Reductionism: Its Prodigal Encores

Abstract

It seems that psychologists must continually revisit the endless debate on reductionism between sciences. This periodic compulsion to establish the locus (or is it status) of psychology in a hierarchy of sciences appeared under a new guise in a recent article by Jessor (4). He argues that the principles of the various sciences are not logically derivdble from each other; in particular, that there are certain logical barriers to the derivation of psychological from physiological explanation. There is an admission that the future development of these sciences may result in one encompassing the other, but this is called an empiricul consideration. The stipulation of connecting between the concepts of different sciences is also considered a fzctare empirical question. Yet the lack of such connecting is considered a present logical impediment to the derivation of one science from another. Jessor states that . . . the absence in contemporary of any system for describing the functional environment or context of behavior would seem to preclude, on bogicul grozcnds alone, any complete reduction of psychology to physiology (4, p. 173), but he says that connecting between the sciences . . . have the character of empiricul laws (4, p. 173 ) . Apparently, what is a logical question today is said to be a factual one tomorrow. Logically derivable is properly a time independent notion that refers to potential syntactical priority. It is felt that such an incongruity results at least in part from Jessor's ambiguity in the use of the term logic. Although as Carnap states, it may be an acceptable convention to include in the term logic, . . . the semantical analysis of the designata of expressions . . . , as well as the formal or syntactical investigation (2, p. 410), to ignore this distinction may result in confusion of formal and empirical questions. The present authors hope that a fictional development of a pair of hypothetical sciences may serve to clarify the necessity of recognizing this distinction. Once upon a time in a not so fictional universe there existed two sciences. These thoroughly fictional sciences were known as whoozitry and widgitology. Whoozitry was a very old and well established scientific discipline with refined and standardized techniques of investigation, whereas widgitology was a relatively recent upstart. As the young in heart are often wont to be, widgitology was impulsive and very critical of the rest of the scientific community, particularly with regard to their rigid tradition of scientific investigatory techniques. Whoozitists were very secure in their long tradition whereas widgitologists were very conscious of their lack of such status. Mhoozitists tended to ignore widgitology, brushing it off as a passing fad.