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Metapsychology: Missing links in behavior, mind and science
Book Reviews Van Fraassen’s arguments about the role of laws in scientific reasoning are part of a larger attack on realist interpretations of scientific theories. The debate between realists and anti-realists has a long history, extending back at least to the seventeenth century when it was couched in terms of God’s relationship to his creation and whether there exist any necessary relations in the world which can restrict God in the free exercise of his will.’ Although the terms of the argument have changed-we no longer find divine will central to our understanding of scientific knowledge-the same issues lie at the heart of the discussion: the status of universals, the nature of necessity and contingency, and the scope of human knowledge. Margaret
J. Osler
University of Calgary
NOTE 1. For background on this complex issue, see Francis Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant and Order: An Excursion in the History of Ideas from Abelard to Leibniz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).
Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind and Science, Sam S. Rakover (with contributions by Kalman J. Kaplan) (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1990) xxviii + 449 pp. “Metapsychology” presents an attempt to consider psychology as a scientific discipline despite the fact that on all pertinent accounts-the epistemological, the logical and the ontological-it differs from the natural sciences, particularly physics. The present book review therefore focusses on this major issue, disregarding, for the sake of brevity, other philosophical issues which are discussed in the book (such as the relationships between psychology, science and the philosophies of science and mind; and the concepts of causality, explanation, theory and model). Compared with other recently published books on the philosophy of psychology, the scope of the theoretical analyses is rather wide, particularly in considering the links between general problems in the philosophy of science and specific issues in the philosophy of psychology. The uniqueness of psychology is best demonstrated by the fact that because it deals with the mind and organismic behaviour, it cannot rely exclusively on causal explanations, as the natural sciences do, but must also use rule-following and teleological explanations. Moreover, even the causal explanations in psychology differ from those used in the natural sciences in that the latter are expressed in terms of universal laws, whereas the former are also expressed in terms of statistical laws. Despite these differences, however, the author believes that psychology is a scientific discipline, since theory evaluation does not depend exclusively on reduction of theory to empirical observations, but also on representation, explanation, organisation, systematisation and self-consistency. According to the author, psychological theory consists of a three-level structure which is, from the bottom up: theory domain (stimulus, organism, response), the concept of
388
Book Reviews
stimulus and response, and a symbolic processor which explains what happens in the lower level. Evaluation of this model is difficult, however, since the author does not elaborate on its dynamics. How, for example, is a given stimulus-response interaction explained by the upper level? What happens next, once the interaction has been explained? Unfortunately, these and similar questions remain unanswered. A similar criticism may be leveled against the author’s view of the process of scientific progress which he regards as a continuous, four-stage learning process of fundamental scientific ideas; namely, multiple explanations and formulation of the empirical problem, emergence of a unified theory, multiple explanations and reformulation of the empirical problem, and emergence of a new unified theory. This process of conceptual generalisation and scope widening (and, one might add, conceptual refinement) ensures continuous improvement of the picture of nature, of the methodology used for learning about nature, and of the evaluation criteria. This idea is intriguing, particularly because it presents the accumulation of scientific knowledge as a function of cumulative scientific endeavour. But, focussing almost exclusively on structural concepts, the author neglects the dynamic aspects of the process of learning in scientific progress. One wonders how this learning process proceeds from one stage to the other. What are the criteria for acceptable explanations? How does this process differ from a similar, evolutionary approach? How does it relate to reductionism? These and similar questions are not dealt with. Moreover, in rejecting the Kuhnian notion of scientific revolution, the author is duty bound to explain how processes such as the transition from Newtonian to quantum physics, for example, can be considered continuous and not revolutionary. It seems that Kuhn’s notion of two scientific paradigms, continuous (normal) and revolutionary, better accounts for scientific development than the author’s one-track road of continuous progress. Learning theory does account for both continuous (trial and error) and revolutionary (insight) learning processes. By ignoring the possibility of insightful learning, the author seems to miss the point, and to provide a partial and sketchy, rather than a comprehensive theory of scientific progress. In psychology, however, the author does observe a two-track process of scientific progress. In research aimed at the discovery of lawful relationships between input and output, progress is continuous, whereas in research aimed at providing solutions to the mind-body problem it is discontinuous. Among the other philosophical issues which are unique to the psychology of human behaviour (private behaviour, free will, and the mind-body problem), the author is particularly bothered by the legitimacy of introspection as a major research technique. Realising that this is an unsolvable problem, he creatively adopts a pragmatic approach by suggesting a ‘methodological introspection’ which can provide data to be explained and generate theoretical concepts which can then be used for theory testing. According to the author, the treatment of private behaviour as a theoretical construct rather than as a real event prevents a total disregard for private behaviour, enables the use of private behaviour as an explanatory concept for public behaviour, and allows for a common treatment of animal and human behaviour. In regard to the everlasting mind-body and free will issues, the author expresses his beliefs in the unity of the mind, and the teleological nature of behaviour. While he is acutely aware of the fact that his beliefs are incompatible with a mechanical world view, he is relieved to discover that they are compatible with quantum indeterminism (are they compatible with chaos theory?). As a whole, the book constitutes a major contribution to the philosophy of psychology. It eloquently presents an in-depth, extensive analysis of the major pertinent issues which serves as an appropriate background for the author’s original conceptual contributions. The theoretical analyses are accompanied by experimental and anecdotal iIlustrations which considerably enhance one’s understanding of the text.
389
Book Reviews
Criticism of the book has to do mainly with errors of omission rather than errors of commission. Specifically, by focussing mainly on cognitive functions, the author ignores noncognitive functions, such as emotional and unconscious processes. In Chap. 8 the author shows how the scientist’s sociocultural milieu plays a significant role in theory construction. His own milieu, as indicated in the Preface, is ‘the antics of rats in a Skinner box’. This fact evidently explains why the overwhelming majority of the experimental data presented in the book are taken from the field of rat learning (when nonpsychological data are concerned, they are usually taken from Newtonian physics). This is a major drawback, as it in fact delimits the scope of scientific psychology to ‘rat psychology’. Use of examples from other cognitive areas, as well as from other fields of human behaviour, could have considerably enriched the discussions, particularly since the mind-body problem is uniquely human. The theoretical analysis of this problem could have further benefited from discussions of the modularity of the mind, connectionism, and the application of chaos theory to psychology. These are conspicuously absent from the book. Another omission has to do with the fact that, in evaluating the scientific standing of psychology, the author compares it to the natural sciences (specifically, to physics), but not to other social sciences, such as sociology. Finally, a couple of comments on style. I wish a clearer distinction would have been made between discussions of general philosophical problems and specific metapsychological issues. Beyond that, the style of the book, as the author is well aware, needs improvement here and there. Personally, I do not care for the repeated statement that a given topic is ‘beyond the scope of this book’, since it leaves the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that he or she is missing something important. Clearly, the proofreader should have been replaced, considering the numerous typographical and other errors that appear in the text. In the final analysis, however, the book provides an in-depth, comprehensive review of the existing literature, along with some original, creative contributions by the author. Personally, I enjoyed reading it, as I trust will others interested in the philosophy of science in general, and in metapsychology in particular. Israel Nachson Bar-llan University
German Federalism Today, Charlie Jeffrey St Martin’s Press, 1991), 167 pp., USS45.00.
and
Peter
Savigear
(eds)
(New
York:
It is hard to imagine a more timely topic on German and European affairs than federalism, On the British Isles the F-word serves as a hyped-up insult hurled at supporters of European unification, and while its use in political discourse is noted, the concept of federalism remains largely unexamined and wrongly applied. The eight essays in Jeffery’s and Savigear’s volume (the third in the series Studies in F~~era~~srnpublished by the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Leicester) therefore are not only important in clarifying the historical development of the federal system and its adaptation to changing demands in modern Germany, but they also carry enlightening messages for our understanding the implications of the ‘closer union’ among the peoples of Europe under a federal structure.
J. Osler
University of Calgary
NOTE 1. For background on this complex issue, see Francis Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant and Order: An Excursion in the History of Ideas from Abelard to Leibniz (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).
Metapsychology: Missing Links in Behavior, Mind and Science, Sam S. Rakover (with contributions by Kalman J. Kaplan) (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1990) xxviii + 449 pp. “Metapsychology” presents an attempt to consider psychology as a scientific discipline despite the fact that on all pertinent accounts-the epistemological, the logical and the ontological-it differs from the natural sciences, particularly physics. The present book review therefore focusses on this major issue, disregarding, for the sake of brevity, other philosophical issues which are discussed in the book (such as the relationships between psychology, science and the philosophies of science and mind; and the concepts of causality, explanation, theory and model). Compared with other recently published books on the philosophy of psychology, the scope of the theoretical analyses is rather wide, particularly in considering the links between general problems in the philosophy of science and specific issues in the philosophy of psychology. The uniqueness of psychology is best demonstrated by the fact that because it deals with the mind and organismic behaviour, it cannot rely exclusively on causal explanations, as the natural sciences do, but must also use rule-following and teleological explanations. Moreover, even the causal explanations in psychology differ from those used in the natural sciences in that the latter are expressed in terms of universal laws, whereas the former are also expressed in terms of statistical laws. Despite these differences, however, the author believes that psychology is a scientific discipline, since theory evaluation does not depend exclusively on reduction of theory to empirical observations, but also on representation, explanation, organisation, systematisation and self-consistency. According to the author, psychological theory consists of a three-level structure which is, from the bottom up: theory domain (stimulus, organism, response), the concept of
388
Book Reviews
stimulus and response, and a symbolic processor which explains what happens in the lower level. Evaluation of this model is difficult, however, since the author does not elaborate on its dynamics. How, for example, is a given stimulus-response interaction explained by the upper level? What happens next, once the interaction has been explained? Unfortunately, these and similar questions remain unanswered. A similar criticism may be leveled against the author’s view of the process of scientific progress which he regards as a continuous, four-stage learning process of fundamental scientific ideas; namely, multiple explanations and formulation of the empirical problem, emergence of a unified theory, multiple explanations and reformulation of the empirical problem, and emergence of a new unified theory. This process of conceptual generalisation and scope widening (and, one might add, conceptual refinement) ensures continuous improvement of the picture of nature, of the methodology used for learning about nature, and of the evaluation criteria. This idea is intriguing, particularly because it presents the accumulation of scientific knowledge as a function of cumulative scientific endeavour. But, focussing almost exclusively on structural concepts, the author neglects the dynamic aspects of the process of learning in scientific progress. One wonders how this learning process proceeds from one stage to the other. What are the criteria for acceptable explanations? How does this process differ from a similar, evolutionary approach? How does it relate to reductionism? These and similar questions are not dealt with. Moreover, in rejecting the Kuhnian notion of scientific revolution, the author is duty bound to explain how processes such as the transition from Newtonian to quantum physics, for example, can be considered continuous and not revolutionary. It seems that Kuhn’s notion of two scientific paradigms, continuous (normal) and revolutionary, better accounts for scientific development than the author’s one-track road of continuous progress. Learning theory does account for both continuous (trial and error) and revolutionary (insight) learning processes. By ignoring the possibility of insightful learning, the author seems to miss the point, and to provide a partial and sketchy, rather than a comprehensive theory of scientific progress. In psychology, however, the author does observe a two-track process of scientific progress. In research aimed at the discovery of lawful relationships between input and output, progress is continuous, whereas in research aimed at providing solutions to the mind-body problem it is discontinuous. Among the other philosophical issues which are unique to the psychology of human behaviour (private behaviour, free will, and the mind-body problem), the author is particularly bothered by the legitimacy of introspection as a major research technique. Realising that this is an unsolvable problem, he creatively adopts a pragmatic approach by suggesting a ‘methodological introspection’ which can provide data to be explained and generate theoretical concepts which can then be used for theory testing. According to the author, the treatment of private behaviour as a theoretical construct rather than as a real event prevents a total disregard for private behaviour, enables the use of private behaviour as an explanatory concept for public behaviour, and allows for a common treatment of animal and human behaviour. In regard to the everlasting mind-body and free will issues, the author expresses his beliefs in the unity of the mind, and the teleological nature of behaviour. While he is acutely aware of the fact that his beliefs are incompatible with a mechanical world view, he is relieved to discover that they are compatible with quantum indeterminism (are they compatible with chaos theory?). As a whole, the book constitutes a major contribution to the philosophy of psychology. It eloquently presents an in-depth, extensive analysis of the major pertinent issues which serves as an appropriate background for the author’s original conceptual contributions. The theoretical analyses are accompanied by experimental and anecdotal iIlustrations which considerably enhance one’s understanding of the text.
389
Book Reviews
Criticism of the book has to do mainly with errors of omission rather than errors of commission. Specifically, by focussing mainly on cognitive functions, the author ignores noncognitive functions, such as emotional and unconscious processes. In Chap. 8 the author shows how the scientist’s sociocultural milieu plays a significant role in theory construction. His own milieu, as indicated in the Preface, is ‘the antics of rats in a Skinner box’. This fact evidently explains why the overwhelming majority of the experimental data presented in the book are taken from the field of rat learning (when nonpsychological data are concerned, they are usually taken from Newtonian physics). This is a major drawback, as it in fact delimits the scope of scientific psychology to ‘rat psychology’. Use of examples from other cognitive areas, as well as from other fields of human behaviour, could have considerably enriched the discussions, particularly since the mind-body problem is uniquely human. The theoretical analysis of this problem could have further benefited from discussions of the modularity of the mind, connectionism, and the application of chaos theory to psychology. These are conspicuously absent from the book. Another omission has to do with the fact that, in evaluating the scientific standing of psychology, the author compares it to the natural sciences (specifically, to physics), but not to other social sciences, such as sociology. Finally, a couple of comments on style. I wish a clearer distinction would have been made between discussions of general philosophical problems and specific metapsychological issues. Beyond that, the style of the book, as the author is well aware, needs improvement here and there. Personally, I do not care for the repeated statement that a given topic is ‘beyond the scope of this book’, since it leaves the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that he or she is missing something important. Clearly, the proofreader should have been replaced, considering the numerous typographical and other errors that appear in the text. In the final analysis, however, the book provides an in-depth, comprehensive review of the existing literature, along with some original, creative contributions by the author. Personally, I enjoyed reading it, as I trust will others interested in the philosophy of science in general, and in metapsychology in particular. Israel Nachson Bar-llan University
German Federalism Today, Charlie Jeffrey St Martin’s Press, 1991), 167 pp., USS45.00.
and
Peter
Savigear
(eds)
(New
York:
It is hard to imagine a more timely topic on German and European affairs than federalism, On the British Isles the F-word serves as a hyped-up insult hurled at supporters of European unification, and while its use in political discourse is noted, the concept of federalism remains largely unexamined and wrongly applied. The eight essays in Jeffery’s and Savigear’s volume (the third in the series Studies in F~~era~~srnpublished by the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Leicester) therefore are not only important in clarifying the historical development of the federal system and its adaptation to changing demands in modern Germany, but they also carry enlightening messages for our understanding the implications of the ‘closer union’ among the peoples of Europe under a federal structure.