Abstract
This paper outlines how the act psychologies might retain the categories identified by the psychological nouns (“emotion,”“personality,”“intelligence,”“ambition,” etc.). Act psychologies lack appeal in part because they seem to omit these latter categories. But the omission is only apparent. The act psychologies retain the psychological nouns but depart from the traditional practice of locating intelligence, personality, and the like, inside the organism. In seeking to explicate this departure, the present paper discusses two features of the structure of conduct. These features, the species-individual and means-end structures, lead to the suggestion that the psychological nouns identify classes of classes of means-end particulars. The paper concludes that this possibility might offer an attractive alternative to the tradition of assuming intraorganismic referents for the psychological nouns.
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Lee, V.L. Act Psychologies and the Psychological Nouns. Psychol Rec 36, 167–177 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394938
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394938