The Meaning of Philosophy in Psychology

Psychology can be a philosophical matter.

Psychology is arguably the most empirical of the social sciences. Advances in psychology involve scientific experimentation, surveys and data collection and even neuroscience, which in turn requires understanding of biology and chemistry. It seems odd, then, that philosophy holds such a privileged place in an otherwise empirical field. As it turns out, philosophy informs many aspects of psychology and helps explain the conclusions of many psychological studies.

Critical Thinking

Perhaps the most important aspect of philosophy's influence on psychology (and many other fields) is the use of critical thinking. Critical thinking is the foundation of any philosophical system, and the musings of early philosophers probably represent the origin of critical thinking. Within psychology, it allows researchers to examine, question, and rationally evaluate their methods and findings. In the psychiatrist's office, it is used in the form of deductive reasoning to diagnose patients.

Philosophical Questions

Many psychologists pose questions about the way that humans form their notions of self. What is a self? How do we develop a sense of self? How does the self change? How does our conception of selfhood affect our behavior? Psychoanalysts (Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, to name two) have spent their lives attempting to answer such "philosophical" questions. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, and psychologist/philosopher Eric Fromm all contributed to the field of existential analysis, which is a hybrid of psychology and philosophy. Today, social psychologists study the same sorts of questions by means of studies, surveys and observations. Many of these questions about the self cannot ultimately be reduced to empirical science. They might be considered philosophical questions studied by psychologists.

Mind and Body

Both psychologists and philosophers have long been fascinated by the ways we conceive of the separation between our minds and bodies. Yale University professor Paul Bloom is probably the most notable psychological researcher to look at mind/body dualism, and he has written prolifically on the subject. Tufts University professor Daniel Dennett also writes about the subject in the context of religion. The question of what constitutes and separates the mind from the body has been around since the time of Plato, when the Greek philosopher developed a distinction between the mental world of forms and the physical world of images. Rationalist philosopher Rene Descartes' "Meditations" are concerned with associating scientific truths with the body and religious truths with the mind. Contemporary interest in the mind/body problem shows how psychology attempts to address age-old philosophical queries.

Ethics

Ethics is considered a philosophical field, but it certainly is an integral part of psychology. How to treat individuals who are participating in psychological experiments or studies has been an issue of debate for several decades. Determining whether a technique is "too harmful" for use on living subjects depends on the prevailing ethical view.. In America, all experiments involving living subjects must be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) before scientists can proceed. Each IRB must include a reviewer whose career is not primarily scientific--a religious leader, a lawyer, or an ethicist.

Cognitive Development

Cognitive developmental psychology attempts to explain how we are capable of understanding language and how we develop into social beings. Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, and Jerry Fodor are modern philosophers who involve themselves with human psychology and cognitive development. We see similar queries from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The philosophical field of post-structuralism, headed by thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault, looks at the extent to which language is can be understood. Questions about how the brain structures language and infers meaning from social interactions at an early age straddle the line between philosophy and psychology.

References

• "The Journal of Mind and Behavior"; The Foundation Walls that are Carried by the House: A Critique of the Poverty of Stimulus Thesis and a Wittgensteinian-Dennettian Alternative; Wendy Lynn Lee
• "Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains what Makes us Human"; Paul Bloom; 2004
• Stephen D. Hales and Scott C. Lowe; 2006
• "General Psychology"; Delight in Thinking; Steve Ellyson et. al.; 2008
• Government IRB guidelines

Resources

• Zimbardo's and Milgram's experiments
• Descartes' Meditations
• "How The Mind Creates Language"; Stephen Pinker; 1994
• What is Critical Thinking?