ABSTRACT
The central idea that I stress in this book is both familiar and ignored. Our theories and explanations of ourselves and the world in which we are embedded are, in large part, based on deep-seated assumptions. Most of these assumptions go unrecognized or unspoken as we rush through the mechanical details of our empirical studies. This is not a radical idea; Gleiser (2002) makes a similar argument for cosmology and other scholars (e.g., Hanson, 1958) have argued extensively that all facets of science are subject to this same kind of pressure. The particular argument I present in this chapter is that scientific psychology is likewise impelled in specific directions by long lasting and deeply held beliefs about the nature of the human mind-spiritsoul separate from that of the brain-body.
