PDF(486 KB)
On William James’ Scientific View of Psychology
FANG ShuangHu
Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2011, Vol. 34 ›› Issue (5) : 1242-1246.
PDF(486 KB)
PDF(486 KB)
On William James’ Scientific View of Psychology
The scientific view of psychology is about the basic knowledge and understanding of what is “psychology” and what is “scientific” psychology. It is about basic understanding of its nature, which determines the understanding of subject matter and research methods of psychology. William James is acknowledged as Father of American Psychology. He is the very first person in the history of psychology who integrates the previous psychological ideology. Furthermore, he strongly opposed to narrow psychological view from academic experimental psychologist at that time and he pointed out an integrated psychological view, which is called a kind of “wide psychological view”. Such kind of scientific view is not only adhering to the psychological properties of human nature, but also consistent to the intermediate psychological orientation—psychology has both the nature of natural sciences and humanities. Originally, James regarded psychology as a kind of natural science and he considered psychology should be studied in the condition of natural history. In this point, it is impossible to work out all psychological issues because it follows the principle of cause and effect determinism. Therefore, James proposed that psychology also has the nature of the humanities. James emphasized that psychology should do some overall research on psychology life of real people in reality. In other words, psychologists should study the general psychical process of people and other significant themes, such as self, personality and value. From James’ point of view, what we really need is a kind of practical psychology which could tell people how to act and then make their lives different. He laid the foundation of the practical orientation of American psychology. As a result, psychology become more and more meaningful in measuring personal differences, education, understanding the connection between human and animal, and even in promoting the productive efficiency. Meanwhile, academic experimental psychologists insisted that psychology is a kind of natural science. Therefore, they advocated using the means of natural science to learn about psychological phenomena of human and excluded every phenomenon which can not be analyzed by such means. This kind view of science and methodology is called scientism in psychology. James believed that it is a rigid and narrow-minded approach of psychology. Although in such about 100 years after James the mainstream of psychology is still foll
William James / psychological thoughts / scientific view of psychology
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