Toward a philosophical history of psychology: An alternative path for the future

Abstract

Recent transformations in the history of science and the philosophy of science have led historians of psychology to raise questions about the future development of their historiography. Although there is a dominant tendency among them to view their discipline as related to the social turn in the history of science, there is no consensus over how to approach the history of psychology methodologically. The aim of this article is to address the issue of the future of the historiography of psychology by proposing an alternative but complementary path for the field, which I call a philosophical history of psychology. In order to achieve this goal, I will first present and discuss the emergence of the social turn in the history of psychology, showing some of its problems. I will then introduce the contemporary debate about the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science as an alternative model for the history of psychology. Finally, I will propose general guidelines for a philosophical history of psychology, discussing some of its possible advantages and limitations.

Keywords

history of psychology history of science philosophy of psychology philosophy of science

Recent transformations in the history of science and the philosophy of science have led historians of psychology to raise questions about the future development of their historiography.¹ How might we conceive a critical history of psychology and bury once and for all the so-called celebratory or naïve historical narratives that still exist in the field? The recent debate between Kurt Danziger (2013) and Daniel Robinson (2013a, 2013b) shows clearly that there are still profound disagreements among historians of psychology about how this should be done. For example, while Robinson accepts the existence of a series of recurrent psychological issues from the Greeks until the present and considers Aristotle’s contribution to be an important chapter in the history of psychology, Danziger contends that modern psychology began only in the 18th century. For him, Aristotle’s De Anima “forms part of the historiography of psychology only by way of contrast” (Danziger, 2013, p. 832).

Concerns about the nature and the future of the history of science are not new and seem to have no end, reappearing from time to time in the literature.² The same goes for the history of psychology. Since the 1960s, many voices have stood up against the traditional way of doing the history of psychology (e.g., Boring, 1950; Murphy, 1949) and have called for the development of a critical historiography in line with the new accomplishments of the history of science (e.g., Samelson, 1974; Woodward, 1980; Young, 1966). Here, I will take two examples.

In his detailed review of the development of the history of psychology in the United States, Mitchell Ash (1983) drew attention to an existing tension between two of its functions: textbook history, linked to pedagogical purposes, and systematic scholarship, developed as a result of a broader institutionalization of the discipline as a subfield of psychology. The tension emerged, according to Ash, because systematic scholarship has produced a picture of psychology that is not compatible with that in textbooks, but also because of the different kinds of scholars who are writing the history of psychology: experimental psychologists, professional historians, teachers, and so on. In the end, he addressed the issue of the future of historical scholarship in psychology, predicting the continuity of such tensions and underlining their positive role:

The tension among producing scientists, textbook writers and teachers, and historical scholars from inside and outside the discipline is likely to persist. What is missing, as yet, is an equally productive tension between philosophers and historians of psychology, similar to that obtaining between historians and philosophers of science in general. (Ash, 1983, p. 182)

A decade later, in his influential paper “Does the History of Psychology Have a Future?,” Kurt Danziger (1994) expressed similar concerns about the future of the history of psychology. Given the growing professionalization and institutionalization of the history of science, he asked what should happen to the history of psychology: Should psychologists leave their history to professional historians or should they engage in a new form of historiography that becomes relevant to their scientific practices? For him, the emergence of a critical historiography of psychology would allow for a balanced relationship between insiders and outsiders. Like Ash before him, Danziger asked for a positive or creative tension: “Where the insider’s engagement with the discipline’s concepts and practices is combined with the moral distance maintained by the outsider, one has reason to look for the emergence of a historiography that is both critical and effective” (Danziger, 1994, p. 479).

But what exactly did Danziger conceive of as a critical historiography of psychology? In the same paper, he mentioned historical studies about the relationship between psychology and society in different countries, the indigenization of psychological concepts and practices, and feminist histories of psychology (Danziger, 1994, pp. 476–478). It seems clear, then, that Danziger saw the future of the history of psychology as being closely associated with the so-called “social turn” in the history of science, as one can see in his proposals for a history that recognizes “the socially constructed nature of psychological knowledge” (Danziger, 1990, p. 2) or a polycentric history of psychology (Brock, 2014; Danziger, 1996, 2006).

In this article, I also want to address the issue of the future of the historiography of psychology. Unlike Ash and Danziger, however, I do not wish to promote tension but complementarity and integration. Furthermore, I want to argue for the relevance of a philosophically oriented historical investigation of psychological projects as a necessary complement to the dominant forms of social history of psychology. More specifically, the goal of this paper is to explore the possibilities of the integration of the history of psychology and the philosophy of psychology and its methodological implications for the historiography of psychology. In other words, I want to propose a philosophical history of psychology as a critical way to approach the history of psychology.³

In order to achieve this goal, I will do four things. First, I will present the emergence of the “social turn” in the historiography of psychology or the new history of psychology, including a discussion of some of its methodological limits. Second, I will discuss proposals for the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science. Third, I will apply such discussions to the history of psychology and propose what I call a philosophical history of psychology, showing a few examples of how it can help to solve methodological issues in the field. Fourth, I will conclude by claiming that a philosophical history of psychology can be thought as an alternative and integrative path for doing a critical history of psychology.

The new history of psychology and its problems

In recent decades, the historiography of psychology has undergone a significant change. Beginning in the second half of the 1960s, critics of the traditional textbook history started to call for a more critical approach to psychology and to promote the institutionalization and professionalization of the field of the history of psychology (e.g., Samelson, 1974; Watson, 1975; Woodward, 1980; Young, 1966). As a consequence, a new generation of historians of psychology emerged, and the first publications with the results of their scholarship began to appear (e.g., Bringmann & Tweney, 1980; Brozek & Pongratz, 1980; Buss, 1979; Woodward & Ash, 1982). As a general tendency, this whole movement is usually called “critical historiography of psychology” (Woodward, 1980, 1987), the “social turn” in the historiography of psychology (Ash, 1987, pp. 1–3), or “the new history of psychology” (Furomoto, 1989). According to Furomoto:

The new history tends to be critical rather than ceremonial, contextual rather than simply the history of ideas, and more inclusive, going beyond the study of “great men.” The new history utilizes primary sources and archival documents rather than relying on secondary sources, which can lead to the passing down of anecdotes and myths from one generation of textbook writers to the next. And finally, the new history tries to get inside the thought of a period to see issues as they appeared at the time, instead of looking for antecedents of current ideas or writing history backwards from the present content of the field. (1989, p. 18)

Another key feature of the new history is an emphasis on the social, political, and institutional aspects of psychology, to the detriment of its logical, methodological, and metaphysical elements. Thus, departing from a historiography of psychology centered on great men and psychological schools, Kurt Danziger (1990, 1997), Nikolas Rose (1985, 1998), Roger Smith (1992), Mitchell Ash (1998), and Martin Kusch (1999), among others, have emphasized the influence of political, social, and cultural elements on psychological theory and practice.⁴ The impact of this transformation can be seen in the new textbooks that have appeared in the field, showing a new way of telling the history of psychology (e.g., Jansz & van Drunen, 2004; Jones & Elcock, 2001; Pickren & Rutherford, 2010; R. Smith, 2013; Walsh, Teo, & Baydala, 2014).

It is undeniable that these new approaches to the history of psychology have helped illuminate crucial factors that underlie psychological theory and practice, such as the close relationship between psychology and social values or the political and ideological goals of a large-scale use of mental tests. However, regardless of all their positive contributions, many of these studies are lacking methodologically. For example, as Lovett (2006) has shown, the dichotomies created by the new historians to separate their work from the old school (e.g., naïve vs. critical, amateur vs. professional, use of primary vs. secondary sources, etc.) are exaggerated, if not invalid. With regard to the sources, for instance, it is not clear that all the so-called “old” historians of psychology used predominantly secondary sources. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere (Araujo, 2014a), many works belonging to the new history continue to neglect important primary sources.

Such generalizations about the historiography of psychology can lead to an inadequate apprehension of methodological issues that are intrinsic to historical research. Among the problems detected by Lovett in relation to the hasty conclusions of the new history, three are especially relevant to my arguments here:

(a) New historians have prematurely committed themselves to normative views on historiographical issues where no clear consensus exists; (b) new history research often rests on a particular view of science that is not widely accepted by contemporary philosophers of science, nor even understood by professional philosophers in the same ways that the new historians often assume; … (d) the normative guidelines advocated by new historians may be impossible to follow consistently. (2006, p. 18)

Concerning the first point, the recent debate between Danziger (2013) and Robinson (2013a, 2013b), as already indicated in the introduction, illustrates the lack of consensus among historians of psychology over foundational issues (e.g., continuity vs. discontinuity). The complexity of the problems involved and the difficulty of offering simple and quick answers should prevent the historian of psychology from making premature judgments about normative procedures. With regard to the second point, Lovett identifies in the new history an uncritical acceptance of theoretical assumptions (e.g., Kuhn’s philosophy of science) and similar errors to those attributed to the old history (e.g., new forms of Whiggism). He concludes that “the new history is not so different from the old as its practitioners would argue” (Lovett, 2006, p. 26), and that sometimes “it is difficult to distinguish careful judgment from careful prejudgment” (Lovett, 2006, p. 33).⁵

Unfortunately, Lovett did not explore the third kind of problem in the new history referred to above, namely, the consistency of its normative guidelines. From my point of view, this poses the most difficult methodological challenges to the new historians. At the same time, it constitutes the main reason behind my proposal of an alternative but complementary approach for a future history of psychology.

The issue of consistency can be illustrated by considering the specific case of Wundt’s psychological project. In this area, Danziger’s work is very important. Having spent more than a decade reevaluating Wundt’s psychological project, he made significant contributions to Wundt scholarship (Araujo, 2016). However, his analyses are not without problems. In his Constructing the Subject (1990), for instance, he argues that in the historiography of psychology “what is missing is the recognition of the socially constructed nature of psychological knowledge” (p. 2). He then claims that the concept of methodology must be substituted by the concept of investigative practice, which is more adequate to the task of grasping the social element present in psychological research, including Wundt’s laboratory.⁶ However, in his analysis of Wundt’s key methodological concept—introspection⁷—Danziger seems to forget his social constructivist approach and, instead of showing the social determination of Wundt’s concept, moves his analysis toward a conceptual history of introspection, without showing how this should be integrated into his approach.⁸ Even when it comes to the “third element in Wundt’s investigative practice” (Danziger, 1990, p. 18)—the social organization of his psychological experiments—Danziger’s analysis is unable to show the social determinations of Wundt’s epistemic aims, which frustrates the highest goal of his social constructivist approach. In fact, Wundt’s experimental psychology as a whole, not to mention its philosophical assumptions, cannot be explained by the fact that his laboratory had a social structure. It is true that Danziger’s social approach can illuminate some facets of Wundt’s experimental practice, such as the interchangeability of experimenter and experimental participant. However, besides not adhering fully to its own principles at crucial aspects, it lacks a careful investigation of the philosophical foundations of Wundt’s psychology.⁹

Martin Kusch, in his Psychological Knowledge: A Social History and Philosophy (1999), proposes a sociological analysis of the debates surrounding thought psychology in Germany. Kusch’s main thesis, namely, that “bodies of psychological knowledge are social institutions” (Kusch, 1999, p. 1), is part of his overall sociologism.¹⁰ It would be natural, then, to expect Wundt’s psychological theory to be shown to be a social institution as well.¹¹ Nevertheless, the results are not compelling. First, Kusch’s categories of analysis seem to be inadequate not only to deal with the Würzburg School itself,¹² but also to deal with Wundt’s psychology. It is true that Wundt’s defense of the methodological separation of experimental psychology and Völkerpsychologie was accepted by many of his students in Leipzig, as Kusch (1999, pp. 176–177) claims. However, the extent to which Wundt’s program could be a social institution remains unclear. Kusch overlooks the fact that Wundt’s theory was not collectively accepted by his students. In other words, to use Kusch’s own criterion, no collective had a self-referential belief about it. Moreover, even if the social character of Wundt’s psychological theory (or parts thereof) were demonstrated, this would not suffice to explain fundamental aspects of the latter, such as the abandonment of the unconscious or the principles of mental causality. Thus, the most essential aspects of Wundt’s psychological program are not grasped by Kusch’s sociological analysis.

Equally, Gerhard Benetka, in his Denkstile der Psychologie (Thought styles in psychology), proposes a sociological analysis of psychology that deals with Wundt and his opponents (2002, pp. 61–148). Unlike Kusch, however, Benetka adopts as his methodological approach Ludwik Fleck’s (1896–1961) sociological analysis of scientific knowledge (Fleck, 1935/1980) and emphasizes his two central concepts: Denkstil (thought style) and Denkkollektiv (thought collective).¹³ Contrary to what one might expect, however, Benetka fails to demonstrate that Fleck’s approach can be applied to the history of German psychology, including Wundt’s project. What one finds, instead, is a series of general, loosely connected statements, such as, “in the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, a new thought style began to establish itself against Wundt’s psychology” (Benetka, 2002, p. 149). No attempt is made to establish the extent to which the categories of “thought style” or “thought collective” provide a new understanding of Wundt’s psychological project in comparison with previous histories of psychology. Not surprisingly, in his presentation of Wundt’s ideas, Benetka does not take divergences in Wundt scholarship into account. Instead, he opts for Danziger’s interpretation and ends up repeating his vague indications about Wundt’s intellectual roots (Kant, Fichte, Schopenhauer, etc.). In the end, like Danziger’s approach, Benetka’s proves itself unable to grasp the deep conceptual structure of Wundtian psychology, which brings us back to the need for a different approach to Wundt’s project.

Apparently, social histories of psychology cannot address fully some deep theoretical and conceptual issues underlying psychological projects, which demand a more careful philosophical analysis than is usually offered. I defend the view that philosophical/conceptual questions cannot be reduced to social ones; that is, social constructivist or sociological analyses are not able to exhaust their meaning. It is true that such analyses can shed new light on the historical development of psychology. Nevertheless, they fail to answer many questions. Furthermore, categories such as “social practices,” “cultural practices,” “discursive practices,” and the like, in addition to their vagueness and problematic uses,¹⁴ cannot apprehend the full theoretical meaning of many psychological projects, including Wundt’s. This does not mean that political, social, and institutional factors are irrelevant to comprehending psychology in its historical development. Rather, I claim that these factors alone do not suffice to explain crucial elements of psychological theories and concepts. It comes as no surprise, then, that different aspects of Wundt’s project, as well as primary sources relevant for his intellectual development, have been overlooked in the secondary literature. This also justifies the need for a different approach—a potentially more integrative approach—to the history of psychology.

Integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science

In order to explain what I understand as a philosophical history of psychology, it is necessary to introduce the general context in which the idea grew. It is closely related to the debates concerning the possibilities of the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science.

In recent decades, many authors have argued for an integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science, leading to proposals for a new field of studies: the history and philosophy of science (HPS). One of the rationales behind this proposal is Norwood Hanson’s (1924–1967) dictum—later taken up by Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)—according to which the “history of science without philosophy of science is blind, … philosophy of science without history of science is empty” (Hanson, 1962, p. 580). The basic idea is that some meta-scientific problems may only be solved through intense collaboration between the two areas. For instance, Peter Galison presents a list of 10 problems that would demand such collaboration, including what he calls relentless historicism: “Is it possible to write a history and philosophy of science with no day pass from history, one where the philosophy enters the stage with the history, not before the account begins? That would truly be a relentless historicism” (Galison, 2008, p. 123). Moreover, efforts have been made to foster the debate and provide the alternatives of rapprochement and integration (Arabatzis & Schickore, 2012; Domsky & Dickson, 2010a; Mauskopf & Schmaltz, 2012a).

This is not an easy task, though. The aimed-for integration has shown itself to be difficult and is still precarious. Not rarely, historians of science and philosophers of science neglect each other’s work, resulting in a lack of communication between them (Arabatzis & Schickore, 2012; Burian, 2002; Laudan, 1996; Mauskopf & Schmaltz, 2012b; Pinnick & Gale, 2000; Steinle & Burian, 2002). Thus, before showing the concrete possibilities of integration, it is important to comprehend first the origins of the contemporary debate and the reasons that may hinder or prevent a rapprochement between the history of science and the philosophy of science.

Until the first half of the 20th century, the history of science was written mainly by scientists and philosophers. The emergence of the first history of science departments and programs led to a growing professionalization of the field, which started to call into question its relationship to the philosophy of science. From the 1960s onward, official initiatives at integration of the two areas began to appear, such as the foundation of the first HPS Department in the United States at the University of Indiana.

Nevertheless, despite the influence of the institutional aspect in the emergence of the debate, there is an even more significant factor, which was the publication, in 1962, of Thomas Kuhn’s (1922–1996) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970). In contrast to the neo-positivist conception of science represented by members of the Vienna Circle, Kuhn emphasized the historical and social dimension of scientific knowledge instead of its logical aspects. According to him, “[H]istory, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed” (Kuhn, 1970, p. 1). Thus, instead of viewing science as a formal and abstract structure, he proposed a dynamic model—based mainly on the history of physics—according to which scientific knowledge develops through revolutions.

Although he was not the first to emphasize the historical dimension of scientific activity,¹⁵ Kuhn put the history of science on the agenda for much of the philosophy of science in the second half of the 20th century, leading many philosophers to consider seriously the role of historical factors in the construction of scientific knowledge. As philosopher of science Michel Friedman testifies, “Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) forever changed our appreciation of the philosophical importance of the history of science” (1993, p. 37).

Interestingly enough, however, Kuhn declared himself to be against the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science into a single field or discipline. For him, the disciplines differ, mainly in their goals: “The final product of most historical research is a narrative, a story about particulars of the past. In part it is a description of what occurred. … The philosopher, on the other hand, aims principally at explicit generalizations and at those with universal scope” (Kuhn, 1977, p. 5).¹⁶

At the beginning of the 1970s, after official attempts to promote the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science—such as the foundation of the journal Studies in History and Philosophy of Science in 1970—many scholars began to express skepticism. In this context, Ronald Giere depicted the union between the disciplines as “a marriage of convenience” (Giere, 1973, p. 283). For him, in spite of its institutional utility, the union lacked a good theoretical and conceptual justification, considering that their reciprocal relevance had not yet been demonstrated. For instance, with regard to the philosophy of science, “[T]he general problem is to show that philosophical conclusions may be supported by historical facts and just how this comes about” (p. 292). Giere’s paper motivated a series of responses in which his opponents tried to show the relevance of the history of science to the philosophy of science, thereby defending the view that the relationship was more than a marriage of convenience (e.g., Burian, 1977; Krüger, 1982; McMullin, 1976). Lorenz Krüger, for example, claimed that the integration of HPS would be “a marriage for the sake of reason” (Krüger, 1982, p. 108).

In the following decades, this tendency to accept the relationship was reinforced in the philosophy of science (Laudan, 1989; Radder, 1997; Yaneva, 1995). According to Friedman, “it is clear beyond the shadow of a doubt, I think, that careful and sensitive attention to the history of science must remain absolutely central in any serious philosophical consideration of science” (1993, p. 37). More recently, Domsky and Dickson (2010b) have published a “manifesto” in defense of HPS, attempting at the same time to address Giere’s skepticism. In the same way, Arabatzis and Schickore argue that the new ways of doing HPS represent “more than a new marriage of convenience” (Arabatzis & Schickore, 2012, p. 404).

The problem, nonetheless, is far from being solved. First, historians of science, who seem to have opted for a voluntary distancing from the philosophical issues underlying scientific knowledge, have not shared the tendency among philosophers of science to argue for integration. Second, there is no consensus over how precisely the integration should be done. Therefore, the possibility of interaction and collaboration between the disciplines remains an open issue, which can only be solved in specific cases. An elaborated general model for their integration does not yet exist.

Having presented in general terms the historical roots of the contemporary debate, as well as the difficulties of integration, I now turn to an illustration of some alternatives that have been proposed for HPS. Hasok Chang, for example, sees it as an integrated discipline, the function of which is to supplement the scientific knowledge produced by scientific experts. On the basis of Kuhn’s notion of normal science—according to which science can only function within a general framework of undisputed assumptions, which lead to the elimination of questions that could contradict or destabilize them—Chang understands HPS as a way to counterbalance this situation. For him, “when HPS brings out older systems of knowledge from the history of science […] the results of these investigations complement and enrich current specialist science” (Chang, 1999, p. 415). According to his proposal, this integration should occur through an analysis of concrete historical episodes, without incurring the fallacy of hasty generalization (Chang, 2012).

Another example is that presented by Mary Domsky and Michael Dickson, who defend a new method for reinvigorating the marriage between the history of science and the philosophy of science, which they call the synthetic approach. Praising Michael Friedman’s synthesis of the history of science and the philosophy of science, they argue that “his goal is to bring philosophy to bear on history and history to bear on philosophy in order that we might ‘see beyond’ what either can offer alone” (Domsky & Dickson, 2010b, p. 11). This amplification of our comprehension would produce, according to them, a unity between both disciplines, which can be illustrated using the case of Newton:

while it may be initially helpful to parse Newton’s view about space into its scientific, philosophical, and theological aspects, ultimately those aspects must be understood as unified, for surely Newton did not take himself to be doing, at one moment, philosophy, and at another, “physics,” and at yet another, theology, nor to be doing these three “separate” things somehow “at once.” (Domsky & Dickson, 2010b, p. 14)

Theodore Arabatzis claims that the philosophy of science can be valuable to the history of science by making explicit the philosophical foundations of the historiographical choices and categories at stake (Arabatzis, 2006a, 2006b). Whenever the historian employs, for example, the category “scientific discovery” (X discovered Y), he or she is inevitably involved in philosophical questions such as those related to scientific realism. Thus, the broader the historian’s awareness of such complexities, the greater the benefits for his or her historical narrative. In a recent paper, Arabatzis shows how the investigation of so-called “hidden entities,” that is, entities not accessible to direct observation, offers a good example of how the integration of the history of science and the philosophy of science can occur. By deepening the historical and philosophical issues at stake, it is possible to show how certain scientists in the past developed a strong conviction about the reality of their objects of study, even if this reality was later abandoned by future scientists, as the episode of aether in physics well illustrates. Arabatzis concludes:

Thus, the attitude I am recommending drives a wedge between immersion in a worldview (and a set of practices) and belief in the hidden entities associated with it. It has some parallels with Husserl’s epoché, an attitude of abstention from ontological questions. I will call it “attitude of ontological bracketing.” (Arabatzis, 2012, p. 134)

Moreover, Arabatzis calls for a philosophical history of science, that is, a strand of HPS that “explores particular historical episodes taking into account philosophical considerations about, e.g., the dynamics of scientific theories or the processes of conceptual change” (Arabatzis, 2016, p. 194).¹⁷ Following this conception, he gives a general orientation for the philosophically inclined historian of science:

Philosophical history of science, as I conceive it, aims at understanding the scientific life in terms of philosophically articulated meta-scientific concepts, such as discovery, objects, models, epistemic values, the relationship between theory and experiment, etc. By actively drawing upon the philosophical literature on, say, scientific modeling, philosophically inclined historians of science may shed new light on familiar scientific episodes and, in the process, refine and modify the philosophical tools that they use. (Arabatzis, 2016, p. 197)

A brief look at the different proposals for HPS is already sufficient to reveal that underlying the identity of their general goal (integration), there is a diverse range of approaches. This means that there are different ways of understanding how the integration should occur. It is still too early to tell whether such approaches can in turn be combined into a broader one or whether any approach in particular can become dominant in the future.

A philosophical history of psychology

It follows from the previous section that there is more than one way to relate the history of science and the philosophy of science. A fortiori, there must be more than one way of relating the history of psychology and the philosophy of psychology as well. However, assuming that HPS debates can be fruitful for a history and philosophy of psychology, two central questions stand out immediately. First, how can philosophical analyses of psychological projects make historical knowledge in psychology more accurate and profound? Second, how can investigations of concrete historical episodes be relevant for contemporary philosophical discussions in psychology? Both questions should be viewed as reflecting the two general strands in HPS: a philosophical history of science and a historical philosophy of science (Arabatzis, 2016).

Here, I will deal only with the first question. Applied to the case of psychology, it leads to a philosophical history of psychology. A philosophical history of psychology, as I understand it, is a history of psychology guided by specific philosophical questions, the most important of which is the general relationship between psychology and philosophy.¹⁸ Since this relationship has developed historically in many different ways, the general question can generate specific auxiliary questions—according to the context of investigation at stake—that will help to organize and give coherence both to the research procedures and to the resulting historical narrative offered by the historian. In other words, the central goal in a philosophical history of psychology is to reveal how the historical development and elaboration of psychological projects is closely related to philosophical assumptions, which are not always explicit. Thus, the idea is to make such assumptions explicit and open to evaluation. Instead of an exclusive emphasis on the political and social dimensions of psychology—and viewing that development through the lenses of social theories and categories such as “social practices” and the like—a philosophical history of psychology focuses on the coherence and rationality of psychological projects within their own historical context.

Furthermore, a philosophical history of psychology fulfills three important criteria posed by the new historians of psychology. First, it is neither naïve nor dogmatic but critical, to the extent that it develops its hypotheses and interpretations against competing readings, not to celebrate or validate any psychological project in particular but to show its possibilities as well as its problems, thus using valid arguments and evidence from primary sources. Second, it is not monocentric but polycentric, since it is open to the most diverse psychological projects in the world, including the possibility of interaction between them, whenever there are philosophical issues to be considered. Third, it is not parochial but international, because it can be carried out by historians from different cultural backgrounds with distinct perspectives, provided they have the appropriate philosophical training.

Finally, a philosophical history of psychology need not commit itself prematurely to metaphysical doctrines or principles. It can be, at least in its beginnings, metaphysically neutral with respect to psychological issues. For example, a historian of psychology does not need to defend, qua historian, any theory about the ultimate nature of psychological phenomena (e.g., natural kinds, social kinds, etc.). Such philosophical debates are too complex to be solved beforehand. Thus, it is sufficient that the historian of psychology be able to show how historical actors accepted and justified metaphysical principles or doctrines that had direct implications for their psychological projects, without needing to accept or reject those actors’ positions. In this sense, the idea that a critical history of psychology “depends on a change in the traditional metaphysical commitments shared among psychologists and their historians” (Danziger, 1994, p. 475) seems to be misplaced, unless one is willing to defend the thesis that historical research must be guided by particular metaphysical commitments, which I am not.

In order to illustrate my point, I will give four examples of how one can look effectively at psychology’s past with philosophical eyes, and how such a look can enrich and deepen our historical understanding of that past.

Gary Hatfield’s The Natural and the Normative (1990), provides a cogent example of a philosophical history of psychology. Its specific goal is to investigate theories of spatial perception from Kant to Helmholtz, but from the beginning, Hatfield also sets a more general target, which is “the relationship between philosophy and psychology as complementary (or competing) approaches to investigating the mind” (p. vii). In other words, Hatfield looks at theories of spatial perception to find two contrasting attitudes toward the investigation and explanation of the perceiving mind: naturalism and normativism. In the first case, scientists such as Helmholtz defended the application of natural science methods to the perceiving mind. In the latter case, Kant claimed that some perceptual issues cannot be solved by natural-scientific tools. In their turn, these two contrasting attitudes reveal a deeper intellectual opposition between two modes of viewing the relationship between philosophy and psychology. On the one hand, interaction is seen as fruitful and valid. On the other, there is a strong separation between philosophical and psychological approaches to the mind, defended by Kant. Briefly, Hatfield’s book shows in a very clear and elegant way, how the general question behind a philosophical history of psychology can be investigated through more specific questions, such as competing approaches to spatial perception in the past.

A second example is Uljana Feest’s analysis of operationism in psychology (2005). Against the background of the relationship between philosophy and psychology in the first half of the 20th century in the United States, she raises a very specific issue, namely, whether early adherents of operationism in psychology were committed to the central tenets of logical positivism. Using as case studies the defenses of operationism made by Stanley Stevens (1906–1973) and Edward Tolman (1886–1959), Feest reconstructs their claims in light of their concrete methodological practices. As a result, she succeeds in showing that the acceptance of operationism by both Stevens and Tolman did not require either an epistemological or a semantic thesis, as it did for logical positivists, but only a methodological one. In this way, Feest rejects a traditional interpretation of operationism in psychology that affirms its dependence on logical positivism, without implying that there was no personal contact between their respective members. As she claims:

While my historical outlines were supposed to show (among other things) that these operationisms were already being contemplated before the scientists in question encountered representatives of logical positivism, this is not to deny that both Stevens and Tolman did indeed encounter representatives of logical positivism, and that this had an impact on how they formulated their operationisms. I believe that those references were largely rhetorical, aimed at backing up their views by appealing to cutting-edge philosophy of science. (Feest, 2005, pp. 142–143)

In conclusion, Feest proposes a new interpretation of operationism in psychology, which she calls a “methodological reading” (p. 146), as a substitute for the traditional positivist account of it, thereby shedding new light on our historical understanding of the complex relationship between philosophy and psychology in the United States.

Coming back to the German tradition, in his paper “Is There a Problem with Mathematical Psychology in the Eighteenth Century?,” Thomas Sturm (2006) offers an original analysis of Kant’s position against the possibility of applying mathematics to psychology, the so-called “impossibility claim.” In effect, Sturm shows that debates about the measurement of mental states already existed before Kant’s reflections on the nature of psychology. He also shows that such debates, which included optimists and pessimists, were deeply anchored in philosophical assumptions (e.g., about the nature of the mind). Within this context, he proposes a new interpretation of Kant’s position:

While Kant’s so-called “impossibility claim” seems to put him on the side of the pessimists, this is not the correct way to understand him. He does not deny that mental states possess determinate magnitudes, nor does he claim that we are completely unable to determine these magnitudes. Rather, he suggests certain requirements for such research. His “impossibility claim”, again, is directed specifically against introspectionist conceptions of psychology, because these are inconsistent with necessary requirements for any kind of measurement of the mind. (p. 374)

As a general conclusion, Sturm argues that the traditional thesis, according to which psychology became a quantitative science only in the 19th century, is false, implying that “the simple boundary between the eighteenth and the nineteenth century is not clear anymore” (p. 374).

Finally, I want to situate my own work on Wundt within the context of a philosophical history of psychology. In analyzing his work, the limits of social approaches to the history of psychology became clear to me, as I pointed out in the first section of this paper. It seemed to me that something was missing in contemporary Wundt scholarship. Indeed, given that Wundt was a philosophy professor and lived at a time when psychology and philosophy were rarely separated, institutionally or intellectually, how could a historical interpretation of his psychological work set aside or downplay the importance of his philosophical project, which ran parallel to it?

In order to answer this question, I have proposed a reappraisal of his work, based on the close relationship between the formation of his philosophical assumptions and the development of his psychology (e.g., Araujo, 2010, 2012, 2014b, 2016). According to my central hypothesis, the evolution of Wundt’s psychological project is guided and justified by philosophical reflections that led him to conceive a broad program for reforming all of German philosophy, in which psychology plays a major role. Thus, psychology and philosophy in Wundt’s work are in intimate connection, the comprehension of which demands a deep philosophical investigation that goes beyond the use of philosophical labels (e.g., empiricism, rationalism, etc.) and the identification of superficial similarities of ideas, hence the need for a philosophical approach to the history of psychology.

For instance, I have shown that one of the most important aspects of Wundt’s psychology, namely, the abandonment of the unconscious as a useful concept for explaining mental processes—which occurred gradually between 1863 and 1874 (Wundt, 1862, 1863, 1874)—cannot be explained without taking into account Wundt’s intense philosophical studies and reflections during that period (Araujo, 2010, 2012, 2016). More specifically, I have argued that Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1998) was the main source of inspiration for Wundt’s change of mind. In this way, it became clear why the secondary literature, which failed to consider this close relationship between Wundt’s philosophy and psychology, had not yet explained this fundamental rupture in his psychological project.

Concluding remarks

The examples presented above demonstrate that the integration of the history of psychology and the philosophy of psychology is not only possible but also fruitful, promising, and desirable. More specifically, they reveal how a philosophical history of psychology can enrich our historical understanding of the development of psychological projects and theories by deepening the conceptual level of analysis and offering original and compelling interpretations. Furthermore, they fulfill the conditions of being critical, polycentric, and international. In order to achieve this integration on a larger scale, however, more systematic and methodological discussions are necessary.

It is important to keep in mind that a philosophical history of psychology cannot solve all the problems asked of the history of psychology. Instead, it is limited by the kinds of questions the historian of psychology is able to raise and by the methodological resources available in each case. This is why it is proposed as an alternative but complementary path for the future. Besides, the idea of a philosophical history of psychology, as presented here, should only be understood as a general guideline, constituting the first steps toward a more elaborate and potentially integrative approach to the history of psychology. The fundamental issues involved remain open to future debates and contributions.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, I thank the following colleagues: Theodore Arabatzis, Massimiliano Badino, Alejandro Dagfal, Rand Evans, Angela Febbraro, Annette Mülberger, Lisa Osbeck, Osvaldo Pessoa Jr., Hank Stam, Thomas Sturm, Thomas Teo.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: I would like to thank CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) for financial support.

Notes

Author biography

Saulo de Freitas Araujo is Professor of History and Philosophy of Psychology at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (Brazil), Department of Psychology. He is also director of the NUHFIP (Wilhelm Wundt Center for the History and Philosophy of Psychology) at the same institution. Among other publications, he is author of Wundt and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychology: A Reappraisal (Springer, 2016).

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