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The Sydney Realist, Number 24, November 2012, pp. 7-9. (For other papers on the 50th
anniversary of Anderson's death, please see:
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/furedy/Papers/ra/SydneyRealist_24.rtf
Refelections_12.doc
Some Reflections On Andersonian Realism’s Influence On
Psychology In Australia:
Andersonians J R. Maze And W. M. O’Neil
At the risk of being distastefully egocentric, I note that the 50 th anniversary of
Anderson’s death is also 50th anniversary of my completion of Psychology IV honours at
Sydney University. Drawing on my education there, I present here a few reflections, on the
past and present influence of Andersonian realism on the academic discipline of psychology.
Details of my views on this influence from 1961 to the present are available in
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/furedy/realism_appl.htm, but here I would like to
consider only two Andersonians at Sydney University, a philosopher of science (John Maze,
senior lecturer in psychology, appointed to the teaching staff in 1954) and an educator (Bill
O’Neil professor of psychology, 1945-65), who contributed most to my realist perspective on
psychology. The realist approach has currently fallen out of favour but, I think that, in the
long run, it will prove to be the correct perspective for both the scientific status and genuine
applied usefulness of the discipline of psychology.
John Maze (1923 - 2008): The psychological-theory voice of Anderson
John Maze was a student of Anderson’s1. For a picture of the life of “psychology’s
versatile non-conformist”, one cannot do better than the 2008 obituary in the Sydney
Morning Herald by Harriet Veitch2. My own encounter with this uniquely theoretical, and
eccentric, member of Professor W. M. O’Neil’s teaching staff began in my third year (1960)
and culminated in a 1983 review of his book The Meaning of Behavior that I wrote with
Diane Riley (then a Ph. D student of mine, and formerly a student of Maze)3.
The central theme of Maze’s book, which was based on his 1954 thesis, is the relation
of philosophy or “theoretical psychology” to empirical research psychology. In his foreword
Maze asserts: “Psychology has suffered too long from its self-created insulation against
philosophical criticism.” He argued that if psychology was to yield genuinely useful
applications, it must be grounded in a sound, and consistent realist philosophy of science. In
essence, the book is an expression of the relevance of Andersonian realism for the discipline
of psychology.
The idea that empirical research psychologists should pay any attention to what philosophers of
science have to say has been rejected by the vast majority of research psychologists, who do not want to
“waste their time” in such idle reflection. Maze, I think, represents the out-of-fashion Socratic view of the
value of the “examined life”, where that value extends to all aspects of life, and hence even to empirical
research in psychology. It is worth noting that Maze remained closely allied to the Freudian
approach, which stressed the importance of conflicting motives in the determining of the
behaviour of individuals (such conflicts as those among the id, ego, and super ego). I think
that Andersonianism influenced Maze’s emphasis on conflict, between individuals and
competing “schools” or paradigms in psychology. In my 3 rd year (1960) in psychology
honours, Maze’s discussion of differences between “behaviourism” and “mentalism”
influenced my thinking about the conflict of ideas. Maze was not my assigned supervisor for
my 4th year theoretical thesis the following year, but I consulted closely with him in writing it
since it dealt with the importance of having genuine, falsifiable hypotheses in psychological
research and discussed competing theoretical systems. I was very glad of his generous help.
In contrast to his early1954 article “Do intervening variables intervene?” which struck a
significant blow against non-cognitive behaviourism (I would characterize this as
metaphysical S-R behaviourism) and attracted widespread interest (together with predictions
of a meteoric rise for Maze), Maze’s 1983 book had little scholarly impact. By then his
approach had fallen out of fashion not only globally but also in Australia. I think,
nevertheless, that even if his citation count (and hence impact) is low, he has nevertheless
made a lasting contribution to psychology as a science. I regard him as the “voice” of
Anderson, partly because in both his early papers and the 1983 book, his style more closely
mirrors the long sentences that characterised Anderson’s writing more than any of the other
Andersonians, but mainly, of course, because he applied a thorough-going realist analysis to
psychology4.
W.M. (Bill) O’Neil as the implementer of an Andersonian method of education with the
conflict of ideas as its prime feature
The term “god professor” makes little current sense, but during the 20 years (194565) that Bill O’Neil reigned as the sole professor of Psychology at Sydney University, it
applied at least to administration.
On his appointment to the chair, he was one of 28 professors who were in charge of
their respective disciplines, where that charge included the areas to be taught in that
discipline, the allocation of research funds, and the appointment of teaching staff as well as
the areas that those staff had to cover.
However, while Bill was quite ready to exercise these administrative powers, he did
not dictate how the staff should cover the subjects they taught. They were free to advance
their own views on the material, even if those views were contrary not only to those of their
colleagues, but to his own.
O’Neil was an Andersonian in the sense that his view of psychology was essentially a
realist one. His Andersonian credentials were clearly recognized during his career. For
example, he was included in the
group of “Andersonians” whom Archbishop Gough accused of teaching “free love” to
students in the 1950s and 60s5.
The intellectual freedom that O’Neil espoused to his teaching staff also extended to
the students of his department. The department, as a whole, educated rather than
indoctrinated students, who were exposed to the conflict of ideas. In my own case this
conflict-of-ideas approach was most dramatically implemented during my third
undergraduate year when our weekly seminars were led, on alternate weeks by a convinced
Freudian and an equally convinced (in modern parlance “extremist”) Skinnerian. I have
written about this conflict between a “mentalist” and a “behaviourist” in an obit on the latter6.
Bill conveyed his conflict-of-ideas philosophy of education to me in a remark in a
1987 talk about how students should be taught:
"Let them see what the circus is capable of before arguing on the basis of both logical
and observational evidence about which horse to ride. You may prefer the bay and I
may prefer the grey, but if we are serious scholars we must justify our preferences.”
In current terminology this approach to education favours presenting students with
contending paradigms rather than a single paradigm. And of course I cannot help
contrasting the single paradigm approach of the current Australian psychology
departments committed as they are to psychology’s “cognitive revolution”, a “paradigm
shift” which began in the 1970s. To-day the term “cognitive” has come to be
synonymous to the term “psychological”, as if non-cognitive psychological functions
were inconceivable.7
Perhaps I should add that as an educator, O’Neil implemented his department’s
conflict-of-ideas approach more radically than Anderson himself, who, like Karl Popper, did
not take kindly to his own ideas being criticized by his students or teaching staff!
Conclusion
Alison Turtle and Fiona Hibberd have briefly noted the broader influence of
Anderson on psychologists O’Neil and Maze and their students 8, commenting:
“All have grounded their examination of psychology's current conceptual and
methodological practices in the tenets of Anderson's realist philosophy, emphasising the
thesis of determinism, non-representative cognition, the error of mistaking a relation between
things for a quality of one of those things, an opposition to dualism, and the self-refuting
nature of non-realist positions”.
Others educated at the University of Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s have noted
how Andersonian realism influenced their thinking. Clive James, who came to
Anderson via Studies in Empirical Philosophy, not while he was at Sydney University
but on the boat he took to England, has argued that Anderson’s influence reached
beyond the universities to teaching colleges, schools, and the media, as students
graduated and moved into professions; and far beyond philosophy and psychology, to a
vision of society. James thinks that Anderson’s heritage of scepticism lives on in
Australia and that the ‘characteristic tone of the Australian realist voice’ still survives 9.
We shall have to judge in the future how robust is the influence of the Andersonians. In
twenty or thirty years John Anderson may not be considered to have relevance to the thinking of
psychologists. But if the interest in Andersonian realism persists in some form, I hope that a trace
of that realism will persist, even if unrecognized, in the
discipline of psychology. I hope, as well, that the importance of a contest of ideas, which
Anderson upheld and which Andersonians embraced, will continue as a principle in education
for critical thinking. I hope I have been able to indicate how two very different
Andersonians have contributed to my continuing education in the discipline of
psychology.
Endnotes
1. I recall being told that Anderson used to say that Maze was his brightest and most neurotic
student. In terms of academic rank reached in psychology, I think the second part of this
remark was correct, but in my opinion, for sheer intellectual power in the philosophy of
science and theoretical psychology, the first part was also right.
2. Furedy, J. J. and Diane M. Riley (1983). “Extended critical review of J. R. Maze, The
Meaning of Behaviour. (Allen & Unwin, London, 1983).” Available at:
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/furedy/Papers/ra/Extendc.doc .
3. Veitch, H. (2008). “Psychology’s versatile non-conformist: John Maze 1923-2008”.
Available at:
(http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/psychologys-versatilenonconformist/2008/06/19/1213770823196.html?page=1
4. I think that this Andersonian “voice” is more significant than the fact that, strangely, he
chose not to cite Annderson in The Meaning of Behaviour. This was an omission that he later
was unable to explain in conversation with me.
5. Dockrill, D. W. (1999). “Archbishop Gough and the Sydney philosophers: Religion,
religious studies and the university.” In This Immense Panorama: Studies in Honour of Eric
J. Sharpe, edited by Carole M. Cusack and Peter Oldmeadow. Sydney, University of Sydney.
Available at:
http://ojsrod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/SSR/article/view/655/636
6. Furedy, J. J. (1996) “Some thoughts on the teaching contributions of a reflective
experimental psychologist: J.D. ‘Peter’ Keehn (1925-95).”
History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin (Canadian Psychology
Association Section 25 Newsletter), 8, #1, 11-13.
Available at:
http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/furedy/Papers/ob/keehn4.doc
7. Psychology has always had dominant paradigms. Since the 1940s the dominant paradigm
was the non-cognitive, “behaviourist” S-R approach espoused by Hull, over the “mentalist”
cognitive S-S approach of Tolman. However, even in the strongest and most dogmatic S-R
psychology department in the University of Iowa, where students were only half jokingly told
not to ask “what’s on your mind” but “what’s on your behavior”, the Tolmanian cognitive
approach was not only recognized but explicitly argued against. So in O’Neil’s department
and under the supervision of R.A. (Dick) Champion (who, with an M.A. from the university
of Iowa was the Sydney department’s resident S-R “behaviorist”), I could produce an
empirical honours thesis that showed, at least to my satisfaction, that the results fitted a
cognitive, Tolmanian approach.
8. Turtle, Alison M. and Fiona J. Hibberd. “History and Philosophy of Psychology at the
University of Sydney”. Newsletter, European Society for History of the Human Sciences, 20
(2).
Available at:
http://psychology.dur.ac.uk/eshhs/local/sydney.htm
9. James, Clive. (2005). “Renegade at the lecturn: Australia's national philosopher: John
Anderson”. The Monthly, July 2005.
John Furedy