Some Chat on Psychology, Theology, and other Pseudo-Sciences, was [Fwd: Re: desire/ message board]

[DANIEL.DAVIES at flemings.com]

This is an incredibly interesting post.  My only problem with it is that
I've had very similar arguments put to me in a different forum, only with
the word "Marxism" appended to the list "psychology, theology, phrenology
...", and "class interests" appended to the list of things which do not
exist yet which have well-developed theories about them.

None of which necessarily implies anything about the validity or invalidity
of Carrol's points about social sciences in general or in particular,
obviously, but it does make you long for a peek into what Galen Strawson
called "The Big Book of Things"  (a mythical book which listed all the
things which existed -- the matter at issue was whether "minds" was in
there)

dd





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Subject:  Some Chat on Psychology, Theology, and other Pseudo-Sciences, was
      [Fwd:  Re: desire/ message board]




Kelley,
 You write a very long post. I'll take it a few
nibbles here, a few nibbles there, and see where we get.
But a preliminary. I find it interesting that people
can have rather radically different views not just on
psychoanalysis but on a number of even more fundamental
issues and yet have considerable political unity. (People,
of course, can have considerable political unity and
fail to recognize that fact -- to consider themselves in
fact to be bitter opponents, but that's another story.)
I have no immediate interpretation of these political/
philosophical phenomena.

I'm writing this Monday evening but will not send it
today because I am already overposted. The following
remarks are off the top of my head, conversational rather
than systematic.

So:

Kelley:
ya lucked out carrol, the kid was home with the flu today.  so.

 i wrote,

>> mike:  psychoanalytic theory IS a theory of how the social shapes the
>> individual.

and carrol said,

>Kelley, this may be. It is *a* theory.

yup

The question is is it a correct
>theory -- and the basis for saying that it is not a correct theory is
>that it is not, from its foundations, based on anything real,

how do you know what is and isn't correct?  do you actually think that
the correctness of a theory is contained within the operations of
theory itself?
------

Carrol: Whoa. The arguments (the basis for "knowing") haven't
come yet. But I don't understand your second sentence. But
if someone offers a theory of God's activity in Asia it can
be ignored as theory because it posits a non-existent entity.
However interesting her statements on Asia, she does not
have systematic knowledge to offer.
------

Kelley:
let me ask you carrol, what is a capitalist economy?  what is the state?
patriarchy?  can you see it, taste it, touch it, fuck it?  i'm with
bhaskar here:  the social sciences [and i consider psych a social
science] "create" their objects of investigation.  nay, ALL sciences
create their object of investigation.
------

Carrol: What if there is a disagreement about the legitimacy of that
creation? How is that disagreement resolved?
------
Kelley:
 indeed, the edifice of that "social institution" we call
academia is premised on the notion that these objects are identifiable,
isolatable and, of course, largely assumed 'til now to be "real"
"natural" "out there".
------

Carrol: That an academic department is devoted to the
study of X does not guarantee the existence of X. Theology
departments are prime examples.
------
Kelley:
 that assumption, of course, has been called into question on
a number of fronts  from marxism to feminism to interpretivism to
pomo/poststruc.  they are inventions, which doesn't mean that we can't
pursue them and that we ought to toss them to the dustbin of history.
------

Carrol: Yes and no. I have never particularly liked the phrase
"dustbin of history," but I rather foresee the disappearance
of departments of theology and of (writing) composition. They
both deal with imaginary entities which cannot be systematically
studied (or taught).
------
Kelley:
i.e., you can't see an electromagentic field or gravity but that
doesn't stop people from studying them.
------

Carrol: Pish Posh. Objects of study, real or imaginary, ar(being
abstractions) never visible. That is not the question we are dealing
with. We study physics, which has as its object (I will leave it
to some physicist to define it). That object (that abstraction)
includes the phenomena you refer to as gravity, etc.
------
Kelley:
  and they study them through their effects
and that's *all* we can do.  what such an acknowledgement means is that
we need to "do" theory differently before and it is summed up in the
pulp culture intro:  "pulping" theory is about examining a theory's
presuppositions and the conditions of its possibility.

The reason why the social sciences aren't quite up to the prediction
and control you demand
------

Carrol: Who says I demand prediction and control? Different
sciences (systematic studies) have different criteria, though
the criteria for all include the existence of an object of
study -- which theology, astrology, and psychology do not satisfy.
Neither does political science, though that field is so incredibly
sloppy that individual practitioners can redefine its subject so
as to give it content. Sociology seems to be a jumble of real
and imaginary subjects, but it has no core subject (or object)
of study.
------

Kelley;
 is that the natural sciences work in closed systems:
that is, their applications [which is the equivalent, i guess, of your
"correctness" or perhaps efficacy, efficiency, what works as a test of
theory] are judged as successful in closed systems.  Theories about
physical processes are applied in the construction and design of
refrigerators and automobiles.  Voila!  they work, right?  yeah, until
you leave the fridge door open for two days or never change your oil
------

Carrol: The question of the existence of an object of study
is quite different from the question of the correctness
of a given theory of that object. History, probably anthropology,
some parts of sociology have real objects of study. Psychology
does not, so the correctness of a psychological theory is
not a relevant question. It has nothing to be correct or
incorrect about.

There seems to be a Platonic assumption operating here that
if it has a name it exists. Russell's discussion of golden
mountains is interesting in this respect. Psychology is
in somewhat better shape than golden mountains, because though
it can have no standing as theory (there being nothing for
it to be a theory of) psychologists can nevertheless pile
up highly interesting empirical matter. I would guess offhand
that your special concern, popular culture, offers similar
scope. Popular Culture as such cannot be studied, for it does
not exist, but the phrase names huge areas of empirical
interest and thus offers immense possibilities for the
production of important footnotes for disciplines that
have real objects. Literature of course is very much the
same. Literature does not exist (no one has ever succeeded
in giving even a rough definition of what it is) but students
of Literature can find indefinitely many things to say interesting
things about.

Some disciplines without an object (e.g., the teaching of
writing) are not as harmless as literature or pulp culture.
------

Kelley:

the social sciences have no such luxury --because they must deal with
history and social transformation-- with open systems, if you will.
[prediction and control is what you seem to be into below, for you are
essentially holding psychoanalytic theory to a positivist model of
knowledge.  so let me point out right here, right now that *I"M NOT INTO
THAT.
------

Carrol: Neither am I. But rejecting positivism does not involve
accepting theology, astrology,  phrenology, et cetera.
------

Kelley:
 but i know how to take it on and argue with it if that's what we
need to do right now.  it sounds like this is where you're going.]
------

Carrol: Nope. Attacks on positivism do not affect my argument.
As far as I can tell psychology just keeps swinging wildly
between religion and a vulgar biologism. Freud was a positivist.
What I consider proper objects of study would not appeal to
positivists. In fact I've often thought your analyses tended
too much towards positivism, since I identify pragmatism and
positivism as not ultimately different.

------

Carrol:
on that score, i would recommend bhaskar's "on the possbility of social
scientific knowledge and the limits of naturalism" in _Issues in Marxist
Philosophy_ v II, edited by John Mephan and David Hillel Ruben.  A bit
obscure, as in difficult to find,  i imagine.   he's written similar
things in his own books, but i don't have copies on hand right now
since they're in storage.  maybe yoshie can help you out with
suggestions.

marx *does* posit an account of the relationship between selves and
societies.
------

Carrol: NO. No. No. There cannot be a relationship unless the
things related have a separate existence. Selves simply do not
exist in abstraction from social relations. And what we call
selves are all unique histories, embedded in an endless web
of contingencies. There can be no science of the "Self," and
the very phrase, "science of selves," sounds weird. ("Society"
is a tricky term. I prefer to speak of "social relations" or
History.)
------

Kelley:

  whether you agree with it and how it has been developed in the
hands of others is another question.  and i said *posit* for a reason.
his is an account, not a theory.
------

Carrol: Both an account and a theory demand something to be
an account or theory of. I don't care whether you call it
an account or a theory, Capitalism is a real object of study.
The Psyche is not. Capitalism of course is not visible but
an abstraction, which is why positivism cannot really see it.

TO BE CONTINUED SOME DAY.

Carrol



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