So the idea for this group has come from some discussion about a recent assignment I did on the Philosophy of Science on my Blog... seems appropriate to put what I wrote here, just as a starting point. I have added in some replies to the comments I got from my blog into my thoughts below also...If others want to add on (or build on) what they wrote in response to this, they are welcome... I just didn't want to do it myself in case anyone wasn't comfortable with me copy and pasting their replies!
I thought I would just put this up to get something going...but people should feel free to write about whatever they want on whatever topic they want, as long as it relates to philosophy!
So...Is psychology a science? Well, it depends on what your definitions are and what approach. For me, Psychoanalytic? No. Neuro or clinical? Yes. The philosophy problem between theorists is definition. Define something differently, and the answer is different. So really... it depends what a person defines science as on whether they think psychology or a particular approach operates scientifically, or produces scientific outcomes.
But science is a term given from society, and so a significant proportion of the norm should think similiarly. So the answer to if psychology is a science, is: whatever a significant of proporition of people think similarly.
What seems to have happened in psychology is that a few approaches have gained similarly equal proportions of support. Some a little more than others, but generally there is a lot of support for approaches that appear in textbooks and medical use. Eventually, a new approach that answers the problems the older approaches had (in terms of definitive criticisms), will come in and be the biggest influence defining psychology as psychology; and also psychology as a science or not. Then maybe, or maybe not, someone will eventually pop up and blow the whole thing out of the water... This relates to Kuhn, who inspired the widespread use of the word paradigm. He developed his empirical cycle whereby science goes through a pre-science (anarchistic) phase, to 'normal' science (accepted and used), to crisis (fundamental questions are being asked due to large numbers of anomalies of a theory), to revolution (change in thought). The empirical cycle ends, when a 'paradigm shift' occurs, in that scientific thought takes a new direction and the old theory is abandoned entirely. However this was unattractive as a philosophical theory of science because it is unlikely that theorists will abandon their cherished theories.
However, there's been much debate about the philosophy of science. There is a general consensus in that scientific method is what makes science... but this is something that gets debated particularly in psychology, because you then have to define scientific method - which ultimately derived from physics. In psychology, you can't measure direct observables that you can in physics... though then the argument is that in physics there are also unobservables. And then there was some debate on whether observing something through a microscope was really observing something, because science originally was observed with the naked eye. Thus science and its debate has had to keep up with the times of technology, social demands etc. and so it tends to be an ongoing nit pickety debate. There are also debates on other things, in terms of the definition of psychological science, and there are current approaches trying to get science status etc.
Testability is another important principle, and replication (retesting), which is based on the principle that if something is confirmed several times then it constitutes 'truth'... but then the argument there is that in this context, it also ties in with predictability (another principle of science). Some argued predictability can never be achieved, because it is based on the past and we can never know about the future so there is always a risk of the unexpected happening (like everyone thought there were only white swans, until they saw a black swan).
From what I can tell, the general state is that psychology meets the principles of science, though on some principles there is some accepted limitations to psychology as a human science because direct observation is impossible etc.
For me, when people can make their minds up and define science with unanimous agreement, we can answer if psychology is a science in unanimous agreement too.
I thought I would just put this up to get something going...but people should feel free to write about whatever they want on whatever topic they want, as long as it relates to philosophy!
So...Is psychology a science? Well, it depends on what your definitions are and what approach. For me, Psychoanalytic? No. Neuro or clinical? Yes. The philosophy problem between theorists is definition. Define something differently, and the answer is different. So really... it depends what a person defines science as on whether they think psychology or a particular approach operates scientifically, or produces scientific outcomes.
But science is a term given from society, and so a significant proportion of the norm should think similiarly. So the answer to if psychology is a science, is: whatever a significant of proporition of people think similarly.
What seems to have happened in psychology is that a few approaches have gained similarly equal proportions of support. Some a little more than others, but generally there is a lot of support for approaches that appear in textbooks and medical use. Eventually, a new approach that answers the problems the older approaches had (in terms of definitive criticisms), will come in and be the biggest influence defining psychology as psychology; and also psychology as a science or not. Then maybe, or maybe not, someone will eventually pop up and blow the whole thing out of the water... This relates to Kuhn, who inspired the widespread use of the word paradigm. He developed his empirical cycle whereby science goes through a pre-science (anarchistic) phase, to 'normal' science (accepted and used), to crisis (fundamental questions are being asked due to large numbers of anomalies of a theory), to revolution (change in thought). The empirical cycle ends, when a 'paradigm shift' occurs, in that scientific thought takes a new direction and the old theory is abandoned entirely. However this was unattractive as a philosophical theory of science because it is unlikely that theorists will abandon their cherished theories.
However, there's been much debate about the philosophy of science. There is a general consensus in that scientific method is what makes science... but this is something that gets debated particularly in psychology, because you then have to define scientific method - which ultimately derived from physics. In psychology, you can't measure direct observables that you can in physics... though then the argument is that in physics there are also unobservables. And then there was some debate on whether observing something through a microscope was really observing something, because science originally was observed with the naked eye. Thus science and its debate has had to keep up with the times of technology, social demands etc. and so it tends to be an ongoing nit pickety debate. There are also debates on other things, in terms of the definition of psychological science, and there are current approaches trying to get science status etc.
Testability is another important principle, and replication (retesting), which is based on the principle that if something is confirmed several times then it constitutes 'truth'... but then the argument there is that in this context, it also ties in with predictability (another principle of science). Some argued predictability can never be achieved, because it is based on the past and we can never know about the future so there is always a risk of the unexpected happening (like everyone thought there were only white swans, until they saw a black swan).
From what I can tell, the general state is that psychology meets the principles of science, though on some principles there is some accepted limitations to psychology as a human science because direct observation is impossible etc.
For me, when people can make their minds up and define science with unanimous agreement, we can answer if psychology is a science in unanimous agreement too.
