Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology (Advances in Consciousness Research, #87)

by John-Michael Kuczynski

0 ratings • 0 reviews • 0 shelved
Book cover for Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology

Bookhype may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Full disclosure.

Intended for philosophically minded psychologists and psychologically minded philosophers, this book identifies the ways that psychology has hobbled itself by adhering too strictly to empiricism, this being the doctrine that all knowledge is observation-based. In the first part of this two-part work, we show that empiricism is false. In the second part, we identify the psychology-relevant consequences of this fact. Five of these are of special importance: (i) Whereas some psychopathologies (e.g. obsessive-compulsive disorder) corrupt the activity mediated by one’s psychological architecture, others (e.g. sociopathy) corrupt that architecture itself.
(ii) The basic tenets of psychoanalysis are coherent.
(iii) All propositional attitudes are beliefs.
(iv) Selves are minds that self-evaluate.
And:
(v) It is by giving our thoughts a perceptible form that we enable ourselves to evaluate them, and it is by expressing ourselves in language and art that we give our thoughts a perceptible form. (Series A)
  • ISBN13 9789027273857
  • Publish Date 20 September 2012
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country NL
  • Imprint John Benjamins Publishing Co