Realism and symbolic systems in the practice of scientific psychology

Arocha offers a compelling take on the shortfalls associated with the predominant use of inferential statistics in behavioural research. We will show how the author draws upon an idealized view of the mature sciences. Rather than chasing subject-independent reality, we propose that a more fruitful approach to studying behavior lies in considering the reality of sociocommunally constituted human experience. Recognizing the interindividual, symbolic nature of human reality makes way for the discipline to address irreducible human-symbolic ontologies. Further, utilizing multiple symbolic systems enables critique essential for progress in science.

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Inferential Statistics: Criticised by Sidman (1960), but Popular in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

Behaviour Change ◽

10.1375/bech.16.3.203 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 16 (3) ◽

pp. 203-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

T. Mary Foster ◽

Kimberly Jarema ◽

Alan Poling

Keyword(s):

Experimental Analysis ◽

Experimental Analysis Of Behavior ◽

Inferential Statistics ◽

Experimental Control ◽

Frequency Of Use ◽

Behavioural Research

AbstractThere are many criticisms of the use of inferential statistics in behavioural research, including those made by Sidman (1960). This paper reports the frequency of use of inferential statistics in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior in every fifth year from 1960. The usage is apparently growing. It is argued that is it time to return to appropriate experimental control.

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The Freudian Thing and the Ethics of Speech

Konturen ◽

10.5399/uo/konturen.8.0.3712 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 133 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Wilson

Keyword(s):

Human Experience ◽

Sensory Experience ◽

The Other ◽

Mirror Stage ◽

Scientific Psychology ◽

The Unconscious ◽

Pass Through ◽

Definition Of

In his 1891 On Aphasia Freud defines the “thing” in the terms of J.S. Mill’s empiricist phenomenology as a set of sensory impressions that is linked both to language and to immediate sensory experience. These distinctions structure the Project for a Scientific Psychology and reappear in “The Unconscious,” where Freud writes that the unconscious is a scene of experience that is linked to, but continues to insist in excess of, language. While Lacan opposes das Ding to Freud’s definition, in “The Unconscious,” of the “unconscious Vorstellungen” as “the presentation of the thing alone,” this essay argues that Freud’s definition of the unconscious points to a scene of experience disorganized by language, that is censored by the passage through the mirror stage, and about which the Other knows nothing. The essay ends by looking at several texts by Tito Mukhopadhyay, who is autistic. Mukhopadhyay describes his autism in terms of a decision to not pass through the mirror stage, which left him exposed to a scene of experience disorganized by the desire carried on the Other’s voice. In his eventual decision to enter into language and write of his experience, Mukhopadhyay’s writings locate an ethics of speech that, rather than censor the unconscious presentation of the thing by linking it to a prohibited Oedipal object, makes a space within the discourse of the Other for a universal dimension of human experience.

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