Hi
On Tue, 13 Apr 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> In my intro-psych classes, I try to make sense of the enormous
> diversity in psychology, as well as possible causes of the
> controversies that sometimes rage in our discipline, by
> contrasting two scientific traditions that seem to me to be
> solidly established. By the term "scientific tradition," I am
> referring to a fundamental approach to scientific research that
> involves: (1) a basic set of goals (motivations) for that
> research; (2) a general way of asking questions and of testing
> tentative answers in that research. In other words, a
> scientific tradition involves a set reasons for doing research
> as well as the manner in which one performs that research. I
> distinguish between what I call the "subjective" and
> "objective" traditions in psychology. Let me quote from s
> discussion of this that I hand out to students:
I believe it is a misnomer to use the descriptor "scientific" in
this general way and to refer to both of the approaches that you
later described as "scientific." These are more like
epistemologies or approaches to knowledge (i.e., ways of knowing)
rather than different variants of science. Only the objective
approach merits the label of scientific. The dangers of
minimizing the differences between your "objective" and
"subjective" traditions are, in general, of two sorts:
1. Students will wrongly believe that "subjective" phenomena
cannot be studied objectively. Many psychologists, like myself,
study imagery, metaphor, meaning, feelings, and the like in a
completely objective manner.
2. Students will wrongly believe that the "subjective" methods
and loose theorizing typical of your "subjective" stream are in
fact legitimate scientific approaches to knowledge. Students
need to be disabused of that idea.
Best wishes
Jim
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James M. Clark (204) 786-9313
Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax
University of Winnipeg 4L02A
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark
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