Toward An Ummatic Paradigm for Psychology

Abstract

Toward an Ummatic Paradigm for PsychologyBefore writing a textbook in a specific scientific discipline one has to remindone that a textbook is but a compilation of data based on research conductedby a group of researchers dealing with different topics in a specificdiscipline. Research is therefore the most important part of the series of activitiesthat should be done in the field of psychology before the textbookwriters in psychology are able to do their work. Before the researchers canfunction properly, however, they have to bear in mind the diversity ofresearch methodologies under which their approaches will be categorized.The most dominant of these are the realist and the idealist approaches. Thefollowing is an attempt to highlight these approaches and to suggest some approachesby which we hope Muslim researchers will be able to create the ummaticparadigm.Much of the uncertainty surrounding the social sciences can be traced tothe question of the purpose of science. J. K. Smith suggests that confusionover the appropriate goals and methodologies for social science can be linkedto an epistemological conflict which is currently dividing social scientists. ISmith characterizes this epistemological dispute as a conflict between therealist and idealist positions. He describes the followers of realistepistemology as believing that the purpose of science is to discover universaltruth. Scientists who have adopted the realist position believe that “knowledgeand truth are questions of correspondence - what is true is what correspondsto reality,” (p. 8) The ultimate goal of the realists in the social sciences is todiscover universally true laws that can be communicated through a neutral,culture-free language and that can be applied in any situation to predict,understand, and govern behavior. The realists believe that it is “possible tohave a definitive, objective science for all society that would eventually producethe system of laws [and that these] laws are, by definition, universallyapplicable, regardless of time and place.” (pp. 8, 11) ...