Oh, dear, Eric. You have just confirmed Owen’s worst suspicions about psychology.
Next we will be hearing from the pomo crowd that the reason psychologists cannot agree is that there is no such thing as human psychology, that the study of human behavior is like the study of English literature, and that we should no more expect psychology to converge on a common approach than we would expect literary criticism to converge on a common view of what good fiction is. It’s just power and politics all the way down. [sigh] Nick From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2011 5:42 PM To: Owen Densmore Cc: friam Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The myth of knowledge Forwarded to list at Owen's request... Owen, I'll meditate on a more thorough answer, but the quick one is: Yes, psychology is "fragmented in the sense of having little or no basis upon which psychologists agree." The original umbrella organization, the American Psychological Association now has 56 Divisions! The original idea was to create "Unity Through Division" (and a multi-volume history of the APA is so titled), but it has not worked. Instead, it has only lead to greater fragmentation. There is no framework nor even a set of core phenomenon, core experiments, or core findings that holds things together. Eric On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 12:34 PM, Owen Densmore <[email protected]> wrote: Not a duplicate, at least for me, so I'm really glad you did resend! And, yes, that was exactly what I was looking for. I had no idea that psychology was, at least from the inside, fragmented as you describe. The unification theme is subtle: upon what "axis" does a multidimensional system unify? I'm reading a wonderful book by Timothy Gowers, a Fields medalist mathematician, who wrote The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. (There is no Nobel prize in mathematics: http://goo.gl/mj7f) He was concerned not about how to unify mathematics, but show what that unified structure was. It's not a "math book" per se, but a series of ever-deeper plunges into the structure and scope of the areas of mathematics, and how they overlap. It is a "companion" in that it claims no authority or completeness as an encyclopedia might. Rather it is a very human guide, with a point of view (opinions) and gaps. It was as much orchestrated by TG as written .. it had a web-site with many commentators, and has several sections of the book written by experts in particular areas. One is struck by the fact that even though there are many fields, this is not considered fragmentation because they all accept certain fundamentals. Psychology is "fragmented" to we novices in that there are many fields. And a "Companion" would certainly be useful for us. But is it fragmented in the sense of having little or no basis upon which psychologists agree? -- Owen Links: Gowers' home page http://gowers.wordpress.com/ Polymath Project: http://polymathprojects.org/ (Shows community process in math) Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601
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