The epistemological embarrassment of traditional research psychology. Although psychology's traditional research methodology and philosophy of science have over the years been blamed by various authors for the inadequate knowledge of humankind, I demonstrate in the present article that psychology's epistemological problems more probably stem from higher order metatheoretical assumptions. On this metatheoretical level (called ‘justificationism’ here) the concepts of knowledge, proof and authority are confused and equated. A statement is not regarded as knowledge unless the necessary proof is furnished and an appeal is made to the correct authority. In traditional research psychology the empirically observable is taken to be the source and criterion of knowledge and it is accepted that a researcher should move from empirically observable phenomena to knowledge by means of deductive and inductive arguments. To the great embarrassment of the supporters of justificationism the assumptions that the empirically observable or traditional logic in the form of deductive and inductive arguments lead to indisputable knowledge, cannot be justified on logical or empirical grounds. Consequently it also cannot be accepted that knowledge gathered under the banner of justificationism is indisputable.
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