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The Crisis in Psychology
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Thus, we see that, beginning with the broadest hypotheses and ending with the tiniest details in the description of the experiment, the word reflects the general disease of the science. The specifically new result which we get from our analysis of the word is an idea of the molecular character of the processes in science. Each cell of the scientific organism shows the processes of infection and struggle. This gives us a better idea of the character of scientific knowledge. It emerges as a deeply unitary process. Finally, we get an idea of what is healthy or sick in the processes of science. What is true of the word is true of the theory. The word can bring science further, as long as it (1) occupies the territory that was conquered by the investigation, i.e., as long as it corresponds to the objective state of affairs; and (2) is in keeping with the right basic principles, i.e., the most general formulas of this objective world.
We see, therefore, that scientific research is at the same time a study of the fact and—of the methods used to know this fact. In other words, methodological work is done in science itself insofar as this science moves forward and reflects upon its results. The choice of a word is already a methodological process. That methodology and experiment are worked out simultaneously can be seen with particular ease in the case of Pavlov. Thus, science is philosophical down to its ultimate elements, to its words. It is permeated, so to speak, by methodology. This coincides with the Marxist view of philosophy as “the science of sciences,” a synthesis that penetrates science. In this sense Engels [1925/1978, p. 480] remarked that
Natural scientists may say what they want, but they are ruled by philosophy.
. ..
Not until natural science and the science of history have absorbed dialectics will all the philosophical fuss. .become superfluous and disappear in the positive science.
The experimenters in the natural sciences imagine that they free themselves from philosophy when they ignore it, but they turn out to be slaves of the worst philosophy, which consists of a medley of fragmentary and unsystematic views, since investigators cannot move a single step forwards without thinking, and thinking requires logical definitions. [40] The question of how to deal with methodological problems—”separately from the sciences themselves” or by introducing the methodological investigation in the science itself (in a curriculum or an investigation)—is a matter of pedagogical expediency. Frank40 (1917/1964, p. 37) is right when he says that in the prefaces and concluding chapters of all books on psychology one is dealing with problems of philosophical psychology. It is one thing, however, to explain a methodology—”to establish an understanding of the methodology”—this
~:
is, we repeat, a matter of pedagogical technique. It is another thing to carry out a methodological investigation. This requires special consideration.
Ultimately the scientific word aspires to become a mathematical sign, i.e., a pure term. After all, the mathematical formula is also a series of words, but words
highest degree. This is why all knowledge is scientific insofar as it is mathematical (Kant). But the language •of empirical psychology is the direct antipode of mathematical language. As has been shown by Locke, Leibnitz and all linguistics,
all words
of psychology are metaphors taken from the spatial world.
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