On Hijacking Science: Exploring the Nature and Consequences of Overreach in Psychology (Advances in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology)

This book examines the origins, presence, and implications of scientistic thinking in psychology. Scientism embodies the claim that only knowledge attained by means of natural scientific methods counts as valid and valuable. This perspective increasingly dominates thinking and practice in psychology and is seldom acknowledged as anything other than standard scientific practice. This book seeks to make this intellectual movement explicit and to detail the very real limits in both role and reach of science in psychology. The critical chapters in this volume present an alternative perspective to the scholarly mainstreams of the discipline and will be of value to scholars and students interested in the scientific status and the philosophical bases of psychology as a discipline. "This book examines the origins, presence, and implications of scientistic thinking in psychology. Scientism embodies the claim that only knowledge attained by means of natural scientific methods counts as valid and valuable. This perspective increasingly dominates thinking and practice in psychology and is seldom acknowledged as anything other than standard scientific practice. This book seeks to make this intellectual movement explicit and to detail the very real limits in both role and reach of science in psychology. The critical essays in this volume present an alternative perspective to the scholarly mainstreams of the discipline and will be of interest to scholars and students interested in the scientific status and the philosophical bases of psychology as a discipline."--Provided by publisher Cover 1 Title 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Contents 10 Contributors 12 Series Editor’s Foreword 15 Preface: A ‘Science’ of Psychology: The Enduring Aspiration 17 Introduction: Science, Scientism, and Psychology 22 1 Epistemology and the Boundaries Between Phenomena and Conventions 34 2 Hayek and Hempel on the Nature, Role, and Limitations of Science 39 3 On Scientism in Psychology: Some Observations of Historical Relevance 48 4 Why Science Needs Intuition 63 5 Scientism and Saturation: Evolutionary Psychology, Human Experience, and the Phenomenology of Jean-Luc Marion 73 6 Psychotherapy and Scientism 89 7 Science and Society: Effects, Reactions, and a Call for Reformation 106 8 Beyond Scientism: Reaches in Psychology Toward a Science of Consciousness 128 Index 141