ABSTRACT

Most mainstream psychologists consider philosophy irrelevant to their work, but see themselves as realists. Various opposition movements embrace philosophy but reject realism, either completely or partially, despite upholding ideas consistent with a realist philosophy. Many on both sides see the Tower of Babel that constitutes psychology as a sign of healthy diversity, not fragmentation. We argue that relations among the three factors – philosophy, realism and fragmentation – deserve closer scrutiny. With philosophy’s core method of conceptual analysis deprioritized, both mainstream psychology and the opposition fracture into an array of “partial realisms”, falling away from a realism that is thoroughly consistent. These are the source of psychology’s fragmentation. The conceptual neglect and resulting confusions can be seen in psychology’s recent replicability crisis, and in the widespread adoption of a representationalist approach to the mind/brain. We argue that the metatheoretical coherence and methodological maturity required for genuine scientific progress involves a consistent adherence to realism. We spell out what that involves and consider several reasons why this has been so difficult for psychology.

摘要

大多数主流心理学家认为哲学与他们的工作无关，但将自己视为现实主义者。尽管坚持与现实主义哲学相一致的思想，各种反对派运动都拥护哲学但完全或部分地拒绝现实主义。双方的许多人都将构成心理学的巴别塔视为健康多样性而非分裂的标志。我们认为，哲学、现实主义和碎片化这三个因素之间的关系值得仔细研究。随着哲学的核心概念分析方法被剥夺优先权，主流心理学和反对派都分裂成一系列“部分现实主义”，远离完全一致的现实主义。这些都是心理学碎片化的根源。从心理学最近的可复制性危机，以及对心智/大脑的表征主义方法的广泛采用中，可以看出概念上的忽视和由此产生的混乱。我们认为，真正的科学进步所需的元理论一致性和方法论成熟度涉及对现实主义的始终如一的坚持。我们阐明了这涉及的内容，并考虑了为什么这对心理学来说如此困难的几个原因。