Psychology's epistemological identity

• Main Author: Matej Černigoj
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Slovenian Psychologists' Association 2003-09-01
• Series: Psihološka Obzorja
• Subjects: psychology; epistemology; science; hermeneutics; phenomenology; identity
• Online Access: http://psiholoska-obzorja.si/arhiv_clanki/2003_3/cernigoj.pdf

The aim of the article is first to present three different, mutually irreducible approaches to the study of human psyche, and then to offer a conceptual model that allows their meaningful integration. I begin the article with the common knowledge about three main determinants of human behavior: genetic inheritance, social environment, and one's own activity, which I then link with Stevens' (1998) conceptualization of three appropriate epistemologies in psychology. Nomothetic epistemology is adequate for the study of behavior rooted in our biological dispositions, hermeneutic epistemology for the study of behavior founded on symbolic meanings, and transformative epistemology for the study of behavior steaming from our capacity for reflexive awareness. I then interrelate these epistemologies using Gergen's (1973) idea about the continuum of temporal stability of events supplemented with the dimension of the abstractness of their treatment. I presuppose that nomothetic treatment of temporally less stable events demands a higher level of abstraction and vice versa. This is very important for psychology, because it acknowledges the possibility of psychology being a nomothetic science, but at the same time warns for the necessity of complementing its findings with the interpretive and phenomenological realizations.