But to be fair, Ed only disputed a "naive" dualism. The question is whether he intended that to be a redundancy or if he thinks that there could be a more informed dualism.
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ________________________________ From: Lilienfeld, Scott O [[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2011 9:46 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Paul Lutus - Psychology is not a science 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 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. 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