On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 1:59 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: dmb in his post to Matt in terms of psychology:> > Let me be more specific, you and/or Bernstein are characterizing an idea that > I basically agree with; that our philosophical positions are psychologically > motivated.
Mark questions: I find the use of psychology interesting. Psychology is the modern study of the psyche. It is relatively new in its modern version, but of course the psyche has been discussed for as long as humans discussed and questioned motivations. But the term psychological would seem to give a modern scientific sense to this interpretation of philosophy. If indeed, psychology was created as a discipline not too long ago, I wonder if it is appropriate to apply this label to philosophies that occurred before its creation. No doubt the effects of gravity and the psyche were present long before the laws of gravity and the discipline of psychology, but the concepts were not. Since the discipline of psychology is a product of its time, and was not used in older philosophies; I question the meaning behind dmb's statement. I believe it is more appropriate to apply the term "psyche" to older philosophies since that term predates psychology. But, philosophies since the time of, say, James could be considered psychologically motivated. A more appropriate way to phrase the sentence provided by dmb would be that our philosophical positions are psychically motivated. Then we get away from the relatively modern (and temporary) containment of philosophical thought, by seems to be considered a more inclusive discipline, that is psychology. For indeed, psychology is used to explain philosphy as well as other phenomenons. By the same token we could say that philosophy explains psychology and could therefore say that psychology is philosophically motivated. By this analysis we end up with a very vague idea of what we are talking about. What then do we mean that philosophy comes from the psyche? Of course Aristotle's view of the psyche is a bit different from our modern interpretation. Can we say that philosophy is part of the psyche, rather than it is motivated by it? That is, that the human mind is composed of philosophy and other components such as behavior? It would seem that using the modern interpretation, we confuse philosophy with behavior. I suppose this can be done if one uses a very broad definition of behavior as the sum total of all our actions, but this make the term "behavior" rather meaningless. If we use a more limited concept of behavior, as that which occurs before rational thought (thus elevating us above the behavioral paradigm of animals), we would say the philosophy is simply a codification of behavior, and can be explained away as no more than looking for apples. This then becomes a promissory materialist (or scientific) position. That is to say that all philosophy can be eventually reduced (with data) to some fundamental urges, just like belching. While this is indeed one way to look at it, I wonder why is there the need to look at it that way, since there are so many other choices. Of course we can also discuss the philosophy of behavioral choices... The study of psychology requires an interpretation of data. Where do these modes of interpretation come from? Certainly the data is neutral. We classify our psyche into systems using models which we make up. We then use those systems to explain how we make the models up. Something is missing here. How can we have any scientific certainty in such a study apart from what we "feel" is right? In my opinion, to present philosophy as something psychological has low quality. But, I suppose, it is a sign of our times. Psychology is the new religion. Cheers, Mark > > > > > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
