History Of Psychology Session 12 PDF

History of Psychology Session 12: What kind of science is psychology? Rui Mata, Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences December 9, 2024 Learning Objectives for Today Distinguish different forms of psychology Learn about different positions in epistemology (e.g., falsificationism,...

History of Psychology Session 12: What kind of science is psychology? Rui Mata, Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences December 9, 2024 Learning Objectives for Today Distinguish different forms of psychology Learn about different positions in epistemology (e.g., falsificationism, paradigm shifts, research programs, epistemological anarchism) Discuss what “kind of science is psychology”… Course evaluation 3 Different Forms of Psychology Academic (scientific), Professional, and Popular Psychologies “Today psychology exists in three forms. There is an academic psychology located in secondary schools, colleges, and universities, and research institutes. (…) there is also a profession of psychology that applies the knowledge of scientific psychology to real-world problems. (…) The third kind of psychology is the oldest. It might be called public psychology or popular psychology. It comprises public interest in and beliefs about behavior and mental states.” (Benjamin, 2014, pp. x-xi, emphasis added) Benjamin, L. T. (2014). A brief history of modern psychology. Wiley: Honoke, NJ, USA. 4 WHAT IS EPISTEMOLOGY? and why does it matter for psychology 5  Epistemology and History of Science branch of philosophy concerned with a theory of knowledge The logic of scientific discovery (1934/1959) Karl Popper The structure of scientific revolutions (1962) Thomas Kuhn Criticism and the growth of knowledge (1970) Imre Lakatos Against method (1975) Paul Feyerabend 6 Epistemology and History of Science Karl Popper 1902-1994 Austrian-born philosopher of science (psychologist!), lecturer in philosophy U New Zealand (1937), reader logic London School of Economics (1946), prof. of logic and scientific method U London (1949). Popper wrote The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959 based on Die Logik der Forschung that he had published in 1934) in which he discussed the problem of demarcation of science (i.e. what distinguishes science from non-science). Popper rejected the classical inductivist views on the scientific method and advocated empirical falsification as the hallmark of the empirical sciences. Further, Popper emphasised that a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, only falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinised by decisive experiments. Popper’s views can be described as prescriptive. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/ 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDpj8dx0UU 8 General Relativity and the Dyson-Eddington-Davidson test https://earthsky.org/human-world/may-29-1919-solar-eclipse-einstein-relativity “(…) the experiment sought to test between three different theoretical predictions. The first was the presumption, inherent in the nineteenth- century wave theory of light, that light has no mass and is unaffected by gravity. As such, the presence of the Sun would cause no deflection of stars in its field. The second possibility was put forward by Einstein as a consequence of his principle of equivalence. In this viewpoint, light has energy, which means it has mass. Thus it falls towards the Sun as it passes by, causing a small deflection (0.87 arcsecond at the limb of the Sun) in star positions away from the Sun, as seen from Earth. Finally, after developing GR, with its prediction that gravity alters the geometry of spacetime, Einstein realized there would be an additional deflection, due to curvature near the Sun. This resulted in his final light deflection prediction (1.75 arcsecond at the limb of the Sun), twice as great as his original one. In their presentations, Eddington and Dyson chose to assign credit for the middle (‘half-deflection’) prediction, to Newton, on the grounds that it was consistent with massive photons interacting with the Sun according to his famous law of gravity”. Crispino, L. C. B., & Kennefick, D. J. (2019). A hundred years of the first experimental test of general relativity. Nature Physics, 15(5), 416–419. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0519-3 9 The Problem of Induction derivation of general principles from specific instances induction // probability Finding a white swan… supports the hypothesis that “all swans are white” inductively sound but deductively invalid the inference of a particular instance from a general principle deduction // certainty Finding a black swan… rejects the hypothesis that “all swans are white” deductively valid 10 Epistemology and History of Science Thomas Kuhn 1922-1996 American philosopher of science (physicist, historian), prof. of history of science philosophy dept. at UC Berkeley. His major work is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) which exposed his view that scientific fields undergo periods of “normal science” characterised by a consensual “paradigm” shared by a scientific community, occasionally disrupted/ renewed by a "paradigm shift”, typically in the face of accumulated “anomalies” that cannot be explained in the context of the previous p a r a d i g m. K u h n h e l d t h a t c o m p e t i n g p a r a d i g m s a re o f t e n incommensurable, that is, they are competing and irreconcilable accounts of reality. Kuhn’s views are largely anchored in a historic and sociological analysis of science (e.g., development of chemistry) rather than a prescriptive view. 11 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/ Scientific Revolutions // Paradigm shifts Pre-science all the theories, concepts, and No existing paradigm methods that a discipline takes Normal Science for granted to make sense of some phenomena Puzzle solving stage Scientists share a common paradigm - articulate theory - make predictions - measurement Scientific revolution Anomalies arise A paradigm shift takes place - Blame apparatus new paradigm prevails that Auxiliary assumptions best accommodates the facts Set aside problem to be judged relevant Crisis Anomaly too problematic Faith in paradigm shaken Alternative concepts compete Kuhn, T. S. (1962). Historical structure of scientific discovery. Science, 136(3518), 760–764. http://doi.org/10.2307/1708511 12 Epistemology and History of Science Imre Lakatos 1922-1974 Hungarian-born philosopher of science; initially studied mathematics and philosophy, influenced by Marxist and Hegelian ideas before turning to philosophy of science. A student of Karl Popper at the London School of Economics, Lakatos sought to reconcile Popper's falsificationism with Thomas Kuhn's paradigms. As a professor at the London School of Economics, he developed the methodology of scientific research programs, outlined in works like Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (1970). Lakatos emphasized that science advances through competing research programs, judged on their ability to generate novel predictions (progressiveness) rather than strict falsification. His work bridges rationalism and historicism, offering a middle ground between Popper and Kuhn. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lakatos/ 13  Epistemology and History of Science Doerig, A., Sommers, R. P., Seeliger, K., Richards, B., Ismael, J., Lindsay, G. W., Kording, K. P., Konkle, T., Van Gerven, M. A. J., Kriegeskorte, N., & Kietzmann, T. C. (2023). The neuroconnectionist research programme. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 24(7), 431–450. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-023-00705-w 14 Epistemology and History of Science Paul Feyerabend 1924-1994 Austrian-born philosopher of science; studied with Popper (Feyerabend was first a supporter, later a critic of Popper), he was professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley (overlapped and interacted with Kuhn) and LSE (overlap with Lakatos) among other appointments. One of his major works is Against Method (1975) which exposes his anarchistic view of science (epistemological anarchism) and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules. He applied both humanitarian and historic arguments to argue for diversity in scientific process and discovery. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feyerabend/ 15  archetypes of epistemologists… Popper Kuhn Lakatos Feyerabend Nickn “the logician” “the sociologist” “the mediator” “the anarchist” ame competing research old scientists do anything goes - rejects scientists attempt programs are judged on “normal science” the idea of universal to falsify their their ability to generate and brush aside methodological rules in Thesis theories, without novel predictions and “anomalies”, young science, advocating for resorting to ad hoc solve anomalies scientists fight for pluralism and creativity in explanations (progressiveness vs. “paradigm shifts” scientific discovery. degeneration). Positive: Quantum Positive: Einstein’s The discovery of mechanics replacing Galileo’s defense of General Relativity oxygen and the Exam classical physics. heliocentrism using Negative: Freud’s chemical revolution ples Psychoanalytic (by Lavoisier and Negative: The Ptolemaic rhetorical and non- system in its degenerative empirical methods. Theory others) phase. 16  WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE IS PSYCHOLOGY? Which theories have been falsified? What anomalies, if any, have led to shifts? What are core assumptions in psychology? 17 Exam: Format and Number or Questions Multiple-choice, 30 questions 18 A-type questions 12 K-type questions 18 Exam: Locations Monday 16.12.2024, 8:15-9:45 Last Name A–F Kollegienhaus, Hörsaal 001: Students with last names starting A up to and including F Last Name G–Z Bernoullianum, Grösser Hörsaal 148: Students will last names starting with G to Z Nachteilsausgleich Students notified individually by email (Missionsstr. 64a, Seminarraum 00.001) 19