What kind of science is Psychology?

-- angela brennan (angeb73@hotmail.com), January 08, 2002

Answers

I'm not sure that everyone would agree there are 'kinds of science'. On that one I would whole-heartedly say that it is its own. And then there's the debate over whether it should be incorporated totally into a natural science approach, as in the more established Chemistry, Biology and Physics. And psychology is neither of those. Fox and Prilleltensky would probably express feelings that it should be more of a Critical Science.

-- Thomas Taylor (konnrad@talk21.com), January 09, 2002.

Psychology is the science of "self".

Self may, in this context, be defined as soul, heart, thought, emotion, or reaction.

I view "self" and its "science" as the study of human experience and the methods used to understand, as well as deal with, the consequences of that experience.

Since science demands facts, and since psychology arrives at its conclusions via inference, I prefer to call it an Empirical Discipline.

When practiced by those who excell in the art of insight, this Empirical Discipline can explain and resolve every problem of human existence as "self".

My definition automatically precludes the use of psychotropic drugs from being a defensible option within a disciplne that delegates its ultimate value to the mental processes of the individual.

-- visualize me (visualizeme@webtv.net), January 18, 2002.