Book Review: A Science of the Mind: The Quest for Psychological Reality

One of the most exciting and rapidly developing fields in contemporary philosophy has been the philosophy of science. Part of the excitement of the philosophy of science stems from its practical ramifications. Unlike, say, the philosophy of language – which tends to be rather arid and esoteric – the philosophy of science is methodological in a down-to-earth sense: it strives to discover how we can acquire an objective understanding of the natural world. The discipline of psychology is, in essence, an attempt to theoretically show that most mysterious of objects – the human mind – within the natural order and thereby create a science of the human mind. This quest has all the makings of a great and exhilarating story of discovery. Unfortunately, psychological investigations have often capsized on the reef of triviality (e.g. psychotherapy 'outcome studies') or come to grief on the rocks of methodological incoherence (e.g. psychoanalysis).

In A Science of the Mind, Peter du Preez, a South African psychologist, applies contemporary philosophy of science to the field of psychology. His focus is on what Larry Laudan calls 'research traditions' – their logical structure and their sociological dynamics. Du Preez is obviously quite at home within this field and

draws on the full spectrum of thought from realism to relativism, using the insights of Popper, Lakatos, Laudan, Kuhn (early and later), Feyerabend and others. Rather than developing one doctrine above all others, du Preez approaches his subject from a multiplicity of theoretical angles. This lends the book a somewhat mercurial quality: it reads like a loosely connected collection of essays although in fact the book has a definite structure and mission. Beginning with the concept of the 'knowledge matrix' the author goes on to consider the later Kuhn's concept of a 'disciplinary matrix'. From this vantage point he surveys six psychological research traditions – existential phenomenology, psychoanalysis, genetic epistemology, Marxist social psychology and Skinnerian behaviorism – in terms of (a) the (logically) primitive entities postulated by each, (b) the cardinal metaphors used by each, (c) the 'exemplars' advanced within each, (d) the values promoted by each and (e) the axioms assumed by each. The next three chapters take a close look at the role of metaphor, metonymy and axioms in psychological research. Chapter Seven deals with how research traditions evolve both during periods of relative quiescence ('the problem solving' of Kuhn's 'normal science') and upheaval (Kuhn's 'scientific revolutions'), examining both cognitive and sociological factors. The next three chapters on strategies of theoretical competition, scientific values, and epistemological realism I found particularly gripping while the final chapter, a sketch for a reflexive psychology, seemed anticlimatic.

This book is a gem. It will be of interest to anyone concerned with the philosophical underpinnings of psychological research. Notwithstanding the author's clarity and wit, however, the book is probably best read by those who have acquires at least a rudimentary understanding of contemporary philosophy of science.

David Livingston Smith