Lecture 3:
Psychology as a problematic science & Ontology
Crisis of psychology
 Permanency of the crisis
 Domains of the crisis
 Description of the crisis:
Accumulation of data without theoretical integration or
clarification
Fragmentation and missing unity of psychology
Irrelevance of psychological research for practice
Ideological influences on psychological theory
Conceptualization of psychology as exclusively natural science
Substance of the crisis
 Inadequate conceptualization of the subject matter of psychology:
Importance of the subject matter
Historical aspects
Subject matter and models
 Methodologism of psychology:
Problem: Experiment
Problem: Nomothetic science
Problem: Pseudo-empiricism
Problem: Conceptual and investigative arbitrariness
Ontology and ontological problems
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The study of being as such (the basic characteristics of all reality)
The nature of existence
The nature of the relationship between mind and body
The nature of psychological concepts
Human nature
Problem 1: What is the nature of human existence?
 Martin Heidegger's (1889-1976) Being and Time (1927). Examined the
totality of human existence.
 Dasein: "to be" (sein) "there" (da). Person and the world are inseparable ->
 Being-in-the-world: Hyphens are used to emphasize the interrelatedness of
the person and the world.
Heidegger
 Authenticity and inauthenticity
 A prerequisite for living an authentic life was coming to grips with the fact
that "I must someday die."
 Realization  Person can exercise freedom to create a meaningful
existence.
 Refusal: Person inhibits an understanding of his or her possibilities 
inauthentic life.
Heidegger
 Authentic life: Lived with a sense of excitement. Exploring life's possibilities.
Becoming all that one can become.
 Inauthentic life: One pretends. Living a conventional life emphasizing
present activities without concern for the future. Giving up freedom and let
others make the choices of one’s life.
Heidegger
 Guilt
 If we do not exercise our personal freedomGuilt
 Authentic life  Minimize guilt.
Heidegger
 Acceptance of the fact that at some point in the future we will be
nothing  anxiety (acceptance takes courage).
 Making personal choices  anxiety.
 Authentic people are always experimenting  anxiety.
 Exercising one's freedom in life  anxiety.
 Anxiety: A necessary part of living an authentic life.
Heidegger
 The free individual is responsible for the consequences of choices.
 One cannot blame God, parents, circumstances, etc.
 Freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand.
Heidegger
 Humans choose, evaluate, accept, reject, and expand. To exist is to
become different. Humans choose the nature of their own
existence.
 Limits of personal freedom: We are thrown into the Dasein by
circumstances beyond our control.
 Thrownness determines the conditions under which we exercise our
freedom.
Problem 2: The relationship between mind and body
 I. Dualism: Two substances
 II. Monism: One substance
Dualism
 Interactionism: Descartes: res extensa - res cogitans. Mutual
influence of mind and body. Mental -> physical; physical -> mental.
 Parallelism: Leibniz: Mental and physical, mind and body: parallel
mode.
 Emergentism: Mental processes are produced by physical (brain)
processes. Yet, mental processes, though produced by brain
processes, are qualitatively different from the physical system from
which they emerge.
Monism
 Materialism: Everything is physical or material. Our mind is a result
of the physical. (Lamettrie)
 Spiritualism: Everything is spiritual, mental or immaterial (Berkeley).
 Identity-theory (double aspect monism): Mind and body are the
same. We use different languages to describe these processes.
(Spinoza, Schelling)
 Epiphenomenalism: Physical events are causal with respect to
mental events. Mental events have no independent existence.
(Huxley)
Problem 3: Concepts
 Are psychological concepts of a natural or of a socio-historical kind?
Problem 4: The nature of human nature
Theories of human nature