Liberty/psychology

Mike Cole (mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu)
Thu, 20 Jun 1996 20:21:45 -0700 (PDT)

Ageliki--

I join Eugene in thanking you for your note on LSV, progressivism, and
Mill. The Mill part struck me particularly. In my own amateur historical
meanderings, I discovered that Mill was one of those who believe that there
must be, in principle, two psychologies. His views seems to bear a close
relationship to Wundt's in many ways. Cultural-historical psychology was
supposed, in principle, to unite the two. I had not made the connections you
make, but here is something I wrote not long ago summarizing Mill's view
which strikes me as related to the progressivism discussion. If I understand
correctly (doubtful!) we have an early statement of the fashionable postmodern
idea of humans as hybrids/universal-and-cultural historical creatures.

I have not thought it through, but Peter's questoins about CHAT and moral
theory seem bound up in these formulations.
mike
-----
Mill's version of a dual psychology. In Chapters 3 and 4 of A
System of Logic (1843) J.S. Mill argued that-- contrary to
received opinion-- thoughts, feelings and actions could indeed be
the subject of scientific study. Mill likened the laws of
psychology to the laws of "Tidology," the study of tides. In the
case of tides, general laws are known concerning gravity and the
action of the sun and moon, from which the local tides in any
given locale may be deduced. But the specific laws so derived
will be only approximate, since local factors such as wind and
the configuration of the ocean bottom will determine the precise
outcome in individual cases.
In psychology the laws in question concern the ways in which
one mental state follows another. Mill believed that the laws of
association (e.g., when two ideas have occurred frequently
together one will evoke the other in the future; or, the greater
the intensity of two co-occurring ideas, the more likely they are
to evoke each other, etc.) represent elementary psychological
laws analogous to the laws of gravity and the attraction of
bodies in physics. These laws, he claimed, "have been ascertained
by the ordinary methods of experimental inquiry; nor could they
have been ascertained in any other matter" (Mill, 1948, p. 173;
orig. 1843).
Trouble sets in, however, in moving from the demonstration
of presumably universal elementary laws of mind to the prediction
of actual behavior in particular circumstances. Two difficulties
are especially important. First, while complex ideas may be
generated by simple laws, in the act of combining, the whole is
not equivalent to the sum of its parts. Mill referred to the
combination of associations as "mental chemistry." Second, the
outcome obtained from the combination of elementary laws is not
universal and timeless. Rather, the actual combinations of
elementary laws depended upon the local conditions of their
combining because "The actions of individuals could not be
predicted with scientific accuracy, were it only because we
cannot foresee the whole of the circumstances in which those
individuals will be placed(p. 170)."
Mill referred to the emergent product of elementary thoughts
combined with local, individual circumstances as character. The
study of character, he wrote, should be "the principal object of
scientific inquiry into human nature." Neither deduction nor
experimentation, ("the only two modes in which laws of nature can
be ascertained") can be applied to the study of character.
Deduction fails because character is an emergent phenomenon, not
reducible to its antecedents. Experimentation is both impossible
and inadequate. It is impossible because "no one but an Oriental
despot" would have the power to gain total control over a
person's experiences from birth. It is inadequate because even if
total control were attempted, it would be insufficient to prevent
undetected experiences from sneaking in and generating emergent
combinations that would forever pollute later analyses.
Mill's solution was to create a dual science.
...we employ the name Psychology for the science of
the elementary laws of mind, Ethology [from the Greek
word ethos, "character"-MC] will serve for the ulterior
science which determines the kind of character produced
in conformity to those general laws (p. 176-77).
This dual science required a dual methodology. Psychology
would use experimentation and deduction to yield elementary
mental laws. Ethology, the study of character, would be based on
"approximate generalizations" from the elements to the whole. He
adds that there is a close link between Ethology and education;
even in the absence of precise causal knowledge, it should be
possible, he suggests, to shape the circumstances in which
individuals or nations develop "in a manner much more favorable
to the ends we desire than the shape which they would of
themselves assume." (p. 177). Hence, the domain of education,
whether of individuals or nations, could provide a testing ground
etc.
----
mike