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[charliefox]

This (http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i46/46b00501.htm) essay suggests that the author, who criticizes psychology and the way it is taught, knows very little of psychology nor how psychology is taught. Further, he makes some troublesome assumptions about the relationship of academic to the general culture.

His comments about psychology (he also speaks of other disciplines but I'm not qualified to speak of them) concern Freud and why this 'master of Western thought' (his terms) is not taught in psychology curriculums. His evidence for Freud's importance is that 'educated individuals' (again his term) were asked to name leading historical thinkers in psychology, Freud would be high on the list. I believe this is so but is not evidence that psychology curriculum is 'anti- or nonhistorical". There is a wide difference between who academic psychologists, or even psychologists in general, consider the major historical thinkers and who the general public consider in this role. When I taught history of psychology, students at the beginning of the semester often though Freud was a major figure, but this changed with course progression. The simple fact is, Freud is not a major figure. The author notes that Freud is often taught in other departments and that is appropriate - while Freud has little to say to contemporary psychology, he may have much to say to other fields (and both pysch and other disciplines get to decide what/who should be included). Historically, psychology spoke of the soul, in fact, psyche was the mortal that lived with the gods. Other than in psych history classes we don't teach this either.

And psychology is certainly aware of and teaches it's history. Pick up intro texts or for that matter most texts and you will find a rich history of philosophy, physiology, etc. that defines the field. Teaching perception, there is a good chance that you will start with the early physiologists and phenomenologists that defined the field. Text on learning will go back to the physiologist who defined this field. Teaching motor control and you will probably go back to the neurologist and physiologists who began things. And if you are teaching clinical or perhaps personality you will probably even consider Freud. Psychology is very aware of it's history and deliberately includes it throughout the curriculum. It is simply that the discipline of psychology disagrees with the author (who is a historian) about what that history is.

BTW - I taught psychology, including the history of psychology, for a couple of decades; I am now an administrator and only teach very part time, and I don't teach psychology at this point.

[mabeelrc]

Perhaps Freud, Hegel, and Marx not being taught in their home disciplines anymore is a good thing; perhaps someday they won't be taught at all.  That, too, might be a good thing.  Disciplines, like people, eventually grow up.  Some get wiser, some only get older.  Take a look at Benjamin Wiker's book, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World.     

[litcrittr82]

Seems like Jacoby wasn't interested in discussig the other side of that double-edged sword: yes, on one side 'anti-historical' disciplinary orientation, and on the other, positivist disciplinary orientation.  I can see how academic psych has little use for Freud, since Freud doesn't produce data.  Likewise, I can see how the positivist aspects of analytic philosophy would be more concerned with formal logic than with Hegelian dialectics.  And, needless to say, economists are too busy with numbers to concern themselves with Marx.  The same thing is happening, counterintuitively, with literature departments.  We see essays calling for applications of the scientific method to literary analysis to 'save the humanities.'  Sociology is split between 'cultural sociologists' and positivists as well, and there's no question who's winning that battle.  All this is to say that maybe we shold be asking how and why historical, cultural (for lack of a better word here), and otherwise non-positivist methods are being shut out across many disciplines.  Even in literary cultural studies, Freud, Marx, and their contemporaries are considered passe.  

[takapa]

Someone should tell Jacoby that medical schools no longer teach leeching despite a long storied tradition of using leeches in medicine in the (now rather) distant past.  I imagine that someone lamenting over the loss of Freud would have a similar knee jerk reaction to the loss of leeches....

[kedves]

Someone should tell Jacoby that medical schools no longer teach leeching despite a long storied tradition of using leeches in medicine in the (now rather) distant past. 

I do understand that this is a metaphor, but I'm going to suggest blood-letting as a better one.  Leeches are used in modern medicine in wound care, you know.  Helpful little creatures.

[takapa]

Someone should tell Jacoby that medical schools no longer teach leeching despite a long storied tradition of using leeches in medicine in the (now rather) distant past. 

I do understand that this is a metaphor, but I'm going to suggest blood-letting as a better one.  Leeches are used in modern medicine in wound care, you know.  Helpful little creatures.

Quite right!  Blood letting it is!

[litcrittr82]

Someone should tell Jacoby that medical schools no longer teach leeching despite a long storied tradition of using leeches in medicine in the (now rather) distant past.  I imagine that someone lamenting over the loss of Freud would have a similar knee jerk reaction to the loss of leeches....

Rambling thoughts:

You're talking about an applied research field, where the objective is to solve a concrete problem.  That's not the only kind of valuable research, you know.  It would be pretty hard to argue that Freud hasn't helped us understand how people experience and relate to the world around them; it would be just as hard to argue that such an understanding has no value in the field of psychology. 

Also, even in applied psychology, people use psychoanalytic therapy.  Should psychoanalysts not read Freud because Freud is old news? 

I'm not sure if I have what it takes to explain this, but I'm going to try: surely the history of knowledge in some research fields should be treated very differently than that of others.  Surely we all understand that for some reason, while it's not useful to apply 17th century medical procedures in 21st century medicine, it's quite a different thing to be a philosopher and say 'Hegel is old news, I can dispense with Hegel.' 

[goldenapple]

I don't think that a graduate course on the fundamentals of Freudian psychology, for instance, is necessary or even desirable for most students of psychology.

On the other hand, my own feeling is that many graduate students could benefit from -- and would even find very quite fascinating -- a course in which they got another look at some of the pioneers of their discipline. Having had brief contact with these thinkers in introductory classes, they would be ready to investigate how certain people had shaped the way their field was viewed from the outside. Researchers in psychology may not have much use for Freud now, but much of the general public has uncritically adopted his terminology (subconscious, anal-retentive, repressed, etc.). Once you know your field well, it might be interesting to think about its historical position (just off the top of my head: why did many Communist regimes specifically reject Freudian theories? and how has this continued to affect their view of psychology? how does the popular reception of Freud affect the way Americans or Europeans view psychological treatment?, etc. This is the sort of stuff you can expect to encounter from non-experts throughout your career).

Many students of literature would benefit similarly from a "literary theory" class that talked about the origins of literary criticism (particularly in the 18th century) and about the political and social importances of certain literary critics in their own country in the 20th century. The same is true for art historians and anthropologists; courses that situated the discipline historically might help academics better understand the social and political position of their field and some popular perceptions of it.

Such classes do exist here and there, but I think more students would enjoy them than currently have an opportunity to do so. However, as I said, I think that these would be very interesting classes for thinking about the field in general. They would not actually re-establish Freud or Marx (or Walter Pater or John Dryden) as authorities for scholars today.

[takapa]

Actually, I think one would find that most psychologists (and psychiatrists) today (in the U.S. and most of Western Europe anyway) would indeed argue that Freud has not helped us understand how people experience the world around us.  I would be one of them, FWIW.  I would agree, of course, that if someone is analytic, they should read Freud.  So few and far between are they that I do not know any after decades of being in the business.  However, as noted in these fora, I am an academic in an allied health department, so perhaps I just don't run in to them as I might otherwise.

I will not comment on Hegel.  But Freud can stay by the curb for the vast majority of us in the field.  

I imagine a better response would be to tell Jacoby I am certain he is a fine historian, but those of us in the fields he mentions are far better able to decide what is important and relevant and have used our science to arrive at these conclusions.

[litcrittr82]

I would agree, of course, that if someone is analytic, they should read Freud.  So few and far between are they that I do not know any after decades of being in the business.  

This is what's most interesting to me.  It's clear that psychology and (generalized) medicine have decided that analytic approaches are worthless.  I'm a lit. student and my father is a shrink, and he laughs at me for reading Freud.  Other social science fields have also cast aside non-positivist approaches (as I suggested above).  Humanities fields are even trying desperately to go positivist in pathetic attempts to demonstrate certain kinds of use-value.  It's not just that we don't value these thinkers; we don't value research that can't be quantified, or reported in positivist terms.

[takapa]

Well, litcrittr82, I would certainly fall into this group of "need to quantify" to be of importance....  But, the post-modern, post-positivist group in psychology (generally speaking, although not to the same degree in clinical or counseling psychology) has a strong and growing voice.  Certainly this would be the case in other social sciences as well such as family science, human development, and the social science / allied health field of marriage and family therapy (at least the systemic ones).  They seem to be well into this other group.  But, they do crunch numbers of sorts....  Lots of theory though.  I'm not well versed in the area though....  Perhaps someone who is can enlighten us.

This is a good exchange!  Come on post-positivists, speak up and tell me if I'm on the right track with this!  Now, back to my numbers....

[charliefox]

This is a wonderful thread.

litcrittr82 (#9)

I disagree about non-positivist approaches being ignored by psych, medicine, and others. I think the issue is that theory is a start point not an endpoint. Cognitive science is a good example of this - it is something I conceive of as a 'new humanities' discipline - that is - where the scientific method and the more traditional philosophical/theoretical methods interact (perhaps integrate)

Take for example Andy Clark, a philosopher of mind who is very aware of the findings of biology, neuroscience, psychology, etc and develops theory of mind - a key issue here is that his theories can be tested and as new data (direct or indirect) arises the theory can accommodate it - compare this to the simplistic 'theory' presented by Freud. I believe non-positivist approaches are valuable and can make real contributions BUT they need to be a part of more complex approaches that are really just now arising - doing this will avoid 'pathetic attempts to demonstrate certain kinds of use-value' and allow real contributions to be made.

As for your last comment - it's not clear to me what 'research that can't be quantified' would look like - and why such activity would be considered (or want to be considered) research as we now understand - something that is not scientific isn't valueless, it is merely non-scientific - such work can have value but just as poor or outdated science has little or no value, poor or outdated non-positivistic work has little or no value.

[11889694]

I don't know much about Marx, but Freud's work is entirely pseudoscience.  If he isn't a standard part of the psychology curriculum, this is probably for the same reason we don't teach Lysenko's ideas in biology.

[litcrittr82]

This is a wonderful thread.

litcrittr82 (#9)

I disagree about non-positivist approaches being ignored by psych, medicine, and others. I think the issue is that theory is a start point not an endpoint. Cognitive science is a good example of this - it is something I conceive of as a 'new humanities' discipline - that is - where the scientific method and the more traditional philosophical/theoretical methods interact (perhaps integrate)

Take for example Andy Clark, a philosopher of mind who is very aware of the findings of biology, neuroscience, psychology, etc and develops theory of mind - a key issue here is that his theories can be tested and as new data (direct or indirect) arises the theory can accommodate it - compare this to the simplistic 'theory' presented by Freud. I believe non-positivist approaches are valuable and can make real contributions BUT they need to be a part of more complex approaches that are really just now arising - doing this will avoid 'pathetic attempts to demonstrate certain kinds of use-value' and allow real contributions to be made.

As for your last comment - it's not clear to me what 'research that can't be quantified' would look like - and why such activity would be considered (or want to be considered) research as we now understand - something that is not scientific isn't valueless, it is merely non-scientific - such work can have value but just as poor or outdated science has little or no value, poor or outdated non-positivistic work has little or no value.

Your point is well-taken that I overstate the degree to which psych and medicine ignore non-positivist work, and your examples of cognitive science and Andy Clark here are very good ones.  Though I'm a grad. student way out of my field, I'd still argue (as someone who researched social science PhD programs and job markets a couple years back) that it's hard to be a 'cultural' person in quite a few social science departments these days, and probably even harder to get a job in these fields publishing on Weber or Habermas instead of quantitative research.  I've worked on two published research projects (on the side, outside of my field) over the past two years with social science faculty, and the theoretical sections of these studies were basically just space fillers (despite my protests).  

What's scary to me is that not many (in this thread) seem to even recognize the possibility that some research isn't quantifiable, and was never meant to be.  It's like when I tell my engineering friends that the stuff I do in the library as an English grad. student is research, and they look at me dumbfounded, unable to conceive of such 'research' that happens outside of a lab or a focus group.  

In other words, scientists don't own the term 'research,' and the fact that people assume that they do is a problem.  'Research' suggests that things like methodology, validity, rigor, information collection (notice I didn't say 'data collection'), etc. are involved in a process.  All of these are indeed part of non-positivist scholarship.  The fact itself that many wouldn't even think of non-positivist scholarship as 'research' makes a pretty strong case for cultural criticism--specifically, in this case, the ways in which linguistic trends can invalidate an entire field of research.


  

[charliefox]

litcrittr82

You make some valid points - I believe much of what you say is really about the business of science and the politics of science but that doesn't change their validity and importance. I have struggled with the limits of science for most of my career and understand your frustration - some of the frustration stems from language and semantics - those who follow the scientific method have adopted terms like research and laboratory for their exclusive use - early in my career I was involved with experiment theater and we spoke of our laboratories - I no longer am in that world but I encourage my friends to avoid the semantic wars and use scholarship for what they do - the scientist owning the term doesn't make it right - but there are many battles that aren't worth fighting - in my opinion this may be one of them - you may differ in this.

Much of value is difficult to quantify and I think great damage has been done and is being done by inappropriate/premature quantification - look at the lit on intelligence and a lot of medical/health literature - even down to evidence based medicine where the quantification is often very precise yet irrelevant (you can't fatten the pig by weighing it)

I realize non of this really help though I hope I have responded to your comments - but let me offer one suggestion - there are a group of young scholars (my friend Tony Chemero at F&M is one) who come from the humanities (philosophy in his case) but have also learned experimental methods and collaborate with scientists (I was one but we never got our manuscript together) and are really changing the professional discourse.

Good Luck