Abstract
This article presents the concept of epistemological alienation in order to examine psychology’s epistemological quantitative Paradigm and its connection to political reality. Politzer’s work of how mainstream psychology turns the first-person language of the individual into a mechanistic third-person pseudoscience is thoroughly discussed. Consequently, through some marginalized voices within psychology, it is examined how psychologists disregard the subject’s own voice, intentionality, meaning and judgment-forming mechanisms promoting instead a naturalistic and mechanistic language, based heavily on psychometric methodology and a false and altered account of psychology’s history. Psychology’s mechanistic language is compared to Marx’s concept of alienation, various aspects of which are discussed. The case is made that epistemological alienation is an internal process in psychological research that stems from and reinforces, essentializes and “epistemologizes” the alienation and the individualization of the modern subject.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, G., Estrada-Villalta, S., Sullivan, D., & Markus, H. R. (2019). The psychology of Neoliberalism and the neoliberalism of psychology. Journal of Social Issues, 75, 189–216. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12305.
Baumeister, R. F. (2008). Free will in scientific psychology. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00057.x.
Burkitt, I. (2019). Alienation and emotion: Social relations and estrangement in contemporary capitalism. Emotions and Society, 1(1), 51–66. https://doi.org/10.1332/263168919X15580836411841.
Danziger, K. (1994). Generative metaphor and the history of psychological discourse. In D. Leary (Ed.), Metaphors in the history of psychology (pp. 331–356). Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? Zero Books.
Freud, S. (1932). Libidinal types. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1(1), 3–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/21674086.1932.11925132.
Fromm, E. (1968). Marx’s contribution to the knowledge of man. Social Science Information, 7(3), 7–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901846800700301.
Fromm, E. (2008). The Sane Society. Repr). Routledge [First published in 1956].
Giorgi, A. (1994). Foreword. In G. Politzer (Ed.), Critique of the foundations of psychology. The psychology of psychoanalysis. Duquesne University: Pennsylvania [First published 1928].
Jovanović, G. (2010). Historizing epistemology in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 44(4), 310–328. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-010-9132-9.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
Marx, K. (1975). Early writings. Penguin.
Mészáros, I. (1972). Marx’s theory of alienation (3d ed.). Merlin Press: London.
Michell, J. (2003). The quantitative imperative: Positivism, naive realism and the place of qualitative methods in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 13(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354303013001758.
Moscovici, S. (1984). The myth of the lonely paradigm: A rejoinder. Social Research, 51(4), 939–967. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40970972.
Moscovici, S. (1987). Answers and questions. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 17(4), 513–529. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1987.tb00111.x.
Moscovici, S. (1988). Notes towards a description of Social representations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18(3), 211–250. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420180303.
Nichterlein, M., & Morss, J. R. (2017). Deleuze and psychology: Philosophical provocations to psychological practices (1 Edition). Routledge.
Nietzsche, F. (1961). Thus spoke Zarathustra: A book for everyone and no one (repr. With new chronology). Penguin Books.
Øversveen, E. (2022). Capitalism and alienation: Towards a marxist theory of alienation for the 21st century. European Journal of Social Theory, 25(3), 440–457. https://doi.org/10.1177/13684310211021579.
Parker, I. (2007). Revolution in psychology. Alienation to emancipation. Pluto.
Petrovic, G. (1963). Marx’s theory of alienation. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 23(3), 419. https://doi.org/10.2307/2105083.
Politzer, G. (1994). Critique of the foundations of psychology. The psychology of psychoanalysis. Duquesne University: Pennsylvania [First published 1928].
Roberts, R. (2015). Psychology and capitalism: The manipulation of mind. Zero Books.
Roberts, R. (2018). From Alienation to Estrangement: Political Thought and Psychology. In C. J. Hewer & E. Lyons (Eds.), Political Psychology (1st ed., pp. 54–72). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118982365.ch3.
Rosenberg, A. (2016). Philosophy of Social Science (5th ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429494840.
Rousseau, J. J. (2004). Discourse on the origin of inequality. Dover.
Rychlak, J. F. (1983). Can psychology be objective about free will? New Ideas in Psychology, 1(3), 213–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/0732-118X(83)90035-1.
Sappington, A. A. (1990). Recent psychological approaches to the free will versus determinism issue. Psychological Bulletin, 108(1), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.1.19.
Schwarz, M. (2009). Is psychology based on a methodological error? Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 43(3), 185–213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-009-9089-8.
Schwarz, M. (2014). The living fossil of human judgment. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 48(2), 211–237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-014-9262-6.
Teo, T. (2010). What is epistemological violence in the Empirical Social Sciences? Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4(5), 295–303. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00265.x.
Teo, T. (2020). Theorizing in psychology: From the critique of a hyper-science to conceptualizing subjectivity. Theory & Psychology, 30(6), 759–767. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354320930271.
Toomela, A. (2007). Culture of science: Strange history of the methodological thinking in psychology. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 41(1), 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-007-9004-0.
Valsiner, J. (2006). Dangerous curves in knowledge construction within psychology: Fragmentation of methodology. Theory & Psychology, 16(5), 597–612. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354306067439.
Acknowledgements
This paper received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
The author declares that he completed the manuscript on his own, with no further assistance from anyone.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Kontis, K. Epistemological Alienation in Scientific Psychology. Integr. psych. behav. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-024-09829-9
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-024-09829-9