Philosophy and Psychology
THE PURPOSE OF this discussion is to determine how philosophy is related to psychology or vice versa. The reason this is the purpose is due to the fact of psychology being a form of knowledge, and knowledge itself is a focal point of philosophy. So, in order to have a well-ordered, factual and consistent psychology, this psychology must rest upon a philosophy capable of holding it in place.
Psychology, as it so happens, is comprised greatly of synthetic a priori judgments, which general metaphysics, simply put, struggles with tremendously. In other words, there does not seem to be any existing compromise of priority between epistemology and metaphysics, though both imply each other. The purpose of this discussion unfolds more: according to what philosophy could a psychology be well-based? Which epistemology? Which metaphysics? Which solution of the two's incompatability?
Personally, my own conception of psychology, which is 'a' psychology, has its philosophical roots in Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant, Sartre and other philosophers.
Nietsche, in many of his writings, presents argumentation criticizing synthetic a priori iudgments yet maintaining their undeniability. He does this, specifically, to bring awareness to the "absolutely falsest of all statements," which are, paradoxically, the truest of all statements. He means to say that these synthetic a priori judgments that constitute our knowledge of existence are, in fact, true but true not as it would relate to a strict logical formulation; the sort of knowledge that rests upon necessitated designations of what is true or false by virtue of their meanings and logical implications.
He means to say that the knowledge in the synthetic a priori mode is true by virtue of something that cannot be made completely explicable by logic or reason. The fact that a person is a narcissist, for instance, is the type of knowledge incapable of being absolutely rooted down to an analytical knowledge, as if, after the observations of a person's behavior render his intentions objectively ascertainable in their factness, capable of being assimilated into a theory of tendencies of people, which remain objective as a categorization attaining the label of knowledge. The statement, "He is a narcissist," if true, is true by virtue of it being a synthetic a priori judgment. It would be true absent of experience because his 'condition of narcissism' is not information pertaining to something that happens but is information pertaining to a condition prior to action.
It is not analytically true, because 'he' does not contain in the meaning of himself, the being of being a narcissist. Furthermore, there is no meaning of him as subject, as if there is any analysis of the meaning of himself that will designate his being as a narcissist. There is rather a subsequent determination of him being a narcissist. It is synthetic because this information of him lies elsewhere. This elsewhere does not seem to be anywhere else other than outside of the logic pertaining to what he is as an objective fact. An objective fact of himself is a narcissist. It could never be a subjective fact. And thus anything analytically true is true while being subjective. What is analytically true is said to be objective because it can be reached subjectively by anyone and everyone. But it is still a fact reached by subjective means. The fact of someone being a narcissist is a psychological fact specifically because it is synthetic a priori. And so something not logically explicable is the ground by which these synthetic a priori judgments are true, namely, in the form of plausibility... Or, in other words, probability.
Taking a detour back to another premise, Nietzsche is reponsible for an investigation into the importance of causality. Someone, who, perhaps, dismisses the importantance of causality, sees determination as part of a continuum and is not riddled by the system of logic and "snares of language." And so, a psychology designating certain definitions of people, do so truthfully not by a causal sequence of events alone, which is the part of reason and logic, but also with leaps of logic to overcome inevitable rifts between the a priori and a posteriori. These rifts are often found, and they are often, as I see them, the very fault lines that distinguish particular psychological theories.
Someone is a narcissist not a posteriori, because it is not the experience of the behavior the determines this fact, it is the act of judgment that isolates this behavior, draws an inference of intention and nihilates the being of the narcissist to be a narcissist and necessitates this fact; that is, because a narcissist is a narcissist insofar as he is not an objective fact, and is precisely a narcissist in that he is still, subjectively, nothing definable. This definition of him as a narcissist is not a subjective truth of his, but is a truth across the rift, on the other side of subjective fact, the objective side. This is why this fact of someone being a narcissist is absolutely false, because it can not be proven. But it is absolutely undeniable, because it is the necessitated outcome of the analysis that premises experience as undeniable and founded absolutely. Philosophy can never premise experience.
The rift between psychology and philosophy is now distinct. Is it? I want your thoughts. Psychology completes what philosophy cannot, which is, define the individual. Psychology objectifies the human as an objective fact. This is the greatest leap in logic. It is true, is it not? It is true that we are an objective fact... But nothing could designate this by virtue of reason or logic alone. Something else does the designation...
Intention. The intentions of philosophy is not within the confines of the intentions psychology has. The intention of a psychology has as its object something philosophy can never base.
Or can philosophy adequately base a psychology? Is there a philosophy that can firmly, for instance, characterize someone as narcissistic, depressed, anxious, etc.?
How is one to approach psychological knowledge and apprehend psychological fact?
Psychology, as it so happens, is comprised greatly of synthetic a priori judgments, which general metaphysics, simply put, struggles with tremendously. In other words, there does not seem to be any existing compromise of priority between epistemology and metaphysics, though both imply each other. The purpose of this discussion unfolds more: according to what philosophy could a psychology be well-based? Which epistemology? Which metaphysics? Which solution of the two's incompatability?
Personally, my own conception of psychology, which is 'a' psychology, has its philosophical roots in Nietzsche, Hegel, Kant, Sartre and other philosophers.
Nietsche, in many of his writings, presents argumentation criticizing synthetic a priori iudgments yet maintaining their undeniability. He does this, specifically, to bring awareness to the "absolutely falsest of all statements," which are, paradoxically, the truest of all statements. He means to say that these synthetic a priori judgments that constitute our knowledge of existence are, in fact, true but true not as it would relate to a strict logical formulation; the sort of knowledge that rests upon necessitated designations of what is true or false by virtue of their meanings and logical implications.
He means to say that the knowledge in the synthetic a priori mode is true by virtue of something that cannot be made completely explicable by logic or reason. The fact that a person is a narcissist, for instance, is the type of knowledge incapable of being absolutely rooted down to an analytical knowledge, as if, after the observations of a person's behavior render his intentions objectively ascertainable in their factness, capable of being assimilated into a theory of tendencies of people, which remain objective as a categorization attaining the label of knowledge. The statement, "He is a narcissist," if true, is true by virtue of it being a synthetic a priori judgment. It would be true absent of experience because his 'condition of narcissism' is not information pertaining to something that happens but is information pertaining to a condition prior to action.
It is not analytically true, because 'he' does not contain in the meaning of himself, the being of being a narcissist. Furthermore, there is no meaning of him as subject, as if there is any analysis of the meaning of himself that will designate his being as a narcissist. There is rather a subsequent determination of him being a narcissist. It is synthetic because this information of him lies elsewhere. This elsewhere does not seem to be anywhere else other than outside of the logic pertaining to what he is as an objective fact. An objective fact of himself is a narcissist. It could never be a subjective fact. And thus anything analytically true is true while being subjective. What is analytically true is said to be objective because it can be reached subjectively by anyone and everyone. But it is still a fact reached by subjective means. The fact of someone being a narcissist is a psychological fact specifically because it is synthetic a priori. And so something not logically explicable is the ground by which these synthetic a priori judgments are true, namely, in the form of plausibility... Or, in other words, probability.
Taking a detour back to another premise, Nietzsche is reponsible for an investigation into the importance of causality. Someone, who, perhaps, dismisses the importantance of causality, sees determination as part of a continuum and is not riddled by the system of logic and "snares of language." And so, a psychology designating certain definitions of people, do so truthfully not by a causal sequence of events alone, which is the part of reason and logic, but also with leaps of logic to overcome inevitable rifts between the a priori and a posteriori. These rifts are often found, and they are often, as I see them, the very fault lines that distinguish particular psychological theories.
Someone is a narcissist not a posteriori, because it is not the experience of the behavior the determines this fact, it is the act of judgment that isolates this behavior, draws an inference of intention and nihilates the being of the narcissist to be a narcissist and necessitates this fact; that is, because a narcissist is a narcissist insofar as he is not an objective fact, and is precisely a narcissist in that he is still, subjectively, nothing definable. This definition of him as a narcissist is not a subjective truth of his, but is a truth across the rift, on the other side of subjective fact, the objective side. This is why this fact of someone being a narcissist is absolutely false, because it can not be proven. But it is absolutely undeniable, because it is the necessitated outcome of the analysis that premises experience as undeniable and founded absolutely. Philosophy can never premise experience.
The rift between psychology and philosophy is now distinct. Is it? I want your thoughts. Psychology completes what philosophy cannot, which is, define the individual. Psychology objectifies the human as an objective fact. This is the greatest leap in logic. It is true, is it not? It is true that we are an objective fact... But nothing could designate this by virtue of reason or logic alone. Something else does the designation...
Intention. The intentions of philosophy is not within the confines of the intentions psychology has. The intention of a psychology has as its object something philosophy can never base.
Or can philosophy adequately base a psychology? Is there a philosophy that can firmly, for instance, characterize someone as narcissistic, depressed, anxious, etc.?
How is one to approach psychological knowledge and apprehend psychological fact?
Comments (25)
Under the old regime, and lingering in folk psychology, the study of Man also had this triple aspect - mind, body and spirit, but again, psychology dispenses with spirit, and then cannot sustain the distinction of mind and body - mind becomes brain, an organ of the body. But there is a further difficulty, that 'the psyche' is to a great extent formed by, because informed by, these fundamental conceptions. The distinction between the observer and the observed, which is essential to science cannot be maintained in psychology except by an hallucination, whereby the scientist becomes God and the subject, man, is pathologized. In other words, there is no place to stand, conceptually, and consider human nature, one has to occupy human nature, and contemplate the inhumanity of the other.
Quoting Blue Lux
... yet maintaining their indispensability.
They are not undeniable, nor true... but necessary for a human being. In that aphorism he's taking a stab at Kant's explanation for how synthetic judgements a priori are possible. He says Kant's explanation comes down to 'by means of a means', which is no explanation at all. So the conclusion is, they are in fact not possible, we have no right to them... but we do still need them. This has nothing to do with truth really, but more with his general thesis that what ultimately matters is what is life-affirming, not necessarily what is true.
I think still, due to their indespensibility, they become undeniable. For to deny them is to deny that sort of knowledge altogether. And thus you have the criticism that shows up in many of his writings.
It would be a mistake to represent philosophy vs. psychology relations anthropomorphically: patronage, partnership, divorce, and competition; experimental philosophy and existential psychology show that they are much more complicated.
Quoting Blue Lux
Quoting Blue Lux
Nevertheless, one could argue that “intentions of psychology” are quite the opposite to “objectifying of Man," converting human being into a scientific fact.
By founding an individual as an objective fact, in spite of logical and analytical leaps, psychology nevertheless supports a whole humanitarian discourse. Thus, asserting that somebody is a narcissist implies the existence of psychic instances of the self, id, and superego. Furthermore, it facilitates the production of the individuated subject with a representational conscious and personological unconscious. Next, economics endows the individual with rationality that establishes him as a person free to chose and decide, while political science makes him the agent of individual rights. All these operations lead to a direction, which is quite the opposite to Nietzsche’s project -instead of deepening and exploring the abyss, discovered by Nietzsche, psychology tries to cover the gap, to disguise it, and to facilitate “the return of the Last Man.”
It is possible to attempt to apply some of Kierkegaard’s
concepts from his book “Repetition, the essay on experimental psychology,” as well as Deleuzean ones from “Difference and Repetition” and “1000 Plato”. Narcissism may be understood as staying at one of the stages of the emerging subject. Kierkegaard stated and demonstrated that Repetition is the main force of contemporaneity. There are two kinds of repetition - the subject explains and understands universal as repetition, while his own conscious is a repetition in a different sense, has been doubled and become a repetition of a second degree. Furthermore, Deleuze and Guattari proposed their notion of “an abstract machine of faciality,” so that the two different repetitions, significance, and subjectivization work simultaneously, producing the particular subject with narcissistic characteristics. There is the necessary doubling of the conscious when “I“ has converted into the other and vice versa, maintaining close interdepending relations. At the same instant, signifying provides this conscious with the familiar, universal and unlimited world, so that the reflective doubling may endlessly project itself.
How about a philosophy which gets thought and belief right?
Nietzsche, in terms of psychology, wanted its contents to be revolutionary, against the common, censored ways of knowledge.
Thus you have Freud: he took this idea and ran with it.
Can you explain Kierkegaard's conception of Xhristianity?
It is a common sense definition. One could apply it to Nietzsche himself, or to Dostoevsky or Kafka’s heroes,(are they narcissists?)
asserting that they are entirely absorbed into their own
hyper-intensive conscious. Yet, what was your intention when you brought narcissism as your primary example?
As far as I see it, Kierkegaard’s tremendous effort and genius, aimed
to save Christianity were not productive – especially after Nietzsche. Kierkegaard said that he was a poet of the faith rather than a knight –he knew he was not up to the task of being a knight of faith, which requires absolute commitment and detachment from what he called hereditary sin. Such a person could be on the surface entirely ordinary, but within she had made the essential qualitative leap of faith. K didn't really know what this was himself, he could only talk about it in his endless "nights of inwardness." So, he rather played, performed zealot of faith instead of he actually had been one. Yet, paradoxically, this Kierkegaard’s failure has become his most successful invention of contemporarily and philosophical ways of being.
It looks like you try “to catch up” psychology, to point out its
inconsequence, to attribute it some “intentions.” Nietzsche’s “will to power,” Foucault’s “will to knowledge.”
- are these illustrate similar attempts? You are right; it is possible to single out the set of premises which composed the scientific foundations of psychology. Nevertheless, it would be just an abstraction. When somebody, as amateur or professional produces a psychological statement, she does not think about this abstractions – she takes part in complicated institutionalized practices, producing herself as a particular subject of enunciation – most of which
she applies automatically, almost unconsciously. So, according to Nietzsche’s philosophical tradition, it could be more appropriate to discuss not the hidden intentions of psychology, but its diagrammatic functions and mechanisms.
Could you cite an article in a reputable Psychology journal that makes synthetic a priori judgements? Psychology as I've studied it is thoroughly empirical - in many places even Positivistic - and so a posteriori. The only a priori judgements I can think of are those involved in mathematical analysis of statistics, but these aren't what philosophers usually call "synthetic".
The relevance to your question is that the relation between Philosophy and Psychology is interesting, but I am not sure that what you are thinking of as "Psychology" is what is usually meant by that word.
PA
Symptom (divorced from its personal character)
Neurosis (objective , impersonal representation)
The individual is labeled objectively neurotic
This is not based on the individual, but a very vague representation, and gives very little description or knowledge of anything, precisely because it does not contain that individual's uniqueness.
The neurotic is labeled a neurotic, but his symptoms are his own, and in the concept of the neurotic there will only be abstractions that could relate to that specific neurotic. The truth of his neurosis is never to be seen. Never to be truly known. Only by him.
Therefore it is synthetic.
And a priori because the individual is no longer an individual but an impoverished representation in a model. Models work by virtue of their function and input/output.
"Something a priori isn't a contingent truth that may or may not be the case dependent upon experience, but a necessary truth that can be safely said to condition all experience."
Psychology is full of this.
Which is precisely the problem Nietzsche spoke about.
The judgments psychology makes determines the individual and precedes all experience.
How could a knowledge attain that status?
Unless these judgments are extraordinarily vague and relatively meaningless?
They become meaningful when they are utilized and integrated by that person only.
Quoting Blue Lux
The abstractions are based on observation of patients who present with common symptoms. That is to say, the application of the abstract concept of "Neurosis" is justified by experience. It is not a priori. It isn't as though psychological theory develops in the armchair Leibniz style (although you might think otherwise if you were to see the amount of psychological speculation that goes on in this forum!)
Also, it is worth pointing out that Psychologists understand that labelling someone "Neurotic" is a simplification and that any proper treatment of their issues requires attention to individual differences.
Quoting Blue Lux
A number of mistakes lie here it seems to me. As I said, plenty of attention is paid to the specifics of an individual in any treatment or therapy. The individual is never just an "impoverished representation".
Second, you are conflating necessity and the a priori. Saying that a truth is necessary is not the same as saying that it can or is known a priori.
Third, you seem to be suggesting that because the model of a psychological condition is an abstract representation, it must be a necessary truth, and this does not follow. Psychological models are all simplifications of complex contingent phenomena. The models themselves are only contingently accurate. There is nothing necessary about them.
Fourth:
Quoting Blue Lux
A synthetic proposition is a proposition about contingent reality, but you seem to think it is something to do with whether something is abstract or specific. I suspect you are conflating synthetic/analytic with specific/abstract.
If by your OP, you are asking "what's the relation between Philosophy and making up abstract models of psychological conditions justified without any appeal to observation of real people and proclaiming those models necessarily true?", then my answer is "Philosophy is a reflective critical practice and the other thing is sheer confusion". But then that sort of confusion is nothing like what Psychologists do.
I must be misunderstanding you. Perhaps you could explain a bit more what you think is a priori about Psychology, cite some concrete examples in the literature and say a bit about what you think this has to do with Philosophy?
I should note that I am using the words "synthetic", "a priori", and "neccesary" in the way they are used in academic Philososophy and using "Psychology" to mean the empirical psychology which you could study at university. I wonder whether you sre using the words very differently?
PA
It could be more productive to narrow down an overinflated field of contemporary psychology to attempt to trace the genealogy of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. A scene,
where an individual comes to a specialist (psychoanalytic or psychotherapist) to get qualified help, advice, and/or got been judged, labeled, and identified is still quite common and has numerous interrelations with general psychology. It can help to expose an authoritative, arbitrary and forcible character of psychological knowledge. Starting from 19 century, the new, restrained and nuclear family (father/mother/children) had been invented and constructed to replace the old, traditional one. There was a set of political, judicial, civic, pedagogical, and scientific measures applied.
During the creation of the new family, parents were encouraged and instructed to watch, control and appropriate the child’s sexuality, in parallel to the submission of all the process surrounding the infantile body to the disciplinary dressage outside the family. The capitalistic power needed permanent support from psychological and pedagogical knowledge, and vice versa, the new knowledge would be impossible without powerful and institutional support. The establishment of the new family had caused an intensive circulation of incestuous desire so that an
incest had become a result and an instrument of these politics of family. Later, when Fried and his successors have asserted the incestuous Oedipal child’s desire as the founding knowledge of psychoanalytical theories and practices, they have actually incarnated and reactivated the 19-century’s power-knowledge dispositif.
My question was simple.
Is psychological knowledge possible in actually ever understanding the psyche?