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Middle-Ground Theorizing, Realism, and Objectivity in Psychology: A Commentary on Held (2007)

Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman Theory Psychology 2009 19: 115 DOI: 10.1177/0959354308101422 The online version of this article can be found at: http://tap.sagepub.com/content/19/1/115

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COMMENTS

Middle-Ground Theorizing, Realism, and Objectivity in Psychology

A Commentary on Held (2007) Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT. Helds (2007) critical analysis of the ontological and epistemological positions of theoretical psychologists whom she labels middle-ground theorists is examined, and her own positions concerning realism, truth, and objectivity in psychology are considered. Several key misinterpretations and misunderstandings are identified in Helds account, and her own theoretical framework is judged to be untenable with respect to the phenomena of psychology. In particular, Helds equation of interpretation with subjectivist antiobjectivism, her commitment to discourse-independent, universal claims to truth with respect to psychological phenomena, and her failure to grasp the nature of constitutive relations between psychological phenomena and the sociocultural practices in which they are embedded cloud her interpretations of the theoretical perspectives she attacks. She is thus prevented from perceiving the impossibility of achieving the kind of de-contextualized, psychological objectivism she desires as a basis for psychological agency. KEY WORDS: agency, epistemology, objectivism, ontology, realism, theoretical psychology

Barbara Held, in her new book, Psychologys Interpretive Turn (2007), provides a detailed critical analysis of the ontological and epistemological commitments of those she calls middle ground theorists. These theorists try to navigate a via media between what they regard as the excessive universalism and essentialism of much traditional psychology, on the one hand, and the strong particularism and relativism of postmodernism in psychology, on the other hand. However, Held argues that despite their attempt to stake out middle-ground status, such theorists may be postmodern wolves in sheeps clothing (pomo-lites), perhaps even more dangerous and threatening to psychological science than full-blooded

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postmodernists because of their cunning disguise as moderatesmoderates who claim to want both realism and fallibilism in psychological science, while surreptitiously laboring on behalf of the dark forces of culturalism, social constitutionism, pluralism, historicism, and tentativeness when it comes to knowledge claims in psychological inquiry. Much of Helds book is comprised of quotations from those she classifies as middle-ground theorists, accompanied by her commentary on the possible merits, inadequacies, and excesses of these excerpts. Her aim is to show that all of those she regards as middle-grounders are committed, in one way or another, to a kind of anti-objectivism which, when set against their claims of ontological realism, is untenable. It is this that makes her question the entire project to attain a moderate position that holds that there is a psychological reality that can be invoked to identify errors in psychological descriptions, but one to which we do not have direct, non-interpretive access that allows us to grasp psychological entities and phenomena in their universal essence.1 Held asserts that a middle-ground ontological position is suspect because it denies that social and psychological entities have essential properties, and holds that such entities cannot be discourse-independent. In contrast, she argues that to be ontologically real, psychological entities must have essential properties (p. 107), and must be discourse-independent (p. 136). In taking on the epistemological position of middle-grounders, Held asserts that by making what we can know about the human world relative to the discursive communities we inhabit, MGTs [middle-ground theorists] allow us to see ourselves and each other only through the contextually ground lenses that necessarily color what lies beyond them (p. 361). In contrast, Held maintains that the capacity to know our circumstances objectively, as they are, independent of beliefs about how they are, is the answer (p. 360), and that middle-ground theorists denial of such a capacity denies a great deal in agencys name (p. 361). Even from this brief overview of her assertions and arguments, it is clear that Held understands psychological kinds as substantive entities that exist apart from their sociocultural and discursive contexts, and that she frequently conflates the sociocultural discursive dependence/independence of psychological kinds with the mentalistic belief dependence/independence of psychological kinds. In these and several other ways, and despite her extensive quoting from the texts of middle-ground theorists, we believe that she delivers a distorted account of the arguments and positions of her selected opponents. To give just one example, she repeatedly quotes us (Martin, Sugarman, & Thompson, 2003, p. 77) as saying, Humans simply are what they interpret themselves as being, within their historical and sociocultural contexts (pp. 92, 99, 100, 102, 116, 117, 132, 139, 142, 151, 160, 189, 252, etc.). Each of these citations is accompanied by comments suggesting that the statement quoted is equivalent to saying that thinking makes it so, and that any such suggestion is inconsistent with a realist approach to psychological phenomena and makes any kind of objectivist or warranted understanding of psychological phenomena impossible.

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The much-quoted statement in question appears in our book Psychology and the Question of Agency, during our summary of hermeneutic contributions to human being and understanding.
Hermeneutic inquiry depends on our ability to recognize that our truths are made possible by a shared background of life into which we are initiated and to which we contribute through our dialogues and interactions with others. Because humans simply are what they interpret themselves as being, within their historical and sociocultural contexts, the study of psychological phenomena cannot be conceived as a detached, neutral process of recording objective facts; nor can psychology ignore the agency reflected in human interpretive activity. (Martin et al., 2003, p. 77)

In the same book from which this excised quotation is taken, and when clearly talking about our own ontological and epistemological convictions, we are repeatedly concerned to distinguish the kind of interpretation we understand as central to psychological personhood from the indefensibly solipsistic idea that thinking makes it so. For example:
It is not simply a matter of how we decide to think or talk for thought and language are richly woven systems that will work their performative magic only when the necessary strands are engaged. When the jury says not guilty and the accused is released from the custody of jailers, an entire social system of law, authority, and conceptions and practices of freedom (and the possible lack thereof) is invoked. The jurys deliberations and language perform because they fit into this multilayered sociocultural reality. However, if a jury gets its thinking and expressive language spectacularly wrong in relation to the relevant sociocultural system or if a psychological individual attempts to command a physical force (e.g., commanding the tide to halt), both may end up all wet. As [our] levels-of-reality position asserts, the physical, biological, and sociocultural world simultaneously constrains and enables the emergence and interpretation of human psychological kinds. (Martin et al., 2003, pp. 127128)

It may be that interpretation for Held involves nothing more than individual thoughts and beliefs, but that clearly is not the case for us, or to the best of our knowledge for any of the others whom she lumps together under the rubric of middle-ground theory. Nonetheless, interpreting these writings in a solipsistic manner clearly prepares the ground for the full-frontal attack she seems anxious to make on realist and objectivist doctrines in psychological theory and science; doctrines that do not insist on the independence of psychological phenomena from their sociocultural and discursive context. Nonetheless, it is vital, if the theorists she attacks are to receive a fair hearing, that Helds erroneous equation of interpretation with subjectivist anti-objectivism be resisted. If this distinction is not kept front and center, it is impossible to understand, or to convey to others, what these theorists are saying. For such theorists, interpretation necessarily is grounded in real, historically established

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traditions, practices, and normative conventions and criteria. Just as Wittgenstein (1953) so clearly observed and argued, there is no possibility of a private language. There is no possibility of an entirely subjective, individual interpretation that can be defended. It is a mistake to equate interpretation with putatively subjective belief. Viable interpretation, to count as such, must be grounded in the reality of relevant sociocultural (including linguistic) traditions, practices, and regulations, just as games like football must be grounded in the practices and rules of these games. Moreover, games like football also take place within the objective constraints of the biophysical world, including such things as gravitation, players bodies, and material artifacts of the game such as balls and goalposts. Interpretation is constituted within such grounds, and may be judged according to criteria and limits thus supplied. To equate interpretation with subjectivity is to misunderstand what it is, and to trade on the resulting confusion.2 As previously mentioned, Helds primary target is the claim of middle-ground theorists to marry a realist ontology of psychological kinds with what she regards as their anti-objectivist epistemologythat is, a system of fallibilistic objectivity and warranting that denies the kind of independence between psychological truth and human traditions of living (practice, discourse, interpretation) that Held understands as essential for any objectivism worthy of the name. In short, while middle-grounders think that there is a real social and psychological world out there but deny that it can be known in itself in a way that is pure and true across both time and space, and independent of culture and discourse, Held holds that both psychological entities and their enduring, universal natures are readily available to those who have not been seduced by such sophistry. Witness, for example, her discussion of racism.
Racism can exist independently of anyones beliefs about racism as a kind, as long as there exist people who hold certain beliefs (and related behaviors) about the capacities or nature of members of different ethnic groups, even if they never expressed those beliefs to anyone. Even if the word racism never occurred to anyone, as long as certain stereotypic beliefs about members of any ethnic group existed, racism would still exist as a social kind and would not depend on any cultures belief in racisms existence, or in any views about its nature. In short, racism could be relevantly similar to a natural kind, with much to be discovered about it along conventional causal natural and social science lines, despite its lack of complete mind independence. (p. 132)

We, and we assume others on Helds hit-list, would agree that it certainly is possible to pick out racist actions in ways that do not require individual actors to describe their actions as racist. However, in our view such actions need to be conceptualized discursively in order for members of a community, including psychological investigators, to locate what are and what are not instances of racism. Otherwise, how is it so obviously true that certain actions count as racist, while other perhaps equally demeaning, aggressive verbal and physical actions do not? And, if part of the relevant discriminations depends on differences in ethnicity, we similarly need some discursively warranted

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conceptualization of ethnicity. Indeed, once such conceptualizations and the practices to which they relate are in place (even if informally) within particular sociocultural contexts, it is possible (although perhaps never entirely obvious, except in extreme cases) to say independently of the beliefs of any particular individuals that racism is afoot, and to do so with a functional degree of objectivity that admits of degrees of correctness and incorrectness in the use of the term. However, this kind of discursively dependent objectivity is much too modest to support the universal, discourse-independent truth claims that Held desires. As to how racism might exist if people hold certain beliefs even if they never expressed those beliefs to anyone, in a way that does not depend on any cultures belief in racisms existence (p. 132), we have no idea. Indeed, this seems to us to be a conceptually and epistemically elusive warrant for an essentialist and certain truth about racism that crosses all contexts and sociocultural practices. On our own reading of the various writings that Held considers to represent middle-ground theorizing in psychology, we find entirely adequate warrants for the assertion of knowledge claims concerning the human world. For example, Martin et al. (2003, pp. 121122) explicitly discuss three warrants that can be used to justify understanding across different discursive communities and ways of life: (1) the working out of possibilities for coordinated acting (2) that in some way resolve focal concerns or impasses (3) and which fit the constraints of the real biophysical and sociocultural world. Moreover, no middle-ground theorists we know of suggest that it is not possible to gain and share knowledge (defined in non-solipsistic or non-subjectivist terms as publicly warranted understanding) across discursive communities through sustained, hard-earned engagements that involve both collective acting and dialogue. What they maintain is not possible as a knowledge warrant in such circumstances is direct epistemic access to a discourse-independent human, sociocultural world. Helds entire argument and attack assume that it is only with such non-interpretive access (unobstructed by discursive and sociocultural practices) that it is possible to formulate an epistemology in human affairs that is capable of supporting genuine human agency. Counter-arguments to the effect that it is precisely such practices that both constrain and enable the location and interpretation of psychological kinds apparently carry no ontological or epistemological weight for Held. On the other hand, middle-ground theorists believe and argue that Helds universalist epistemology confuses functionally objective knowledge with big-T Truth. It is as if Held wants always to insist on the necessity of adding phrases such as and thats the truth to ways of thinking, understanding, and acting that prove informative and useful within and across diverse sociocultural, discursive practices. Middle-ground theorists find such insistence neither necessary nor desirable. For them, it is enough that we can move productively forward in more modest ways that fit within the inevitable limitations of our human condition. Thinking does not make it so, but living and

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interacting with others within the real biophysical and sociocultural world provide entirely adequate warrants for our social, psychological understandings. Our sociocultural contexts, psychological practices, and forms of life give psychological kinds an ontological reality and a powerfully pragmatic epistemic grounding that is far from subjective. In psychological inquiry, whether quotidian or disciplinary, this is as objective as it gets, and all that is required. Because our psychological lives are constituted by and through our active participation in social and cultural practices, forms of being and knowing, and ways of talking, it makes no sense to demand an account of our psychological lives that denies the constitutive relationship between our societies and our psychological selves. Such denial cannot be the basis for realism and objectivism in psychological inquiry because it misunderstands the nature of psychological phenomena. Even the version of objectivity to which Held subscribes only can be understood properly in the context of its historical constitution and the practices and ideals that support it. As Daston and Galison (2007) show convincingly, the word carries a history of meanings marking various epistemic shifts. The aperspectival, monolithic conception of objectivity that supposes an ultimate structure of reality and knowledge of it warranted independently of what anyone believes (Held, p. 210) is an invention of the 19th century made possible by the particular paradigmatic, professional, aesthetic, and moral beliefs and practices of the time. We agree with Held that psychological inquiry demands forms of psychological realism and objectivism capable of supporting knowledge claims. However, we respectfully disagree about the nature of the requisite realism and objectivism. At the heart of Helds confusions concerning middle-ground ontology and epistemology is her failure to understand what it means for the psychological to be constituted by the sociocultural. Constitution of this kind is not a matter of analytic logic, as Held supposes (e.g., constitutive implies a logical dependence, p. 145). The psychological identity of a piano player is constituted (i.e., made up) of and within her practical relations and involvements with pianos, musical scores, performances, recordings, events in the history of music, interactions with teachers, peers, and audiences, and so forth. These relations are not logical in any strict sense. Contra Held, who argues that the logical dependence of psychological entities on discourse, interpretations, or beliefs about the entities can undermine the possibility of psychological inquiry that is fallible inquiry in which there can be error (p. 147), it is the sociocultural, discursive constitution of psychological kinds (such as psychological identifications) that actually makes both psychological realism and objectivism possible. It is precisely these constitutive relations that enable us to say with appropriate confidence whether or not psychological self-identifications (e.g., I am a piano player) are true or in error. In the absence of evidence of the relevant relations, declarations of particular self-identification are objectively suspect. Properly understood, the sociocultural, discursive constitution of psychological phenomena is a reality that furnishes

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appropriate criteria against which such phenomena can be verified. It is because Held misunderstands this that she fails to grasp the nature of the ontology and epistemology of the theorists she targetsan ontological and epistemological combination that resists both postmodern relativism and modern essentialism, because it understands psychological kinds as constitutively dependent on sociocultural and discursive practices and contexts that both enable and constrain them. In this important sense, the middle ground is best understood as an alternative approach to the nature and understanding of psychological phenomena, one that eschews the binary choice between nihilistic relativism and absolutist essentialism with respect to psychological knowledge.
Notes 1. It ought to be noted that although some middle-ground theorists would accept at least some of Helds characterization of their positions as middle ground, others quite clearly reject any such characterization. Moreover, the kinds of positions defended by those who occasionally do identify themselves in this way, including ourselves, should not be understood as sharing the basic ontological or epistemological assumptions of either absolutists or relativists. Nonetheless, despite such reservations, we will adopt her blanket use of the term middle ground so as to connect our remarks in this commentary to Helds text. 2. Here, it should be noted that the entity and property essentialism on which Held insists also fares rather badly in consideration of the ontological character of social, cultural phenomena such as games which seem not to share any essential propertiesagain, see Wittgenstein (1953). References Daston, L., & Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. New York: Zone. Held, B.S. (2007). Psychologys interpretive turn: The search for truth and agency in theoretical and philosophical psychology. Washington, DC: APA Books. Martin, J., Sugarman, J., & Thompson, J. (2003). Psychology and the question of agency. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations (G.E.M. Anscombe, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. JACK MARTIN is Burnaby Mountain Endowed Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University. His research interests are in philosophy and history of psychology, social-developmental psychology, and educational psychology, with particular emphasis on the psychology of selfhood and personhood. His most recent books include Psychology and the Question of Agency (2003,with Jeff Sugarman and Janice Thompson) and The Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint (1999, with Jeff Sugarman), both published by SUNY Press. A new book (with Suzanne Kirschner), entitled The Sociocultural Turn in Psychology, will soon be published by Columbia University Press. ADDRESS: Department of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada. [email: jack_martin@sfu.ca]

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JEFF SUGARMAN is Associate Professor of Education at Simon Fraser University. He is co-author (with Jack Martin) of The Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint (SUNY Press, 1999) and (with Jack Martin & Janice Thompson) Psychology and the Question of Agency (SUNY Press, 2003). He is Past-President of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. His work is concerned with the psychology of personhood and moral agency, and with the application of historical ontology and hermeneutics to psychological study. ADDRESS: Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby BC, V5A 1S6, Canada. [email: sugarman@sfu.ca]

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