Review of Methods of theoretical psychology.

Abstract

ANDRE KUKLA Methods of Theoretical Psychology Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 265 pages (ISBN 0-262-11261-2, US$40, Hardcover) Reviewed by LEENDERT MOS There are no rules for abducing [sic] theories from data sets, no rules for determining the prior probabilities of new hypotheses, and no rules for measuring the scope of theories. (p. 76) This comprehensive survey of the tools of theoretical psychology is the culmination of the author's previous writings (e.g., Kukla 1989, 1995) wherein he tried to convince psychologists that our discipline had suffered from a gross and systematic underestimation of the scope, variety, and import of theoretical and persuade my colleagues that there are many important theoretical issues the resolution of which does not call for empirical research(p. xi). This is not a book in theoretical psychology (the author cites as examples the volumes by Marx and Hillix, and Wolman), but a book about theoretical psychology, the types of theoretical that require nothing but thinking (p. xi). Notable is the book's epigraph, a quotation from Jerry Fodor claiming that the distinction between psychological and philosophical theorizing is merely heuristic, and issuing the moral challenge for a plurality of argument styles that transcends disciplines. For Kukla has written a book about the logic of science, or what was traditionally referred to as the philosophy of science, and, as might be expected, examples are strewn throughout from the natural sciences as well as some classic theoretical problems in psychology, most notably, cognitive science. A quotation from an autobiographical note by Einstein, embracing both the quest for certainty and sense experience in the construction of the conceptual systems of science, heads Chapter 1, The Enterprise of Theoretical Psychology. Both epigraphs, from Fodor and Einstein, serve to motivate the author's distinction between empirical and theoretical issues and activities - the former as prototypically experimental and the latter as prototypically the construction of theory in explaining a set of data. However, recognizing that there are boundary disputes about the scope of empirical activities (e.g., not all empirical work is experimental) so too are there such disputes about theoretical activities (e.g., not all theoretical work is theory construction). There may in fact be issues that can be settled by either or both empirical and theoretical means. According to common usage, any issue that can be settled by purely theoretical means is deemed to be theoretical, whereas an empirical issue is one that can be settled only by empirical means.... To say that an issue is empirical is to imply that it cannot be resolved by purely theoretical means, but to say that an issue is theoretical does not rule our the possibility of an empirical solution. (pp. 3-4) Kukla builds the distinction between theoretical and empirical activities on the model of physics. In some sciences (most notably physics), the preparation required for original empirical or theoretical work is so extensive that scientists specialize in one or the other.... Despite their name, theoretical physicists do not spend all their time constructing new theories; they have a lot of other theoretical business to attend to. Also ... it is not strictly correct to say that theoretical physicists have exclusive rights over theoretical issues of physics. Under my definition it is possible to seek a solution to a theoretical problem by empirical means. That is not what theoretical physicists do, however. Theoretical physics is the attempt to resolve theoretical issues in physics by theoretical means. (p. 4) But if theoretical psychology stands to experimental psychology in the same relation as theoretical physics does to physics, apparently, theoretical psychology is of very recent vintage. In an overly brief historical account of the relationship between rationalism and empiricism, from the ancients to the logical empiricists' introduction of logic into empiricism, Kukla concludes that, at least among philosophers of science, nearly everyone now seems to agree that the role of a priori knowledge in science was vastly underestimated by the logical empiricist of the previous generation (p. …