The problem with the psycholgy is that it has no real object because nobody knows what psyche really is, means, how it can be defined. … and so on.
Brain is a natural, especially a biological, more especially a neurological object, soul is a cultural, religious, theological, philosophical object, and mind is a cultural, semiotic, linguistic, theological (partly also religious), philosophical object. According to the psychologists “psyche” is a psychological object because psychologists say that “psyche” is something between brain, soul, and mind; but why do they hide their object if they have one? The answer is that they have no object, or at least no real object. According to this we have the same problem with the “psyche” as all our ancestors had - except one point: since the occidental modernity psychology and especially sociology have been becoming the main part of the new theology and especially the new religion because the old theology and especially the old religion have been becoming the losers. This refers mainly to the occidental culture, but more and more also to the other cultures on our planet.
The mind is the main source for the usage of the brain. Mind and brain have an interdependent relationship to each other. The mind is a cultural phenomenon, and the brain is a natural phenomenon.
The brain and the mind are both because there is this interdependent relationship I mentioned. The brain does its “job”, as you say, in a natural way, and the mind does its “job”, as you say, in a cultural way.
It seems to me that psychiatry and psychopharmacology is the new theology. Yes, the word psych is in these, but the people running these enterprises are generally not psychologists, nor is it useful to think of their focus as psychology. They are brain technicians, using behavioral clues, much as and old style car mechanic listening to the running of an engine, to do their diagnostics. They treat mind, soul, psyche what have you as chemical machines and their tools are primarily chemical.
Psychologists are much more likely to engage in engaging the mind andor psyche and or soul, even, and have other dominant paradigms for what leads to change and what we are. And a psychology text/education will look very different from a psychiatric text/education. Of course, psychology is becoming more physicalist. If only it was becoming more pagan.
Imagination is filling the gaps of certainty with optional possibilities (computers woefully do it every day as they guess at your intentions). Creativity is merely free exploration down paths of opportunities to see if anything significant develops. Quantum computers do both to an extreme.
Psychologists refer more and more to psychiatrists. They more and more conceive of mind and brain as the same, and words like soul and spirit are off the table - at least more and more in secular portions of the West. The physicalist model is presented as having won, which is an effective propaganda technique and this is bought by more and more of the educated West. Of course there are vast numbers of studies of minds and cognitive processes in the field of psychology that do not refer to neuroscience, etc. But there is a gradual shifting to thinking of reality, including people and their minds, in physicalist terms. I think that was what I was getting at back then.
referring to Arminius other thread at that time where it was asked something like if paganism could save things. Paganism being vitalist, for example, where physicalism is a philosophy of death. Everything is actually dead, life is an appearance scum on the surface of a dead universe. Consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon. Brains (and thus minds) are machines. And so on.
It is sad enough that one has to explain this again and again. The brain is a part of the body, scintifically spoken: a part of biology, especially neurology. Brain is not mind, and both are not psyche. Brain is scientifically accessible, but psyche and mind are scientifically not accessible, because they are scientifically not objectifiable. So psychology is not a scientifical discipline. Psychology has no scientifical object. It can merely be a part of a theory.
Nobody knows what psyche really is. That is the reason why it is used for everything. It is no thing (=> no-thing => nothing), and if no thing is used for everything, then you can be sure that that can never be a real scientifical object and that those people who use it in that way are charlatans, quacks, quacksalvers, and so on.
The object, is not strictly speaking a physical object, a non physical objective may be spoken of as substantial. The difference between an objective, a mental event, and an object is one of secondary derivative of its constitution. Therefore it can be spoken of as an object, the substantial part of any thing, and it will by definition be a no-thing.
Whether that is something physical, or mental, is a derivation of secondary categorization, because irregardless both objects and objectives primarily have a perceptive albeit mental derivation. This is the primal identity between them , and the differentiaion takes place after this.
This is why cognition is a precedent, and that is why existenze philosophy has failed as a reductive process from secondary to primary signification. this is the reason for the existential angst, and it’s failed attempt at a nihilistic leap.
The deontological process gives certainty or assurance to the alternative model, vis, an inductive reduction, effecting the social/psychological shift/change of the paradigms. Szasz was by most part, right, within this meaning structure.
I don’t think physicalism in general is tied to any statements about life or death in the universe - apart from the claim that life is rooted in purely physical phenomena along with everything else.
I’m sure a lot of physicalists think of the universe as something that is not even dead but non-living. But, like I was saying, this is an extra claim that is not essential to physicalism.
This also is debatable from the point of view, that You may have been right prior to Watson's but hence, the predominating psychology via Skinner, and it's philosophical underpinnings through Ayer, has given psychology a determine and exact
measurable science through behavioralism.
For this reason, Your critique is not determinative as per the above. Behavioral data can be exacted as the physical sciences.