Empiricism and the foundations of psychology
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Empiricism and the foundations of psychology
（Advances in consciousness research, v. 87）
John Benjamins, c2012
- : Hb
Available at 1 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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)
Table of Contents
- 1. Part I
- 2. 1. Introduction: Empiricism and scientism
- 3. 2. A dogmatic statement of the problems with empiricism
- 4. 3. Empiricism's blindness to the non-spatiotemporal
- 5. 4. Wittgenstein on meaning: Part 1 - the picture-theory
- 6. 5. Wittgenstein on meaning: Part 2 - meaning as use
- 7. 6. Some consequences of the empiricism-driven conflation of analytic with introspective knowledge
- 8. 7. Subpersonal mentation
- 9. 8. Empiricist conceptions of causation and explanation
- 10. 9. Skepticism about induction and about perception
- 11. Part II
- 12. 10. Emotion as belief
- 13. 11. Desires, intentions, and values
- 14. 12. Actions vs. reactions, desires vs. urges
- 15. 13. Moral and aesthetic nihilism as embodiments of false theories of rationality and selfhood
- 16. 14. The cognitive and characterological consequences of linguistic competence
- 17. 15. Rationality and internal conflict
- 18. 16. Sociopathy, psychopathy, and criminality
- 19. References
- 20. Index
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