Is philosophy based on psychology, or the other way around?
Sometimes we may intend for our responses to be philosophical, but they end-up as being more psychological. Which then brings up the question: is philosophy based more on how our minds work than it does on traditional philosophical concepts?
Comments (62)
Different philosophies have different psychologies. And vice-versa.
Maybe the question won't sort out what you want it to.
Psychology conversely is supposed to be an empirical, scientific investigation, which therefore depends for its justification on the validity of the scientific methods, and arguing about the validity of such methods is a philosophical matter, so to that extent psychology is logically dependent on philosophy.
"Traditional philosophical concepts" are blind to, or uninformed by, "how our minds work"; thus, folk assumptions / biases distort much of philosophical discourse (vide Wittgenstein, Churchlands, Lakoff, Dennett, Kahneman, Metzinger, Bakker ...)
What we choose is more likely a reflection of the time we live in.
It is a rare person outside of academe who has a coherent framework based on philosophy or psychology. But like magpies we do tend to cherry pick ideas (sometimes out of context) and use them to illustrate or 'settle' examples, much in the way that 200 years ago someone might have used the Greek myths as metaphors to illustrate or enliven a conversation. In our current time people tend to choose examples derived from scientific sources over the philosophic. My own gripe is people who use quantum mechanics or neuroscience to 'settle' arguments when at best the ideas are speculative and inadequately understood.
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Depends what field of philosophy you are talking about. If it's philosophy of mind, then yes, some aspects of the field are similar to ideas found in empirical phycology. There's also a new trend of trying to incorporate aspects phenomenology to psychology. The thing is, psychology deals with an extremely difficult topic, human beings, so there's a lot of room for development in the field. So there's going to be some connection between the two fields.
On the other hand, things like metaphysics, logic, aesthetics and so on, don't seem to have a direct relationship with psychology. These distinctions between different areas of knowledge often are arbitrary and most of them started as being part of philosophy. But sill philosophy encompasses more areas than empirical psychology.
I think it all comes down to this question: What is the psyche?
The relationship between psychology and philosophy is complex, because some of the founding figures, such as William James were exploring both. It was during the twentieth anniversary that the two branches off separately. I think that behaviorism, and the development of experimental psychology played an important part in this.
I have always been drawn to read books on both psychology and philosophy. Generally, psychology is more concerned with ways of understanding how the mind works and improving techniques for helping us cope with our own mental states. Philosophy is more about questions about existence and how we can construct a picture of how reality works
Having always being interested in both psychology and philosophy, especially the way in which the two overlap, I have been thinking recently that the whole philosophy of mind is such an interesting area in this respect. I am also aware of vast areas arising in between the two disciplines during the time I have been using the site, especially phenomenology.
Thanks Jack! You and I seem to be running a parallel course.
Psychology - especially experimental psychology - is looking now, at the relatiohip between psychology and philosophy. It's interesting (to me) how human minds plays a part (psychology) in what we believe to be reality and truth (philosophy). Kind of like the way Plato thought?
An extension of that thought seems to also validate that philosophy is dependent on psychology. Doesn't one (think) about justification (justified true belief) ? The "thinking" part seems to be based on psychology.
I agree. But, that may be a given and can't be changed.
I agree. Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_psychology .
Philosophy is a thoughtful act, of course, and so is functionally dependent on having a working thinking-machine, i.e. on having a mind. Something's got to do the thinking to do philosophy. But not just any act of thinking is psychology; only particular kinds of thinking about thinkers is psychology. When doing philosophy, we don't appeal to specific facts about the mind, not as empirically observable in the third person, at least, because that would be circular, those facts depending for their justification on empirical methods that are one of the things at stake in a philosophical investigation.
Yes. You could say philosophy attempts to problematize "the given". In clearer terms phycologists tend to work with certain assumptions, philosophy questions that.
There's also the problematic issue of science in that, since psychology deals with such complicated beings, there's much less theoretical depth for psychologists to investigate. One of the reasons I suspect physics is so successful is that it studies extremely simple structures in nature. What's a particle compared to a butterfly then compared to a person?
It's not that phycology can't be scientific, it clearly can. But if phycology were like physics, in terms of depth of explanation, none of us would have problems we'd just know what to do. But that's far from the case.
Either way, I think both logic and psychology, like all arts, are luxuries brought to us by leisure which in turn is brought to us by abundance which may or may not have been brought to us by logic, or psychology, or anything else. We think we stand on the shoulders of giants, but like the ruminant chewing it's cud, we ultimately stand (or sit, or lay or are based) on the Earth.
Thanks for the insight.
(belated :up: too)
So is introspection philosophical or psychological?
Reflection examines/problematizes ideas and concepts, dis/beliefs and doubts, ignorance and biases; that is, it's an attempt to think clearly-attentively about (one's own) thinking. Introspection, however, is a cognitive bias (see the link in my previous post).
However, I can say, in general terms, that this hinges on one thing: does knowledge of a cognitive bias mitigate the effects of the cognitive bias? My entire philosophy hinges on the fact that it does. I am aware of the illusion of small numbers, so I am immediately sensitive and reactive to situations in which I recognize myself reacting this way. In fact, whenever someone reacts to a logical fallacy, they are essentially exhibiting the same kind of (projected) reflective awareness. Presumably, if you are sensitive to the use of logical fallacies by others, you are also yourself.
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Absolutely. Maybe the back and front of the same page.
edit: essentially my thread talking about how wanting to believe becomes believing could be viewed as describing the effect of a very deeply-embedded cognitive habit
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Depends on what is meant by "philosophy". One interpretation of Greek philosophy is that it started as a system aiming to make man as wise ("sophos") as the gods or God as far as humanly possible. This involved knowledge of the mind and its processes i.e. psychology.
So, I'd say that originally, philosophy came first. But, as others have pointed out, different philosophical traditions use psychology in different degrees and ways.
Sometimes philosophy and psychology seem to go hand-in-hand. Maybe there isn't a "which came first"?
Quite possible. However, I'd say that from a philosophical standpoint, psychology would represent a tool of philosophical inquiry. But this is just my opinion.
Yet philosophy can be an end result of psychology which leads to the initial intrigue of philosophy.
But as you develop your skills in philosophy it can become an awareness or control of your own psychology.
So I would say initially its psychology.
Philosopher to Psychologist: I know how you think. [Critical Thinking ]
Every philosophy is a projection of the authors desires and morality.
Some philosophies may even be a psychological stage of depression,anger,ennui,etc.
Many philosophies are an attempt to codify and control reality. Ergo,an ideology,and this ideology is many times political and represents an elite class and its values.
Very similiar to many religions,including the scientific/secular worldview.
Suppose you've never heard of Ludwig feurbach or siggy freud on the origin of religion?
My stuff is original,yours rehashed mash ups of book learnt platitudes. Verbose blarney.
I can't categorize Nietzsche in psychological philosophers. He is one category on his own but I can't see him as psychist philosopher. And Dostoevsky? Hmm I don't know if I would consider him as philosopher. He was an amazing writer who was indeed emphasizing in human's psych and drama but philosopher? I don't know for sure
What makes you see nietzsche is not a psychological philosopher,he seems thd prime literary example.
On the one hand, philosophy of perception, concept of mind.
On the other, for example, asking why we are drawn to some philosophical topics and not others. For one person it's all about political and moral philosophy and they don't really care what Frege had to say about numbers. Other way round for someone else. It's interesting. It's psychology or biography.
For me Nietzsche is more dealing with human's Spirit and what that Spirit can achieve and not so much with psychological aspects. Don't know maybe I have a different view of what i consider psychological philosopher. It's more close to Freud in what I mean. But these lines arent clear.I can see though in what way you consider him as one
"......Husserl’s first published monograph, Philosophy of Arithmetic, which appeared in 1891. In this work, Husserl combined his mathematical, psychological and philosophical competencies to attempt a psychological foundation of arithmetic.......The book was, however, criticized for its underlying psychologism in a review by Gottlob Frege. " Stanford
Husserl; see also phenomenology https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#:~:text=Phenomenology%20is%20the%20study%20of,of%20or%20about%20some%20object.
We could look at the foundations of arithmetic and try to base it on pure logic and struggle for a century with it and end up wondering whether it's all based on rules that are definable only as the way we do things, that's how it goes, you get the hang of it by looking at what we do and doing the same and understanding 'the same' circularly as just the way we do things. Which has something in common with psychologism.
Psychologism is to psychology what scientism is to science. Discuss
Or maybe you had something else in mind?
I was thinking of the problem raised in the last para I wrote. A purely logical basis of arithmetic is apparently not possible. Perhaps psychology has something to offer. I did not distinguish 'psychology' from 'psychologism' but thankfully others did that.
A lot of things are just explained in a different way or using different language for things that are self evident or axiomatic. But then the accusation of circularity is thrown about just to create unnecessary doubt or because the interlocutor is doubtful.
Most axioms have a circularity to them. That's a proof despite what people say! That is what you were saying,no?
Psychologism, in the pejorative sense in which it was used to critique Husserl’s work, for instance, refers to a confusion of contingent and relative empirical facts with an a priori grounding. Husserl made claims for the origin of arithmetic in mental processes which were universal and ‘apodictic’, which was read by critics as an attempt to make contingent empirical psychological processes absolute and certain. He later changed his ‘psychological’ grounding of mathematics to a transcendental grounding, so that his model could not be misinterpreted as psychologistic.
Would you class nietzsche and dostoevsky as phenomenologists?
the grounding for all knowledge in principle. But we create new knowledge as we experience more.
Well said.
Neither of these are phenomenologists in Husserl’s
sense.