The Grand Challenge: Integrating Nomothetic and Ideographic Approaches to Human Cognition

Frontiers in Psychology

Bernhard Hommel¹ 

关键词: research methodology;    challenge;    Aristotelian mode;    Galilean sciences;    cognitive sciences;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00100

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

In 1931, Kurt Lewin published a plea for the transition from what he identified as the Aristotelian mode of thought in psychology to a Galilean mode (Lewin, 1931). According to Lewin, the Aristotelian mode is characterized by a category-based, top-down approach to study psychological processes. Psychological concepts/categories are taken from everyday-life observations and they tend to be “valuative” and binary in nature (“normal” vs. “pathological;” “true perception” vs. “illusion”). Explanations for novel phenomena are provided by assigning them to an existing category. The scientific ambition to explain psychological mechanisms is restricted to phenomena that can be observed with a high degree of consistency and replicability, which leads to a focus on mean effects and the neglect of individual or situational variability. Lewin emphasizes that this approach implies an anti-thesis between individuality of events or people on the one hand and lawfulness on the other, with the former falling outside the task of science.

【 授权许可】

CC BY