TY - JOUR
T1 - Realistically re-envisioning general psychology and its relation to specialization
AU - Hibberd, Fiona J.
AU - Petocz, Agnes
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - In the face of psychology’s continuing expansion and diversity, Pickren and Teo (2020) call for a re-envisioning of general psychology. They challenge us to reforge psychology’s historic links to philosophy and the humanities while also accommodating contemporary critiques arising from the discipline’s increasing specializations. In response, Osbeck (2020) explores the idea of general psychology as “common ground” and “point of view,” and suggests that the latter makes general psychology itself a specialization. Nevertheless, she anticipates difficulties for resolving psychology’s methodological “value conflicts,” sees no resolution for its ongoing dilemma of establishing limits to avoid incoherence while also honoring diversity, and wonders how psychology can incorporate the position of critic without sabotaging its own disciplinary progression. In this paper we argue that general psychology neither stands in contrast to psychology’s specializations nor is itself a specialization. When realistically re-envisioned in the light of a clarification of thoroughgoing realism, general psychology resolves Osbeck’s dilemmas, extends the ways in which philosophy is always “in” psychology, and takes us much further along the “common ground” and “point of view” paths, to where they converge in their roles of infusing and contextualising psychology’s numerous specializations. General psychology is thus the sine qua non of all psychological inquiry, no matter how specialized.
AB - In the face of psychology’s continuing expansion and diversity, Pickren and Teo (2020) call for a re-envisioning of general psychology. They challenge us to reforge psychology’s historic links to philosophy and the humanities while also accommodating contemporary critiques arising from the discipline’s increasing specializations. In response, Osbeck (2020) explores the idea of general psychology as “common ground” and “point of view,” and suggests that the latter makes general psychology itself a specialization. Nevertheless, she anticipates difficulties for resolving psychology’s methodological “value conflicts,” sees no resolution for its ongoing dilemma of establishing limits to avoid incoherence while also honoring diversity, and wonders how psychology can incorporate the position of critic without sabotaging its own disciplinary progression. In this paper we argue that general psychology neither stands in contrast to psychology’s specializations nor is itself a specialization. When realistically re-envisioned in the light of a clarification of thoroughgoing realism, general psychology resolves Osbeck’s dilemmas, extends the ways in which philosophy is always “in” psychology, and takes us much further along the “common ground” and “point of view” paths, to where they converge in their roles of infusing and contextualising psychology’s numerous specializations. General psychology is thus the sine qua non of all psychological inquiry, no matter how specialized.
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:68835
UR - https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/realistically-re-envisioning-general-psychology/docview/2721365956/se-2
M3 - Article
SN - 0271-0137
VL - 43
SP - 85
EP - 109
JO - Journal of Mind and Behavior
JF - Journal of Mind and Behavior
IS - 2
ER -