The History of Psychology and its Retrieval from Historiography II: Some Lessons for the Methodology of Scientific Research

Abstract

Part I of this essay' argued that (i) the problematic nature of the history of science prevents one from assessing non-justificational methodologies of scientific research by means of the extant histories of science; (ii) therefore, the assessment of such a theorist's views with regard to psychology cannot be made on the basis of 'textbook' history of psychology. The history of psychology, like that of any science, must be retrieved rather than recorded. Part II must examine the criteria according to which history isto beretrieved. Its burden is to argue (i) that the 'metacriterion' that Lakatos2 has proposed for the assessment of methodologies (to the effect that that methodology is preferable which renders more of the history in question rational and internal) is inadequate and requires supplementation (if not supplantation) by a second metacriterion; (ii) that when this second metacriterion is employed, all the extant nonjustificational methodologies are seen to be inadequate; and (iii) that the best methodology currently available combines large amounts of Kuhn's conception of science and its progress with a lesser amount of Lakatos' reinterpretation of Popper's methodology. Implicit throughout this argument is the claim that the psychological sciences are adequate to the task of explicating the nature of science and its growth. Philosophy may provide a reconstruction of scientific knowledge once it is achieved, but it falls to psychology and sociology to explain the nature