The Crisis in Psychology

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Could we perhaps put it like this: both concept and fact participate in the devel-

opment of the subject matter of any science, but in one case—the case of empirical

science—we utilize concepts to~ acquire knowledge about facts, and in the second—

general science—we utilize facts to acquire knowledge about concepts? In the first

case the concepts are not the subject matter, the goal, the objective of knowledge,

but its tools, means, auxiliary devices. The goal, the subject matter of knowledge

are the facts. As a result of the growth of knowledge the number of known facts

is enhanced, but not the number of concepts. Like any tool of labor the concepts,

in contrast, suffer wear and tear in their use, become worn down, in need of revision

and often of replacement. In the second case it is the other way around; we study

the concepts themselves as such, theft correspondence with the facts is only a

means, a way, a method, a verification of their suitability. As a result we do not

learn of new facts, but acquire either new concepts or new knowledge about the

concepts. After all, we can look twice at a drop of water under the microscope and

this will be two completely distinct processes, although both the drop and the nil-

croscope will be the same both times: the first time we study the composition of

the drop of water by means of the microscope; the second time we verify the suit-

ability of the microscope itself by looking at a drop of water—isn’t it like that?

But the whole difficulty of the problem is exactly that it is not like that. It is

true that in a special science we utilize concepts as tools to acquire knowledge of

facts. But using tools means at the same time to test them, to study and master

them, to throw away the ones that are unfit, to improve them, to create new ones.

Already in the very first stage of the scientific processing of empirical material the

use of a concept is a critique of the concept by the facts, the comparison of con-

cepts, their modification. Let us take as an example the two scientific facts men-

tioned above, which definitely do not belong to general science: the earth’s rotation

around the sun and the vision of ants. How much critical work on our perceptions

and, thus, on the concepts linked with them, how much direct study of these con-

cepts—visibility, invisibility, apparent movement—how much creation of new con-

cepts, of new links between concepts, how much modification of the very concepts

of vision, light, movement etc. was needed to establish these facts! And, finally,

does not the very selection of the concepts needed to know these facts require an

analysis of the concepts in addition to the analysis of the facts? After all, if concepts,

as tools, were set aside for particular facts of experience in advance, all science

would be superfluous: then a thousand administrator-registrators or statistician-

counters could note down the universe on cards, graphs, columns. Scientific knowl-

edge differs from the registration of a fact in that it selects the concept needed,

i.e., it analyzes both fact and concept.

Any word is a theory. To name an object is to apply a concept to it. Admittedly,

by means of the word we wish to comprehend the object. But each name, each

application of the word, this embryo of science, is a critique of the word, a blurring

of its form, an extension of its meaning. Linguists have clearly enough demonstrated

how words change from being used. After all, language otherwise would never be

renewed, words would not die, be born, or become obsolete.

Finally, each discovery in science, each step forward in empirical science is

always at the same time an act of criticizing the concept. Pavlov discovered the

fact of conditional reflexes. But didn’t he really create a new concept! at the same

time? Did we really call a trained, well-learned movement a reflex before? And it

cannot be otherwise: if science would only discover facts without extending the

boundaries of its concepts, it would not discover anything new. It would make no

headway in finding more and more new specimens of the same concepts. Each tiny

new fact is already an extension of the concept. Each newly discovered relation