I agree with Ed's #1 below (at the risk of tooting my own horn, see Lilienfeld,
S.O., in press. Public skepticism of psychology: Why many people perceive the
study of human behavior as unscientific. American Psychologist), but not
really with his #2. Ed's comments don't distinguish substance dualism from
property dualism (or eliminative reductionism from constitutive reductionism).
Only the former form of dualism implies that mind and brain are categorically
different "stuff" and that the former contains some ethereal or nonmaterial
essence. The latter, which admittedly is still actively debated by
psychologists and philosophers of mind, grants that yes, the "mind" is indeed
the CNS in action, but that mind cannot simply be reduced to the CNS because of
emergent properties at the neural level and other levels of analysis. As we
know, emergent properties aren't universally accepted - the Churchlands, for
example, have argued forcefully against them. But I don't think it's
inherently "spooky," unscientific, or irrational to argue that because of
emergent properties, "mind" constitutes a different level of analysis that
cannot merely be reduced to lower-level biological properties, any more than
the meaning of print on a page can be reduced fully to the precise molecular
properties of the print. From this perspective, contra Ed's message, mind and
mental processes are not "outright myths." The related distinction between
constitutive and eliminative (or Dennett's "greedy") reductionism is crucial
here. One can be a constitutive reductionist, who grants that everything
"mental" is ultimately composed of brain (or at least CNS) stuff, but not
necessarily an eliminative reductionist, who believes that everything
biological will ultimately "eliminate" any need for the psychological level of
analysis (e.g., traits, motives, desires, or take Ed's example, mental illness,
which of course is biological at some level, but which in some cases may be
best understood at higher levels of analysis, such as breakdowns in threat
sensitivity in the case of many anxiety disorders).
A number of very bright and rigorous scientific psychologists have
advanced this argument, including John Kihlstrom and Jerome Kagan. See the
latter's book, "An argument for mind":
http://www.amazon.com/Argument-Mind-Jerome-Kagan/dp/0300113374
Again, I don't intend to argue for or against emergent properties. I'm
frankly pretty agnostic on the issue, in part because I've read writings by
philosophers of mind about it on both sides and find many of the arguments to
exceed my level of expertise. But I think it's premature to argue
categorically against their possibility, and I also don't think that allowing
some room for mind or mental explanations in psychology is inherently
unscientific.
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, Room 473
Emory University
36 Eagle Row,
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>; 404-727-1125
From: drnanjo [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 10:13 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Paul Lutus - Psychology is not a science
Stated much more articulately than I am currently able to state it. Thanks.
Nancy Melucci
LBCC
-----Original Message-----
From: Pollak, Edward (Retired) <[email protected]>
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, Sep 8, 2011 5:43 am
Subject: RE:[tips] Paul Lutus - Psychology is not a science
In many ways we have laid ourselves wide open for these charges. 1) APA & the
mass media do little to disabuse the masses of the notion that psychology is
not primarily a clinical discipline and more importantly 2) we have never tried
to disabuse the masses of a basic belief in dualism. Such a belief allows
critics to make the obvious criticism that "mental illness is a myth." OF
COURSE it's a myth! It can only be true if there is a mind separate from
body/brain. For many years I've refused to use the terms, "mental illness"
preferring the terms "behavior" or "cognitive disorders". Many texts also do
that in chapter titles but in the body of their texts, they revert to a naive
dualism. Similarly, too many of my colleagues (especially, but not exclusively,
clinical colleagues) insist on talking about mental illness, mind-body healing,
etc. They tell their classes (including graduate level classes) things such as
e.g., "psychotherapy works best where there is no underlying neurochemical
basis." When called on such silliness they hem & haw and say, "well, of course
you're technically correct but this is really an applied/clinical course I
don't want to confuse them."
Until we develop a new language that forever banishes the concept of "mind"
without simultaneously banishing the very real internal experiences that the
literary metaphor "mind" seeks to explain (as the radical behaviorists did) ,
psychology will not mature as a science. In fact, we should dispense with the
name "psychology" altogether since it implies a study of mind or soul (as
distinct from body/brain). Frankly, I think that a name such as "behavioral
science," or even "behavioral neuroscience" would better serve our discipline
and its future. But if you insist on referring to psychology as the mind or
mental processes, don't be so shocked when you get reminded that the "mind and
mental processes" are nothing more than convenient literary metaphors or
outright myths.
Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D.
Professor emeritus
Department of Psychology
West Chester University of Pennsylvania
http://home.comcast.net/~epollak/jam.htm
Husband, father, grandfather, bluegrass fiddler &
biopsychologist............... in approximate order of importance
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