The place of psychology in Whittaker’s circular classification of the sciences

Whittaker’s circular classification

Whittaker thought that one of the main drawbacks of Comte’s classification was that there was not a proper place for subjective sciences in it. His own scheme combines features of monistic systems (a series of sciences that are ordered according to the increasing complexity of their subject matter) and of dualistic systems (a division into objective and subjective sciences). But in fact, even considering the division into objective and subjective sciences, Whittaker’s classification remains monistic due to his philosophical position. As Whittaker (1928) declared, “I must proclaim my continued adhesion to the form of idealism that issues in the phenomenist theory of science” (p. vi). From this point of view, the world of science is just a conceptual construction and the data of “subjective sciences” differ in no way from the data of “objective sciences.”

Whittaker took as a basis Comte’s linear series of sciences composed of mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, sociology, and morality, and made several amendments. First, he excluded astronomy from fundamental sciences as it is a concrete and not an abstract science. Second, Whittaker regarded psychology as an independent science while Comte reduced psychology to cerebral physiology. Third, according to Whittaker, moral science is not philosophical ethics but is the positive science of the individual human mind in the social context. Its proper name is higher, or human, psychology. Thereby, Whittaker’s system includes two psychologies. Fourth, logic (formal and material) must come before mathematics, and together with metaphysics it forms theoretical philosophy. And finally, Whittaker (1903) stated that “Comte’s linear series, provisionally conceived as in a straight line, must be bent into a circle” (p. 22). In the end, Whittaker’s circular classification of sciences consists of the following disciplines: formal logic, material logic, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, animal psychology, sociology, human psychology, and metaphysics (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

Whittaker’s circular classification of the sciences (1903).

Whittaker’s decomposition of psychology into two independent fundamental sciences requires special attention. “Animal psychology” is not an analog of modern comparative psychology. The latter, as Whittaker pointed out, is a concrete science. Animal psychology’s subject field is lower psychic functions such as elementary forms of emotional, volitional, and intellectual processes. The transition from biology to animal psychology is characterized by the introduction of introspection as a new scientific method. Thereby psychology as an independent science is constituted by the method of self-observation and not an experiment, though it does not preclude the use of methods of objective science in psychological research. Whittaker (1903) stressed that “this peculiar method is the condition of there being a science of Psychology at all” (p. 30). Even if physiological functions of the brain accompany consciousness, no observations of them or experiments would have revealed the existence of mental phenomena if we did not know about them through introspection.

But the importance of biology in Whittaker’s system should not be underestimated. He gives three characteristics of contemporary psychology that make it different from the older empirical psychology, and all these characteristics are connected to biology: (a) the distinction between consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness; (b) the application of the evolutionary theory to psychology; and (c) the application of the methods of experimental physiology to the psychology of the senses (Whittaker, 1881, p. 502).

The connection of the two last characteristics with biology is evident. As for the first one, according to Whittaker, it was physiology that led psychologists to understand that states of consciousness accessible by introspection form only a part of mental life alongside subconsciousness and unconsciousness. It is worth pointing out that the distinctive characteristics of contemporary psychology given by Whittaker coincided a lot with those that determined the development of psychology in the 20th century. The separation of consciousness, subconsciousness, and unconsciousness in psychic apparatus became the heart of psychoanalysis; the theory of evolution became the basis of behaviorism and evolutionary psychology; and the possibility of application of the methods of experimental physiology to psychology gave birth to psychophysiology and neuropsychology.

As for human psychology, it is placed after sociology because many of the psychological characteristics of humans spring up due to life in society. These characteristics distinguish humans from other animals and form the subject field of higher psychology.

Whittaker’s decomposition of psychology into two sciences anticipated the words of Vygotsky spoken in 1926:

we must first quit radically with the misunderstanding that psychology is following the path biology already took and in the end will simply be attached to it as its part. To think about it in this way is to fail to see that sociology edged its way between the biology of man and animals and tore psychology into two parts (which led Kant to divide it over two areas). We must develop the theory of the crisis in such a way as to be able to answer this question. (1982/1997, p. 297)

Whittaker among British classifiers of the 19th century

Whittaker was not the only British classifier who saw the lack of Comte’s scheme in its inadequate recognition of the place of psychology and other subjective sciences. Other British scientists and philosophers such as John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Alexander Bain also included psychology in their classifications of sciences. In this context, the thesis of Braun and Baribeau (1984) that the potential of psychology as a fundamental science was recognized by positivists needs to be clarified. Positivism is a very vague term. This philosophical school has never been a homogeneous doctrine; therefore, it is worth noting that the scientific status of psychology was first recognized not within the framework of positivism in general, but within the framework of British positivism. “French positivism refused to give psychology the scientific status, but English positivists began to make truly titanic efforts to establish a positive method in the mental sciences” (Fedorov, 2009, p. 29).

One of the reasons for this was the difference in ontological status of mental phenomena in the systems of Comte and British positivists (Mill, Spencer, and Bain). Comte (1908) considered them as physiological phenomena, and he never doubted the independent existence of the external world given to us in experience. Considering these features of Comte’s system, Flint (1879) characterized it as materialistic positivism (p. 184). British positivism was different. Its adherents denied Comte’s system as a whole and were “simply phenomenalists and empiricists” (Flint, 1879, p. 506). According to their system, experience is the ultimate basis of all knowledge. For example, Mill (1843) notes that

every objective fact is grounded on a corresponding subjective one; and has no meaning to us (apart from the subjective fact which corresponds to it), except as a name for the unknown and inscrutable process by which that subjective or psychological fact is brought to pass. (p. 102)

Ultimately, “there is no foundation at all for this distinction [between mental and bodily]: even sensations are states of the sentient mind, not states of the body, as distinguished from it” (Mill, 1843, p. 68). At this point, the differences between the systems of Comte and Mill are quite distinct. According to Comte, everything mental is physical, but according to Mill, everything that exists, both physical and mental, is given to us only as mental. So Flint (1879) defined Mill’s positivism as idealistic (p. 185). Being also an idealist (though not a positivist, but a metaphysician), Whittaker (1928) agreed with Mill and stated that matter is “only a conceptual construction to which nothing corresponds in reality except groupings of perceptions in minds” (p. 392).

What is the relation of Whittaker’s classification of the sciences to Mill’s, Spencer’s, and Bain’s classification systems? Or, in other words, whose series of the sciences was the closest to the line that Whittaker bent into a circle? To answer, we need to review briefly Mill’s, Spencer’s, and Bain’s classifications of the sciences.

In his work A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (1843), Mill took the linear order of the sciences proposed by Comte as a basis and made some changes to it. First, instead of dividing the sciences into inorganic and organic, Mill suggested distinguishing natural (including mathematics) from moral sciences. Second, there is a fundamental gap between the two classes of sciences due to the differences between physical and mental phenomena. The natural sciences study nature, whereas the subjects of moral sciences are mind and society. Wundt (1902) considered that Mill’s main achievement in the classification of sciences was the conjunction of the moral sciences into a single whole, different from the whole of the natural sciences. In Comte’s scheme, there are no similar boundaries between the organic and inorganic sciences: both of them are natural disciplines that study material phenomena. Finally, Mill placed psychology and ethology, which he called the sciences of human nature, between biology and the social sciences. Thus, Mill’s series of the sciences can be designated as follows: mathematics → astronomy → physics → chemistry → biology | psychology → ethology → social sciences. Whittaker could not accept such a distinction between the two groups of sciences, because it led to the theoretical opposition of humans to the cosmos. According to Whittaker (1908), both Mill and Comte “are too exclusively humanist. Here is the real failing in their philosophy that might have been corrected by application of evolutionary theories” (p. 90).

Spencer and Bain, of course, came much closer to applying the evolutionary approach in their systems. Spencer refused to recognize even the slightest influence of Comte. In 1854, Spencer published “Genesis of Science,” in which he challenged the very essence of Comte’s principle of classification of sciences—the arrangement of disciplines in a linear manner according to the increasing complexity of the phenomena they study. Spencer (1854) wrote that there is no true continuity between disciplines and “the conception of a serial arrangement of the sciences is a vicious one” (p. 127). And even 10 years later, having made his own attempt to construct a classification of sciences, Spencer (1864) noted that there is no serial order for sciences “which represents either their logical dependence or the dependence of phenomena” (p. 39).

Thus, in his own classification of the sciences, Spencer tried to present relations between sciences that were not based on a serial arrangement. From his point of view, this can only be achieved by grouping together sciences that study the objects of one class. Having proposed a different understanding of “abstract” and “concrete” sciences than that of Comte and supplementing this division with an intermediate group of “abstract–concrete” sciences, Spencer created three groups of disciplines (see Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Spencer’s classification of sciences (1864).

Although Spencer tried to deviate from the linear arrangement of the sciences by distributing disciplines into groups, he was able, as Wundt (1902) pointed out, only to soften the assumption of the hierarchy of sciences. As can be seen in Figure 2, Spencer’s scheme is a combination of two principles: (a) groups of sciences move from abstract to concrete and (b) in each of the groups, more general sciences precede less general ones. “The combination of these two principles of grouping again gives a linear order of the arrangement of the sciences” (Wundt, 1902, p. 57). Kedrov (1961) noted this as well and stretched Spencer’s scheme into 10 basic sciences: logic → mathematics | mechanics → physics → chemistry | astronomy → geology → biology → psychology → sociology (p. 189). It’s worth noting that Spencer (1864) recognized the imperfection of his representation of the sciences and wrote that “their relations cannot be truly shown on a plane, but only in space of three dimensions” (p. 26).

Whittaker (1903) also stated that “any arrangement in space must necessarily be inadequate to the true order of the science” (p. 32), because the sciences exist in the mind and do not have any extended dimensions. But he criticized Spencer’s scheme for excluding subjective psychology from the classification of the sciences and stated that “the use of a model in three dimensions would not enable him to bring it in” (Whittaker, 1903, p. 33). Spencer’s subjective psychology, which is somewhat similar to Whittaker’s higher psychology, “is a totally unique science, independent of, and antithetically opposed to, all other sciences whatever” (Spencer, 1890, p. 140). Whittaker, as a metaphysician, could not accept this statement, because it contradicts the thesis about the integrity of the universe united by evolution. In fact, Spencer’s assertion that subjective psychology is antithetical to all other sciences doesn’t sound that different from Comte’s assertion that subjective psychology is impossible. As a result, Spencer, like Mill and Comte, is also too humanist. Spencer’s arguments should be understood in such a way that only the objective side of psychology is represented in his system of the sciences. Subjective psychology remains outside the framework of the general system of scientific knowledge. It can be assumed that this duality, which arose at the very beginning of the birth of scientific psychology, is one of the forerunners of the subsequent “permanent” crisis, and bridging the gap between subjective and objective psychology became one of the main trends in the development of psychological science.

One of the most prominent critics of Spencer’s classification of science and the place of psychology in it was Bain, who tried to overcome the shortcomings of Spencer’s and Comte’s classifications of science. Based on an analysis of extensive material, Shearer (1974) concludes that Bain consistently developed three classifications of the sciences. In our analysis, however, we are interested only in the final scheme presented in the first part of Bain’s Logic (1870). Like Comte, Bain classified only abstract, or fundamental, disciplines. He considered the concrete sciences as deducible from their corresponding abstract sciences.

Consider the differences between Bain’s third classification and Comte’s linear series of sciences: (a) astronomy is regarded not as an abstract science but as the concrete application of mechanics; (b) Bain’s series of sciences begins with the logic that precedes mathematics; and (c) it ends with psychology, and sociology, respectively, is transferred to the class of concrete sciences derived from psychology. Thus, a series of abstract sciences is represented by seven disciplines: logic → mathematics → mechanics → molecular physics → chemistry → biology → psychology. Each of these sciences studies a distinct group of phenomena, and, taken together, they constitute the entire world known to humankind. The order of sciences reflects the transition from simple to complex, and from independent to dependent (Bain, 1870, p. 26). In other words, psychology studies the most complex of known phenomena, but at the same time it is the most dependent science: its progress is highly dependent on discoveries made in other areas of scientific knowledge.

We have already noted that Bain tried to overcome the shortcomings of Comte’s and Spencer’s classifications. Kedrov (1961) expresses skepticism about his attempt, noting that with respect to fundamental justification, Bain’s classification is close to that of Comte, and with respect to the construction of a series of the sciences, it is close to Spencer’s. Shearer (1974), on the other hand, believes that the improvements proposed by Bain were significant. In his thorough review of the classifications of the sciences, Flint (1904) gave the following final assessment: Bain’s scheme “may well be regarded as an improvement on Comte’s and much superior to Spencer’s” (p. 244).

In Bain’s classification of the sciences, psychology completes a series of fundamental disciplines, which distinguishes it from the classifications of Mill, Comte, and Spencer, which end with sociology. Bain (1870) writes that he placed psychology in the terminal position for two reasons: (a) the subject of its study is very complex and therefore requires an acquaintance with all the underlying sciences and (b) although consciousness is a unique subject, “yet a material organism is allied with it throughout, and therefore should be known as so allied” (Bain, 1870, p. 27).

The links between psychology and logic are especially interesting. According to Bain (1888), psychology is connected with the scientific study of the properties and laws of the human mind, while logic is a set of formulas for testing and discovering truth. Both of them often encroach upon each other’s territory (Bain, 1888). While criticizing Spencer’s classification, Bain (1870) notes that logic should be closely related to psychology, because the latter helps to ascertain logical generalities (p. 237). In this regard, Kedrov (1961) points out that, in Bain’s linear series of sciences, logic and psychology, which are two very close disciplines, have been placed on different ends, so that “in order to bring them together . . . the linear series should be closed and turned into a circle” (p. 212). Bain did not do this, but Whittaker did. We can therefore assume it is Bain’s linear scheme that is closest to Whittaker’s circular classification. Whittaker was undoubtedly familiar with Bain’s classification of the sciences, as he was also familiar with Bain himself. He and Bain edited a collection of Croom Robertson’s (1894) philosophical writings. Interestingly, contemporaries did not see any advantage to Whittaker’s circular scheme that broke with the idea of the unity of psychology and thereby restored the wholeness of the entire system of knowledge. For example, Blewett (1907), describing the work of Whittaker on the classification of the sciences as excellent, writes that it would be better to restore “Comte’s ‘linear’ order, in place of Mr. Whittaker’s ‘circular order’” (p. 445).

In order to assess the merits of Whittaker’s approach, we should now turn to its comparison with more recent classification of the sciences developed by Kedrov.

Whittaker, Kedrov, and the (dis)unity of psychology

The comparison of the place of psychology in the classifications of Whittaker and Kedrov is of special interest because the former was able to keep psychology in the common series of fundamental sciences, while the latter failed (Figure 3).

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Figure 3.

Whittaker’s and Kedrov’s circular classifications of sciences.

As we can see, the general series of sciences in both schemes is almost identical: it starts with philosophy (in which Whittaker includes material logic, formal logic, and metaphysics), and then come mathematics, natural sciences, and social sciences (Whittaker’s scheme is read clockwise, and Kedrov’s is read counterclockwise). From Kedrov’s point of view, psychology finds itself in a special position as it is simultaneously connected with the three main groups of sciences (natural, social, and philosophical). In order to preserve these connections, he had to exclude psychology from the circle of sciences and place it inside the triangle. In Kedrov’s scheme, psychology is not located in the very center of the “triangle of sciences,” as it is often written, but is biased towards philosophy. It is located at the intersection of three chords emanating from the apexes of the triangles, and it is closest to philosophy and farthest from the natural sciences, because, according to Kedrov (1954/1985), psychology “is primarily a humanitarian, but not natural science” (p. 183).

Whittaker also believed that psychology should be connected with philosophy and the social and natural sciences. He succeeded in preserving these connections not by excluding psychology from the general series of sciences, but by breaking up psychology into two separate sciences: animal psychology and human psychology. Animal psychology is associated with the natural sciences and social sciences, and human psychology is connected with the social sciences and philosophy.

An analysis of the schemes of Kedrov and Whittaker shows that they determine the place of psychology in the system of sciences based on diametrically opposite presumptions. Kedrov proceeded from the assumption of the integrity of psychological science and its internal structure. Psychology is connected with the natural sciences through the study of the higher nervous activity and animal psychology, with the social sciences through social psychology, and with philosophy through the study of thinking (Kedrov, 1954/1985, p. 181). It is the internal heterogeneity of psychological knowledge that does not allow Kedrov to include psychology in the general series of the sciences. Being connected with all three main groups of sciences, it is located not on the very circle of sciences, but inside their triangle. From Kedrov’s scheme, it follows that psychology as an integral and inseparable science cannot be included in the general series of the sciences while preserving all its connections with other disciplines. In general, Kedrov believed that numerous discussions about the subject matter of psychology and about the essence of psychological knowledge are largely due to the fact that the connection of psychology with any one group of the sciences was emphasized and its connections with other areas of scientific knowledge were ignored or diminished. At the same time, there was a danger of the dissolution of psychology into another science or its inclusion into philosophical, social, or biological disciplines. Therefore, according to Kedrov, “only the simultaneous consideration of all the three decisive links between psychology and natural sciences, social sciences, and philosophy can correctly solve the issue of the subject matter of psychology and its place in the general system of the sciences” (1954/1985, pp. 181–182). In the end, trying to preserve the unity of psychology, Kedrov excluded it from the general circle of the sciences.

Whittaker, on the contrary, considered that the place of psychology in the system of the sciences (that is, its connection with other sciences), and not its unity, is of primary importance. It allowed him to avoid the point of view that the unity of psychology must be preserved at all costs. By dividing psychology into two sciences, he was able to leave both disciplines in the general circle of the sciences and to preserve their ties with natural science, philosophy, and the social sciences. In any case, Whittaker’s approach shows that psychology may not be a holistic science. Almost half a century later, the British philosopher Gilbert Ryle expressed a similar idea in his work The Concept of Mind:

The right answer to the question seems to be that the abandonment of the dream of psychology as a counterpart to Newtonian science, as this was piously misrepresented, involves abandonment of the notion that “psychology” is the name of a unitary inquiry or tree of inquiries. . . . “Psychology” can quite conveniently be used to denote a partly fortuitous federation of inquiries and techniques. . . . The two-worlds legend was also a two-sciences legend, and the recognition that there are many sciences should remove the sting from the suggestion that “psychology” is not the name of a single homogeneous theory. (1949/2009, p. 296)

Ryle’s thesis, which was somewhat anticipated in Whittaker’s classification of sciences, was often repeated later. Koch (1993) considers whether we should rename psychology “psychological studies.” Richards (2002) writes that the unity of psychology is largely mythical. Green (2015) demonstrates convincingly that psychology probably will never be unified and that our attempts at unification seem “to be more an exercise in wishing rather than in making any concrete progress toward a unification of the field” (p. 213). It is appropriate here to reiterate Whittaker’s position that our schemes are always an inadequate representation of reality but we should look for the least inadequate representation. Undoubtedly, representation of psychology as a unified science has its administrative advantages but is it appropriate when determining the place of psychology within the system of knowledge? Perhaps, in doing so, we are not obliged to proceed from the fact that it is a unified science. As various attempts of classification of sciences show, it was precisely the desire to preserve the unity of psychology that often led to it being regarded as a unique discipline that is difficult to fit into the general system of knowledge. In fact, for example, Spencer’s subjective and objective psychology do not have to be part of a unitary psychology, just as in Kedrov’s system social psychology, animal psychology, and psychology of thinking do not have to be part of one science (that does not negate the fact that they are related to each other as all the other sciences). Whittaker’s classification of the sciences is valuable precisely because it displays the possibility of preserving psychology in the general system of scientific knowledge by dividing it into separate disciplines. The fruitfulness of this approach is also related to the fact that considering “psychological sciences” as different disciplines, we are not obliged to construct a single subject matter of psychology. If we accept the fact that the term “psychology” encompasses various sciences, what was perceived as a sign of crisis (the existence of different psychologies) ceases to be such.

Conclusion

Most monistic and dualistic classifications of the sciences did not take into account the complexity of the links of psychology with other disciplines (Fedorov, 2009). As Kedrov showed, only a simultaneous consideration of the links of psychology with the natural, social, and philosophical sciences can correctly solve the question of its subject matter and place in the system of scientific knowledge. Whittaker constructed one of the most interesting classifications in which all the connections designated by Kedrov were taken into account and the original solution to the problem of the place of psychology in the system of scientific knowledge was proposed. The key feature of this classification was the idea of dividing psychology into two independent disciplines that made it possible to link psychology with the natural, social, and philosophical sciences. Whittaker’s classification of the sciences shows the possibility of preserving psychology in the general system of scientific knowledge by dividing it into separate disciplines. In addition, our study showed that it was Whittaker, not Kedrov or Piaget, who create the first circular classification of sciences.

The problem of the subject matter of psychology and the unity of psychological knowledge can only be considered in the wider context of the inclusion of psychology into the general system of sciences. Future research should consider this relationship, as well as the solutions that have already been proposed in the past. As an approach that implements this idea, we can point to the theory of Henriques (2003), in which the theoretical unification of psychology is considered in the context of its relations with other sciences. Interestingly, the Tree of Knowledge system essentially reproduces linear monistic classifications in which psychology is placed between biology and sociology: “By linking life to mind from the bottom and mind to culture from the top, psychology is effectively boxed in between biology and the social sciences” (Henriques, 2003, p. 150). The fact that more than 100 years later, psychologists come to the same decisions regarding the place of psychology in the system of the sciences, shows that its history is inextricably linked with its present. Perhaps, if we follow Whittaker and bend again this line of the sciences into a circle and simultaneously abandon the idea of the unity of psychology, we’ll be able to make true progress.