The Philosophy of Psychology

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

A psychologist is a person who has been empowered by a government or group to promote and enforce its moral politics through the particular routes of drug administration, social disempowerment, and surgery.

There are no physical or experiential psychological facts. There is no science of psychology. There are no epistemological or knowledge-bearing facts in psychology.

Psychological facts are socially endorsed moral stances.

Psychological facts are social, moral stances repackaged by psychology as “real” objects. Moral stances are justified through the psychological diagnosis. The psychological diagnosis is justified by being grounded on the physical certainty of invented, “real”, quasi-physical objects. Such objects include “imbalance”, “disorder” etc. These “real” objects are quasi-physical because they are judgements expressed in terms of an object that is synthesised from physical structure (brain) and experience. Unlike physical objects, quasi-physical objects are not found in the world but are conceptual, literary ellipses of particular moral demands and stances.

It is a pity, therefore, that the public believe in the “psychological object” or “fact” as if it were a real thing, existing in the world. Psychologists promote the reality of such objects in order to back up the imposition of a moral sanction as if it were driven by a physical necessity or certitude.

2

I guess you are right. We should have left the human psyche in the hands of the – poets!

=D>

3

And yet different psychologists hold different moral standards…

4

Nevermind what science has to say. Science has only been around for a few hundred years, well, at least in it’s present
form, that is, if it even has a unified, monolithic form. You can’t, you shouldn’t expect the psychic sciences to emulate the physical sciences. Different subjects require different methologies. Introspection, for example, is a perfectly valid way of studying the human mind, but not so much for studying external objects, or at least, that is what i’m inclined to think. Also, the human mind is more fuzzy than the physical subjects, so naturally there’s going to be more guesswork and speculation invovled. Naturally, value judgements are more liable to creep in whilst discussing the mind or culture, in contrast to discussing a rock or a potato, naturally. Must everything be so clinical, so detatched from human subjectivity and feeling with you?

Clearly schizophrenics are cognitively impaired. They fail to reason correctly. Clearly those who are terrified of stepping out the front door have a tremendously disabiling and painful mental condition that serves no logical purpose. The fear only subtratcs from their lives, it adds nothing to them, it doesn’t keep them safe, and the methods used to treat such paranoias/phobias (irrational fears) are often quite affective. Plus, it’s abnormal. It’s natural for human beings to try and assimilate the abnormal, and to desire to be assimilated, well, most human beings, not me, but probably you and most people on this forum.

Haha, I’m contradicting myself here. In my last post, I called for deregulation of ourselves and nature, now I’m calling for the opposite. Well, I suppose you have to try and reach a compromise, or maybe I’m just playing the devils advocate. No matter, in any case, I beleive your position is flawed, because psychologist’s methods may not be perfect, but they do good work for some people, and subjective value impositions are inevitable, even welcomed by some patients in some cases (sometimes, people just want to be normal, that is, averagized, although I don’t, I want to be abnormal). You go to far in assaulting psychology, they know more than a thing or two about the human mind, and many of their assessments are… objective, I suppose, if subject and object can truly, if ever be seperated. Objective in the sense that the patient is suffering because of their condition, or in the sense that they’re having difficulty fitting into our society, or surviving.

Yeah, it’s natural for human beings to want to transform internal and external nature, thereby making it artificial, haha. In some cases though, it isn’t. We impose artifices on ourselves and nature, not because we inherently like doing so, but for we beleive it’ll do more good than bad in the long run.

In closing, I’d like to say psychologists do make mistakes (one, they prescribe drugs far too often… on second thought, that’s probably not a mistake, but done intentionally for profits) and impose cultural norms on people, but psychology itself isn’t one big mistake or imposition of cultural norms. Some of it is objective, in the senses mentioned above, and some of it’s methods indeed differ with the physical sciences… so what! You wouldn’t study chemistry the way you study the stars.

5

Are you against everything JJ?

6

Yes, the poets. The poets tell us.

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I don’t think so. The standards of psychologists can be taken to illustrate their role, a role I had presented.

8

Against anything that a philosopher names, and against anything that a scientist forges.

9

Pardon me for cutting the rest of your script, but as soon as I read what you wrote, above, I called off the proceedings.

I WAS NOT looking at the truths behind physical and psychic sciences, I was looking at THE TRUTHS BEHIND SCIENCE.

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You should read the rest of my post. That was only one of my many points. I addressed all of what you said in the OP, and more.

11

Your next sentence was this:
“Introspection, for example, is a perfectly valid way of studying the human mind”

SO - I am hauled up at every one of your sentences it seems. I can’t see a prospect for continuing to read what you wrote if it fucks up at every look. Say something concise and sensible. Now.

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Do you consider what you’re doing here “philosophy”?

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Why is this thread in the philosophy forum and not the social science forum?

Very well, I’ll respond to it in the context of philosophy, rather than the context of social science…in which case I would look passed your overgeneralizing “psychologist” and “psychology”, your restricting their meaning to a small, specific selection of “psychologists”, and from there, “psychology”, when in fact those specific cases have/use/are colored by primary “functions”, and actions, and categorically distinct attributes that DISTINGUISH them from other kinds of psychologists/psychology;

if this was in the social science forum, I would ignore that your claims relating to psychologists and psychology are based off a meaning of “psychologist” that is grounded on qualities/actions that aren’t included in/as the basic defining aspects of “psychologist”, and I would just replace “psychologist” with “psychiatrist”, since that is what your OP is actually about… a psychiatrist’s job being to make a person “right”, in fixing what is “bad” about/in them.

If this was the social science forum, I’d interpret the basic point of your OP as: "The ‘things’ that a psychiatrist specializes in diagnosing (“finding”/“seeing”) and treating ("removing, making “go away”) are not phenomenal “facts”–the terms/disorders/diseases etc. don’t actually directly refer to existing things or configurations of material things; rather, these “diseases”, “imbalances”, etc. basically only “make sense” (are “understood” as “real”) in light of popular morals, values, etc. Well… that’s how I would interpret it if I was trying to be agreeable and made an effort to find something sensible in what you wrote. Even then, IF you posted this in the social science forum., and even IF I ignored anything that didn’t meaningfully fit into a coherent, logical point, the sensible argument (i abridge above) I find elicits nothing more than a "well…duh. is that it? :-s "

…People go to or are sent to a psychiatrists with the context something is wrong/bad. So from the start the psychiatrists job is to make the person feel better. Practices develop overtime and ways of thinking, terms, techniques, etc. are deemed more successful than others. These practices/techniques (and contextual beliefs/values that give them coherent meaning) are taught and learned. Those who agree with them enough to continue absorbing them, with plans to work in psychiatry, continue their “education” and begin practicing psychiatry, and then as these professionals get older some of them teach and it goes on. These “worldviews”/values/beliefs from which, and in which, practitioners over the years obtain the most success are those that have the most results a lot of people (social institutions working with psychiatrists, the patients themselves, the patient’s families, etc.) agree are “good”/successful (at fixing the problem). Of course, since it isn’t always as simple as just giving them medicine (there’s a distinction from the nonpsychiatric doctor), and it involves taking about values, goals, etc., most “success” comes working with patients with relatively “normal” ideas of reality, right and wrong, values, etc. So yeah… people use abstractions and categories that may not actually refer to immediate sensory cues or material constructions, but rather a collection of behaviors, rules, etc. that together result/coincide/characterize/etc. a distinct things that is relevant to one’s life (it has results many people would agree makes life “good”, or makes life “bad”). Yeah, its big in psychiatry… it’s prevalent in all human languages and is the basis of everyone’s day to day life as well.

But yeah, I mean, you put this in the philosophy forum so…

Your use of “psychologist” and “psychology” is faulty, so overall your OP doesn’t make any coherent point. It’s basically meaningless.

It’s obviously a hastily-written passionate denounciation of the concept of “good mental health” because something questioned your mental “well-being”/rrighteousness, and it made you anxious enough to go on the defensive and convince yourself you know better. Frankly, I don’t think you do.

14

Don’t feel bad johnjones, this guy called my histrionic once a long time ago. I googled that shit and was like wtf?

15

Wow, you remember that after… how long ago was that? It’s been at least 3 years… right? Feels like a decade has gone by though.

I’ve been pretty nice to you since, no?

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I’m not saying you’re not nice. Of course I remember!

17

Circular.

18

Philosophy is not a subject - it has no content, and it deals with the sciences, religion, any study at all. What else could it be?

It is deliberately engineered conceptual slips of this sort that I warned against. “Wrong/bad” suggests a moral matter, while “feel better” a physical matter. But it also looks as though you are saying that psychologists see unhappiness as illness and happiness as health. They would though, wouldn’t they?

That’s a well-recognised psycholegesic strategic platitude. It summons a demon. I really wouldn’t go down that path.

You can’t argue against an opponent if you have to assume the coherence of terms (like the quasi-physical object “mental well-being”) that your opponent is challenging.

19

The standards of the concentration camp commanders is taken from their role, as it is the role that is used as a benchmark of the standards of concentration camp commanders.

20

Only in so far as their standards regarding the commanding of concentration camps. Nothing else can be deduced with any reasonable certainty.