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Abstract - The main views on the status and place of psychology are
examined, and a new view is proposed. The rejected opinions are that
psychology is an autonomous discipline, a branch of the humanities, a
component of cognitive science, a biological science, and a social science. It is
suggested that, though not autonomous, psychology is a very special science
dependent upon other disciplines. It overlaps partially with biology as well as
with sociology. But it also has its peculiar concepts, theories, and methods.
Consequently psychology is not fully reducible to other disciplines. Such
incomplete epistemological reduction contrasts with the full ontological
reduction of the mental to the neurophysiological.
THE PROBLEM
Most historians of psychology hold that this discipline broke away from
philosophy when psychophysics was established as a separate discipline around
1850 (see, e.g., Boring, 1950). This version of the story is only partially true, and
this for two reasons. First, no discipline, even if it adopts the scientific method,
can free itself entirely from philosophy, since every research into matters of fact
makes use of general concepts and principles about the nature of things and
about the search for truth. Besides, every basic discipline approaches some
problems of philosophical interest. In particular, psychology cannot push aside
one of the oldest and most intriguing of all philosophical problems, to wit, the
nature of mind (see, e.g., Bunge, 1980; Popper & Eccles, 1977).
Second, the most popular version of the history of psychology overlooks the
fact that classical Antiquity had begat a branch parallel to philosophical
psychology, namely, the medical psychology that flourished in the schools of
Hippocrates in Greece, and Galen in Rome. These biological schools, contrary to
the spiritualism of Plato and his followers, found followers even during the
Scientific Revolution. One of them was the physician Juan Huarte de San Juan,
author of Examen de ingenios para las ciencius (1575), a best seller in several
European languages till the end of the 17th century, and remarkable for
proposing the cerebral localization of the various mental functions.
However, it is true that experimental psychology was not born till the mid-
19th century. Medical psychology had been purely observational: It was only
based on clinical and surgical work, supplemented only in the last century by the
post-mortem pathological examination, which produced the sensational neuro-
linguistic results of Broca and Wernicke. As for philosophical psychology, which
is as old as philosophy, until recently it was purely speculative and it ignored the
121
122 M. Bunge
(delivery of the peanut). Although this result is of some interest, it cries for
explanation.
The psychobiologist attempts to explain this behavior pattern by conceiving
hypotheses about the neuromuscular (or neuroendocrinomuscular) process
involved in it. And, being a scientist, he puts them to the test with the help of
stimuli and recording mechanisms of various kinds-mechanical, electrical,
chemical, etc. By working in this manner the psychologists, allied to the
neurophysiologists, have succeeded in localizing the neural centers of voluntary
movement of the primate in the frontal lobes (e.g., Evarts, Shinoda, & Wise,
1984).
As for the mind, the radical behaviorist denies its existence or at least he
denies that it may be studied scientifically. (The former adopts an ontological
behaviorism of positivistic origin, the latter a methodological or opportunistic
behaviorism.) The antimentalist dogma snaps the thread of tradition and it
makes a present of the entire domain of inner life to the charlatans. Fortunately
the European psychologists, particularly those of the schools of Wertheimer and
Piaget, as well as of Bartlett and a few others, ignored the North American
fashion of the 192Os, 1930s and 194Os, and went 011 with the scientific study of
memory, conceptual learning, imagination, concept formation, hypothesis
making, inference, will, and other categories of psychological phenomena.
Regrettably these researchers restricted themselves to describing, measuring,
and altering experimentally those phenomena, without going into their
mechanisms. They dealt only with black boxes and, as a consequence, they
explained nothing. Moreover, they made a number of errors for trusting self-
observation, or introspection, in an uncritical manner. For example, the Gestalt
school held that every perception is global and prior to analysis. We now know
that this is not always the case: That the perception of a whole as such, for
example, that of a figure or a melody, may be preceded by analysis (see, e.g.,
Treisman & Paterson, 1984). We have also learned that the analysis of the
sensory stimulus is in charge of specialized (“feature”) neurons (see, e.g., Hubel,
1982; Wiesel, 1982).
From the time of Karl Lashley ( 1929, 194 1) and his disciples, in particular
Donald Hebb (1949, 1980) and Hans-Lucas Teuber (1978), the biologically
oriented psychologists took over the entire problematics of classical psychology,
treating the mental phenomena as neurophysiological processes (see, e.g.,
Bindra, i976; Dimond, 1980; Olds, 1975; Thompson, 1975). One of the most
fruitful and best confirmed hypotheses investigated by this school is the
conjecture of the cell assembly, proposed by Hebb (1949) and modified by
Milner (1957) before there were experimental data in its favor. Curiously
enough, this hypothesis had been originally formulated by the Italian physio-
logists Tanzi and Lugaro, and it had been enthusiastically adopted by Rambn y
Cajal. Regrettably, it was totally ignored by the psychologists until Hebb
reinvented it seven decades later.
According to Hebb, learning would consist in the formation of an assembly or
system of neurons. The basic mechanism of the emergence of such a system
would be the reinforcement of the synaptic connections among the neurons
What kind of discipline is psychology? 125
constituting the system. (Every neuron may have about 1,000 connections with
its neighbors.) These connections are not anatomical but chemical: They are
effected by neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, which combine
with receptor molecules situated on the membrane of the adjacent (postsynaptic)
neuron. Besides these neurochemical processes there are anatomical processes
of formation, growth, and pruning of dendrites and synaptic boutons. These
processes of morphological alteration, which contribute to changing the
connectivity of a cell assembly, have recently been filmed in vivo as well as in
vitro, and they can be stimulated or inhibited by physical and chemical means.
The ability or disposition of a neuronal network to change its connectivity as a
result of anatomical or neurochemical changes is called “neuronal plasticity.” A
system of neurons the connectivity of which can change rapidly in the course of
time, that is, a plastic neuronal system, may be called a “psychon” (Bunge, 1980),
due to the Tanzi-LugaroHebb hypothesis that a mental process is one that
happens in a neuronal system composed of many cells joined by plastic (rather
than elastic) synaptic junctions. The lasting enhancement of the strength of such
junctions is called “long-term potentiation,” and it is one of the most lively
research subjects in recent biopsychology (see, e.g., Larson & Lynch, 1986).
By confirming the Tanzi-Lugaro-Hebb hypothesis, research on neuronal
plasticity has revolutionized psychology. By the same token it has toppled two
myths: Innatism, and the view that the architecture of the brain resembles, in its
alleged rigidity, that of a computer. We have learned in recent years that
connectivity, far from being rigid, changes as we learn and forget. We have also
learned that, in contrast to other parts of the body, the brain of the higher
vertebrate is to a large extent a product of its experience and, consequently, it is
partly self-made. Presumably, the brain of a mathematician is physiologically
different from that of a painter, and the latter different from that of a
psychologist.
Nowadays the basic psychologists tackle, then, the entire problematics of
traditional psychology plus that raised by behaviorism and by the biological
approach. They study the behavior and the mental life of the higher vertebrates,
particularly the primates, and they do so by using the scientific method as well as
psychological, physiological, biochemical, biophysical, and sociological concepts
and methods. Whereas some of them settle for observing and describing
psychological phenomena on their own level, others attempt to explain in terms
of neuronal, neuromuscular, neuroendocrine, and even neuroimmunological
mechanisms. While some of them design and conduct experiments, others
invent hypotheses and even mathematical models.
Present day scientific psychology is, in short, theoretical as well as experi-
mental, and it rejects no genuine psychological phenomenon. It even studies,
once in a while, the phantasies of parapsychologists and psychoanalysts, albeit
with monotonous negative results (see, e.g., Alcock, 1981; Wolpe, 1981).
psychology must steer clear of biology. On the other hand, it might be included
in social science provided the latter- were viewed as the study of the adventures
(and misadventures) of the human spirit-the way it was conceived of by the
historico-cultural (or humanistic) school of Dilthey and his followers. Or, again,
psychology might be regarded as one of the cognitive sciences dealing with
knowledge in itself, apart from knowing brains and their social matrix
(regarding which, more in the next section).
Psychophysical dualists, for whom mind and matter are distinct entities, have
always regarded psychology as either an autonomous discipline or as a chapter
of the humanities or, at most, as a social science. This applied in particular to
Brentano (1955/1874), for whom the mental differed radically from the physical
for having an “intentionality” or reference to something else. It also holds fix-
Fodor ( 198 1, 1983), according to whom minding is information processing
(whether in man, computer, or disembodied spirit), and mind an immaterial
whole divided into “modules” or water-tight compartments-a new-fangled
version of the old psychology of faculties.
Psychological autonomism is mistaken for several reasons. First, the study of
behavior and subjective experience is superficial unless one searches for its
sources in the neuronal, endocrine, and immune processes. This search calls for
a close cooperation, nay for the fusion, of psychology and neurobiology
(Lashley, 1941; Teuber, 1978); actually it requires the strengthening of
psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology.
Second, the declaration of independence of psychology entails the condem-
nation of physiological, developmental, evolutionary (or comparative), and social
psychology, all of which are mongrel disciplines, for they employ concepts and
methods invented outside the domain of pure psychology.
Third, a fully autonomous discipline cannot be part of the system of the
sciences, since these constitute a system by virtue of their partial overlapping and
their interactions. Of course some division of labor is necessary, but such division
should not be carried to the extreme of isolating the various sciences, if only
because every division of scientific work is largely conventional. An understand-
ing of the artificiality of that division of labor facilitates the integration of
psychology with neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, medicine, anthro-
pology, sociology, and the so-called sciences of education.
The isolation of a discipline from the total system of the sciences is a reliable
indicator of its nonscientific character (Bunge, 1983). ‘I‘hink of parapsychology
and psychoanalysis, both of them incompatible with experimental psychology
and biology. Remember that Freud (1929) demanded the total independence of
psychoanalysis from experimental psychology and physiology. He even pro-
posed the establishment of a Faculty of Psychoanalysis, which would include
humanistic disciplines but would exclude biology and social science-so as to
keep the future analysts innocent of the experimental method and the workings
of the brain. Lacan (1966) went even farther, by holding that psychoanalysis, far
from being a science, is the practice of the symbolic function, hence far closer to
rhetoric than to biology.
Psychological autonomism is not only scientifically barren, it is also impracti-
What kind of discipline is psychology? 127
cal, for being unable to help correct any disturbances in behavior, affect, or
learning. It cannot be effective because it assumes that the mind has a life of its
own, although it can influence the body. Thus psychophysical dualism prevents
autonomism from utilizing the resources of psychopharmacology and neuro-
surgery, as well as the techniques of behavior therapy (e.g., desensitization),
since all of these rest on laboratory research. Take pity on the manic-depressive,
the paranoid, the autistic, the phobic, or the mentally retarded who falls into the
hands of a logotherapist. Poor nervous system and poor bank account!
In short, there is no merit in the autonomy thesis. It consecrates the myth of
the immaterial mind, it blocks the biological investigation of mental processes,
and favors the pseudoscientific approach to the psychological problematics.
(1977), B = CA, where A and b’ are column vectors, and C is a square matrix.]
A consequence of the physiologization of psychological variables and their
mathematization is a third advantage, namely, a remarkable enhancement of the
degree of testability of the psychological hypotheses and theories. (For the
dependence of testability upon precision, see Hunge, 1983.)
A fourth merit of the biological approach to the mind is of a philosophical
nature: It puts an end to psychophysical dualism, that old usyluttt i~qnomnticu and
ally of all kinds of beliefs in the supernatural. This is an advantage because, b)
claiming to explain everything in terms of global categories, such as those of
body, mind, and interaction, dualism explains nothing at all, for it proposes no
definite mechanisms. On top of this, dualism postulates the existence of a
substance inaccessible to experiment, namely the mind (or soul, spirit, or I-Y\
co$zr~s), that would be immaterial and perhaps immortal as well. Also, dualism
perpetuates the influence of religion on the study of the mental, an influence
that has blocked the scientific understanding of subjective experience.
Finally, the biological approach eliminates the ontological anomaly of
mentalist psychology, the only discipline that claims to study states and
changes of state other than states of concrete things or changes in the latter. ‘I‘he
biological approach unifies all of the ontologies underlying the various factual
sciences-without however forcing upon us a physicalist ontology that ignores
the peculiar properties of grey matter, the only genuine YPS c.o,.yitcmc (see
‘Psychology as a biosociological science,’ below).
Newcomb, & Hartley, 1958). In recent years we have learned that the
contemplation of violent scenes increases aggressiveness instead of having the
cathartic effect claimed by the psychoanalysts, and that the experimental subject
usually wishes the experiment to succeed, as a consequence of which he or she
tends to report that he or she perceives or feels the way the experimenter has
hypothesized he or she should.
In more recent times there have been some serious problems with the
interpretation of the effects of group pressure on the emotional states of
drugged subjects, as well as on the willingness of people to inflict pain on
experimental subjects. These controversial results have cast some shadow on the
discipline. However, there is no reason to disbelieve in its future. After all,
scientific research is subject to error: What characterizes science is not the
absence of error but the ability and willingness to detect and correct it.
It is obvious that the social animals must be studied not only as organisms but
also in their mutual relationships. In particular, we humans are not only what
our ancestors bequeathed to us but also what we learn and do. Every one of us
performs as many roles as social groups in which we participate: Family, school,
gang, work place, club, church, political party, etc. This is why every one of us
manifests a somewhat different personality in each social group. Therefore a
purely biological (in particular genetic) theory of personality is doomed to
failure.
There are, then, reasons for conceiving of psychology as a social science. But
they are hardly sufficient, because the central referent of every psychological
proposition is an individual. The social group appears as the environment of the
individual and therefore as a peripheral referent of the proposition. Similarly,
economics must take the physical environment into account, but the latter is a
peripheral referent of the discipline, the central referents of which are economic
systems, such as households, firms, and markets.
In other words, the behavioral and mental processes are biological even
though they are influenced by the social context. This is why these influences can
be studied not only in the classical, prebiological, way, but also physiologically;
this is precisely the point of social psychophysiology or physiological social
psychology (Cacioppo & Petty, 1983). On the other hand social processes are
changes that occur in social systems. Psychology studies individuals-in-society,
not social systems. The social sciences study the latter: The individual does not
interest them except as a component of such systems. Analogously, the geologist
is centrally interested in the lithosphere, even though he or she cannot ignore
the action of the atmosphere on the latter. For this reason geology and
meteorology are regarded as components of the scientific system called “earth
sciences,” instead of including geology in meteorology or vice versa.
We see then that psychology is not a social science even though it cannot
ignore the social matrix, just as biology is not an earth science even though it
cannot ignore the habitat of every biopopulation. Not even social psychology is a
social science. What must be said is that this science belongs as much in natural as
in social science, that is, it is in the intersection of the two research fields. Other
sciences belonging in this intersection are ethology, biosociology, and demo-
132 M. Bunge
graphy. By the way, the mere existence of these hybrid sciences refutes the
idealist thesis, formulated by Kant and defended by Dilthey, that there is an
unbridgeable chasm between the natural and the social sciences (“sciences of the
spirit”-Ge~teswi.s.senschaften-or sciences morales). There is no chasm; there is
partial overlap.
(a) (b)
mics of the atmosphere. Genetics was remarkably deepened when genes were
shown to be segments of DNA molecules. Finally, history was revolutionized
when it was recast as the science of social (economic, political, and cultural)
changes.
Let us emphasize that the reduction of some or even all psychological concepts
to neurobiological ones does not entail the full reduction of psychology to
biology. This is because not all psychological propositions become biological
propositions. In fact, social psychology cannot dispense with sociological
concepts irreducible to biology, such as those of social group, crowding, poverty,
commodity, work, marginality, and antisocial behavior. What social psychology
does is to solder psychology and social science rather than reducing the former
to the latter or conversely. Example: “Crowding increases stress.”
In sum, we propose the reduction of psychological facts to biological ones but
not the full reduction of psychology to biology. Since the behavioral and mental
processes are socially conditioned, what is appropriate is a pa&l biosociological
r-duction. This partial reduction comes together with the acknowledgment of
emergence both ontological and epistemological. Hence, the reductionism we
propose is moderate rather than radical (Figure 2).
CONCLUSION
BIOLOGY BIOLOGY
ii
1850 1950
sociological, although it utilizes all the biological and sociological tools it can get
hold of.
This moderate reductionism allows us to continue to talk of psychology as a
distinct and very special discipline but not one detached from the other sciences.
But at the same time our moderate reductionism favors the integration of the
various branches of psychology, as well as the fusion of the latter with biology
and social science. (For the concept of f-usion or merger of theories and research
fields as a complement of reduction and a factor of integration, see Bunge,
1983.) Such integration, which has lately been much in demand in the
psychological community, cannot but favor the advancement of psychology,
since the borders between research fields are largely artificial obstacles to the
circulation of ideas and methods.
Finally, psychology can be done, applied, and taught wherever there are good
researchers, practitioners, and teachers endowed with suitable resources and
acting in a favorable environment. Such groups can flourish in many different
places. However, the ideal administrative unit-department or institute-is
perhaps one grouping experimental and theoretical psychologists; neuroscien-
tists keenly interested in behavior or in mental functions; psychotechnologists-
particularly psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, and educational psychologists;
and the odd methodologist and philosopher capable of trading conceptual
precision and deep questions for specialized scientific knowledge. Such an
arrangement is likely to foster the integration of the many currently separate
branches of psychology, and it would discourage the two extremes of excessive
specialization and charlatanism, to the benefit of researchers, teachers, students,
patients, and tax-payers.
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