----- Original Message -----
From: Garai László
<<For me the main point is the problem of a split psychology resulting in
that science's most long-lasting crisis. >>
This was exactly one of the questions that I wanted to bring up relating to
your paper: In what sense can we talk of a discipline being in crisis over a
long period during which knowledge can nevertheless be seen to advance
through a - however flawed - 'normal science'?
To give the context, about two years ago I and a colleague wrote and
presented a paper which applied LSV's analysis in 'Crisis' to my own
discipline - Information Systems (IS) - which can be seen to be at a similar
adolescent stage of formation to psychology at the time he wrote. (I am
currently in the middle of a major rewrite for the second iteration of
getting it published - so these issues are at the forefront of my mind.) One
response I had was that people would agree with my description of the
symptoms (lack of agreed foundations, institutional recognition,
subordination to managerial fads etc) but deny that this amounted to a
crisis. Instead, I was told, the discipline was making strides forward, 'de
facto pluralism' existed, the positivists had been forced to give ground to
the interpretivists, we had our own established journals, conferences,
university departments, gurus etc etc. IS could therefore quite happily
continue in what Richard Whitley in his categorisation of disciplines and
their development described as 'fragmented adhocracy'.
Similarly, in psychology, Vygotsky's suggestions for a way out of the crisis
were not adopted in 1927 and 50 years followed in which, despite many dead
ends and wrong theories, the discipline neither came to a total halt nor
adopted his proposals.
This leads me to two questions. Firstly, how applicable is Kuhn's view of
disciplinary crisis to disciplines which do not have to be monolithic in
their fundamentals in the same way as physics or astronomy? Laszlo quotes
Fraisse in 1976 applying Kuhn to psychology - was there really a scientific
revolution or a more gradual change in which certain views became more
'respectable' and the focus of more empirical research alongside the
continued existence of those they came into being to displace? Have we
really seen the last of brain research in psychology or of
natural-scientific reductionism (cf e.g. evolutionary psychology)? Don't
they coexist today with the increased popularity of cultural psychology?
It seems to me therefore that an approach such as Whitley's (and Vygotsky's)
which casts the particular form the disciplinary crisis takes in terms of
the nature of the subject matter and intellectual structure of the specific
discipline is more productive than overgeneralisations about the nature of
scientific knowledge when we come to talk about crisis. In some disciplines,
'fragmented adhocracy' and 'de facto pluralism' may be the natural state of
affairs, which is not to say, of course, that it can't at the same time have
inadequate intellectual foundations.
That brings me to the second point. It seems to me that critical theories
(in the widest sense, those seeking to critique and redress exploitation,
inequalities of power etc) will always remain in a subordinate position
within their disciplines regardless of how good their analysis and
resolution of the disciplinary crisis may be - at least until broader social
change brings them to the fore. There is a danger of implicitly assuming
that the best ideas will always win out in the clash of intellectual
argument if they can convince enough people. Sadly, that isn't the case, as
I'm sure we all know ;).
Bruce
=====================================
Bruce Robinson
Information Systems Research Centre
University of Salford
Salford M5 4WT
UK
Phone / fax: 0161 861 7160
Email: bruce.rob@btinternet.com
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