Methodological naturalism, saturation, and Psychology's failure to save the phenomena

Abstract

AbstractMany scientists and philosophers of science have argued that metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism represent distinct and separable philosophical commitments. This claim is true in the sense that metaphysics and epistemology reflect different philosophical projects. The major question of interest to psychologists, however, is whether at the pragmatic level of research designed to discover the psychological sphere in which we live our lives, the metaphysical and the methodological realms are so tightly interwoven that some important aspects of our humanity cannot be faithfully revealed without distortion, or even missed altogether. This paper argues that, in light of its intellectual origins, methodological naturalism is informed by metaphysical naturalism at the level of its formulation, and, thereby, is by its nature more apt to reveal phenomena of certain ontological types and less apt to faithfully reveal phenomena of other ontological types. In this sense, metaphysical naturalism cannot help but subtly shape psychological investigation and thus insert itself to some degree into our understanding of many important psychological phenomena. The work of the French phenomenologist Jean‐Luc Marion, particularly his concept of “saturated phenomena,” is briefly discussed by way of a call for greater methodological openness in psychological research – an openness that will permit psychological scientists to better “save the phenomena” in their accounts of human experience.