannot account for the so-called phenomenal (qualitative) aspects of mental states.
- 14.
Perceptual and psychophysical cases are more complex and hence not included in this discussion.
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Stam, H.J. (2020). Jan Smedslund and Psychologic: The Problem of Psychologism and the Nature of Language. In: Lindstad, T., Stänicke, E., Valsiner, J. (eds) Respect for Thought. Theory and History in the Human and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43066-5_8
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