Wow! eBook
Empiricism and the Foundations of Psychology: 87
Author(s): John-Michael Kuczynski (Author)
- Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
- Publication Date: 20 Sept. 2012
- Language: English
- Print length: 485 pages
- ISBN-10: 9027213534
- ISBN-13: 9789027213532
Book 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)
(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)
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘7 + 5 = 12.’ For Kant, in his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, this was a simple expression of an analytically true judgment. But for Kuczynski, in his new book, things are not all that simple. […] Century old conundrums like the mind-body distinction, or more recent ones such as the quarrel between empiricists and rationalists are given new, thought- and controversy-provoking input. Kuczynski’s treatise is a must read for all those interested in what happens at the crossroads of philosophy, psychology, linguistics, the social and natural sciences, and other hot spots of current (even political) debates. While, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the reward of this book is not just in the reading, but in the intellectual and critical challenges it provides. — Jacob L. Mey, University of Southern Denmark
