• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Is Psychology a branch of philosophy?

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
Reading Wickedness by Midgely, which is moral philosophy, I was interested at its treatment of Freud and engaging with psychology, so, is pscyhology a kind of philosophy would you say? Is it all theory anyway, concepts which work one way or another providing the same direction or supporting the same illusions?
 

Snow Turtle

New member
Joined
May 28, 2007
Messages
1,335
Yep. One of the definition of psychology is philosophy of the mind.

It's a rather sensorish answer, I realise that. ^^'
 

Andy

Supreme High Commander
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
1,211
MBTI Type
INTJ
Enneagram
5w6
I wouldn't have said so. Pyschology is a science. It's results are (usually)subjected to experimrnt to be verified by reality. Philosophy just produces opinions and elaborate arguments, not testable hypothesis.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I wouldn't have said so. Pyschology is a science. It's results are (usually)subjected to experimrnt to be verified by reality. Philosophy just produces opinions and elaborate arguments, not testable hypothesis.

But there are philosophies of science itself, like Popper and Kuhn's perspectives, the process of inductive and deductive reasoning implicit in a testable hypothesis are underpinned by a philosophy surely?

I'm not making a point, I'm posing questions, I think about this kind of thing quite a bit but dont always reach conclusive answers. :coffee::coffee::coffee:
 

visaisahero

New member
Joined
Nov 13, 2009
Messages
557
MBTI Type
ENTP
Dictionary time!

Philosophy is the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct. It can also be the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.

Psychology is the science of the mind or of mental states and processes. It is also the sum or characteristics of the mental states and processes of a person or class of persons, or of the mental states and processes involved in a field of activity: the psychology of a soldier; the psychology of politics.

As such, the philosophy of psychology and the psychology of philosophy are two different things altogether! I would say that they are complementary fields- philosophers are likely to find psychology interesting, and psychologists are similarly likely to find philosophy interesting.

It would be inaccurate, however, to suggest that psychology is a branch of philosophy. Branches of philosophy include natural philosophy, metaphysical philosophy and moral philosophy. Psychology, on the other hand, is a branch of science and/or medicine.

Psychology raises many interesting philosophical questions (although it would perhaps be poignant to emphasize that there is philosophical value in almost everything from Economics to The Simpsons.)

I hope that makes sense. If not, I recommend that you find and read introductory texts to both subjects to build a clearer picture for yourself. Cheers
 

wildcat

New member
Joined
Jun 8, 2007
Messages
3,622
MBTI Type
INTP
Reading Wickedness by Midgely, which is moral philosophy, I was interested at its treatment of Freud and engaging with psychology, so, is pscyhology a kind of philosophy would you say? Is it all theory anyway, concepts which work one way or another providing the same direction or supporting the same illusions?
Philosophy is about life. Psychology is about mind.
Life borders existence. Mind borders it, too.
What we really have is a triangle.

It is interesting bananatrombones mentioned Chomsky.
Now there is a curious chap.
 

SolitaryWalker

Tenured roisterer
Joined
Apr 23, 2007
Messages
3,504
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w6
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
Reading Wickedness by Midgely, which is moral philosophy, I was interested at its treatment of Freud and engaging with psychology, so, is pscyhology a kind of philosophy would you say? Is it all theory anyway, concepts which work one way or another providing the same direction or supporting the same illusions?

Philosophy is the discipline that is concerned with ethics, metaphysics (non-empirical reality) and epistemology (knowledge theory and the method we use in acquiring knowledge about the world). Notably, all three of these activities require one to reason abstractly and to figure out concepts more than to understand entities that could be readily found in the empirical world.

Psychology is a science and by virtue of that relies very heavily on the empirical method or a careful examination of the physical world. By today's standards, Freud wasn't doing psychology as his study does meet the rigorous empirical standards endorsed by contemporary psychologists. Was he doing philosophy? Yes, though unsuccessfully as his views are poorly supported by arguments of abstract reasoning.

As a general note on the history of intellectual development of the human civilization, not only questions of psychology, but also those of physics, chemistry, biology and all other sciences were approached philosophically or mostly by abstract reasoning. Only recently scholars have developed a method of rigorous empirical investigation which is called scientific today. Beforehand, there was no significant difference between science and philosophy. Today, the difference is not vast, but notable nonetheless. Philosophy still plays a huge role in the sciences as every empirical experiment needs a hypothesis and a great deal of other information that needs to be discovered by abstract reasoning; however, today it is not acceptable to establish a scientific conclusion without the support of the empirical method of research. In the past doing so was permissible and for this reason Freud's work was at once legitimately regarded as psychological, yet today it no longer can be.

By the same token, I insist that Jung's typological work also belongs to the discipline of philosophy rather than psychology. However, Jung, unlike Freud wrote quality philosophy because his arguments regarding typology have an internal logical consistency and are founded on the likely true premises regarding human nature. His work will not be scientifically vindicated until we manage to empirically test claims about the tendencies of the human mind. In order to do that, neuroscience will need to have advanced sufficiently to offer insight with regard to the connection of certain neurons fire under a specific set of circumstances and the cognitive experiences of the person in whose brain the neurons were taking action.

Anyhow, I think I gave you more information than you asked for. In simple terms, Psychology is distinct from philosophy because its method is empirical, the philosophical method isn't. Freud did write philosophy, but he didn't do a good job. (The difference between good philosophy and bad is that the former is well supported by abstract reasoning, yet the latter is more like groundless speculation.)
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
By the same token, I insist that Jung's typological work also belongs to the discipline of philosophy rather than psychology. However, Jung, unlike Freud wrote quality philosophy because his arguments regarding typology have an internal logical consistency and are founded on the likely true premises regarding human nature. His work will not be scientifically vindicated until we manage to empirically test claims about the tendencies of the human mind. In order to do that, neuroscience will need to have advanced sufficiently to offer insight with regard to the connection of certain neurons fire under a specific set of circumstances and the cognitive experiences of the person in whose brain the neurons were taking action.

Hey, quality.

This is what Anthon Steven's book Intelligent Person's Guide To Psychotherapy is about, he suggests that the majority of psychological schools of thought were only charismatic movements and that the science is slowly following, although of that research he has found good correlations between Jung's developmental archetypes theorising and scientific research into maturation.
 

Nisho

New member
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
2
Hey, I'm new here, this discussion just caught my eye and interest as I am working on my degree in philosophy and psychology right now so I just had to sign up and reply.

First of all let me say I agree with SolitaryWalker about the "mainstream" version of the difference between Philosophy and Psychology and this is the view I have for it as well.

I think the question that lies beneath this question is: Do humans have souls or not?
If we don't have souls then our minds work like machines and psychology is the science for that machine and every human action can be predicted.
On the other hand if we have souls that explanation won't work because then psychology can't be a science as it can't predict what we'll do and it's nothing but an educated guess- If we have the option to decide to do something else which we are not programmed(and it doesn't matter how we were programmed-biology, environment or experience it all comes down to the physiology of the brain and body) to do then psychology is just a branch of philosophy.

This is just something I've been thinking of and not something I've read or heard anywhere so it's just my opinion, tell me what you think.
 

teslashock

Geolectric
Joined
Oct 27, 2009
Messages
1,690
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
7w6
A field of interest becomes a science once it attempts to study nature and make falsifiable claims. Psychology, for the most part, is indeed a science, as it makes claims about the mind and brain and performs studies (usually behavioral) that are falsifiable in some way.

Psychologist says "I believe that short-term memory is decreased in people who have experienced a recent death in the immediate family" and does memory tests on people who have experienced a recent (a quantified term) death in the immediate (another quantified term) family accordingly, to see if the hypothesis is correct. Once a correlation is made, reasons are hypothesized, and more tests are done. The claim is completely falsifiable though; if it weren't true, there would be no correlation observed in the studies done.

Freudian psychology, on the other hand, is one realm of psychology that is just total garbage. He set the grounds for an interesting theory with the whole subconscious thing, but the field as a whole is pretty non-falsifiable because you can't really find evidence that proves or disproves that we are all just run by our primitive urges. You can attribute any and every action to "primitive urges", but you can't really prove either way if these urges are the actual causes, making it non-falsifiable and ultimately just an interesting belief.

On a side note, typology is the same way, making it a pseudoscience as well.
 

Nisho

New member
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
2
teslashock, yes, this is exactly what Popper said, but nice way of saying it.
But would psychology be a science if we couldn't really predict anything but only give educated guesses by it?
 

teslashock

Geolectric
Joined
Oct 27, 2009
Messages
1,690
MBTI Type
ENTP
Enneagram
7w6
teslashock, yes, this is exactly what Popper said, but nice way of saying it.

Thanks. I actually read a good bit of Popper back in the day. Interesting man with interesting notions. I'd suggest his readings for anybody who's interested in being a scientist (or is one, for that matter).

But would psychology be a science if we couldn't really predict anything but only give educated guesses by it?

Well, anyone who has practiced a substantial amount of science realizes that no matter how much we know, we're still just making educated guesses. The more data we have, the more educated our guesses are, but there's really no way to accurately predict everything. We find broken rules every day.

I think that psychology is based off of a lot of hypotheses and attempts at verifying/nullifying these hypotheses still (moreso than many other fields that really can find causative reasons as to why things happen the way they do), and oftentimes we can't really predict the outcome. However, from psychological studies that have been done, we do have a good grasp on the behavioral tendencies of different subsets of people (namely the mentally ill), and psychology combined with neuroscience has also helped us to understand how different parts of the brain function.

It's one of the more "subjective" sciences, if you will, and I definitely agree that it has the potential to become pseudoscience if psychologists aren't careful (read: Freud), but overall I do still believe that psychology is bringing us quality information about an aspect of nature, the human mind.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
The thing about all of Freud's theories about the unconscious, precoscious and conscious (I dont think he spoke of the subconscious, that's a revision of his theory based upon the idea that you can not be truly unconscious of something because that's not to know it at all) is they are based on a lot of prior research and theory and his own observations.

A lot of Freudian theory is, as are other similar theories like Rorschack (spelling) tests and free association, based upon observations and a lot of science is based upon that very thing. The conceptualisations within Freud's theories, ie tripartite consciousness, ego, superego, Id are all are almost like literary tools and eventually his theories could become to more research and evidence based psyhotherapy what alchemy is to chemistry or astrology to astronomy but that doesnt make it bunk.

Jung's greatest contribution to psychoanalysis wasnt this or that concept or theory, although a great many of them were good, but his insistence upon a kind of archeology of earlier theory and conceptualisations with the insights of the day as a filter.
 

murkrow

Branded with Satan
Joined
Jul 19, 2008
Messages
1,635
MBTI Type
INTJ
Psych isn't a branch of philosophy, it's a branch of statistics.
 

sculpting

New member
Joined
Jan 28, 2009
Messages
4,148
Perhaps this is wrong...

but it seems much of jungian typology and even philosophy is based upon internalized subjective thoughts/feelings/observations that are then built into models or systems used to explain external observations of behavior and even motives.

Psychology seems to work backwards, observing behavior and establishing metrics-while seemingly dismissing some amount of the subjective/individual internal observations of the individual in question.

both seem flawed? To dismiss the metrics or to dismiss the subjective observations will both lead to error.

With psyhcology, by assuming you are studying a homogeneous population and looking at large sample numbers for a specific metric, you introduce the same potential error as the FDA clinical trials of some drugs which showed they only work in select genetic populations.

just my 2 cents though.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
Perhaps this is wrong...

but it seems much of jungian typology and even philosophy is based upon internalized subjective thoughts/feelings/observations that are then built into models or systems used to explain external observations of behavior and even motives.

Psychology seems to work backwards, observing behavior and establishing metrics-while seemingly dismissing some amount of the subjective/individual internal observations of the individual in question.

both seem flawed? To dismiss the metrics or to dismiss the subjective observations will both lead to error.

With psyhcology, by assuming you are studying a homogeneous population and looking at large sample numbers for a specific metric, you introduce the same potential error as the FDA clinical trials of some drugs which showed they only work in select genetic populations.

just my 2 cents though.

I suppose it is a case of how far it is possible to generalise then.
 

Gerbah

New member
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
433
MBTI Type
ISTJ
Enneagram
5w4
I think as long as it's remembered that psychological models and systems are theories they are useful for mapping out certain common patterns in thinking and behaviour. You can't account totally for the unique and subjective, but a theory can point you the right way in trying to understand a unique individual.
 
Top