ABSTRACT
I. 2. b. (i) L E C T U R E F O U RThomas, of the union of soul and body as a composition of form and matter. It follows that the basic terms of psychological analysis are power, habit and act. This analysis distinguishes the various powers, habits and operations, formulates the order and relation of these powers and operations, etc.(2) The three errors of dualism (or Platonism), materialism and idealism (another form of Platonism). Each of these errors is in metaphysics, but each metaphysical error has psychological consequences. Thus, dualism in separating soul and body as existing independently, assigns to the soul powers and operations it does not have, and improperly orders and relates the various powers of man. This error is the source of the overemphasis on cognition, the confusion of psychology and epistemology, and, worst of all, the misconception of the subject-matter of psychology as immediate experience or consciousness. Similarly, materialism, denying the immateriality of the soul, is unable to distinguish sense and intellect and reduces psychology to physiology and animal behaviorism; and idealism, denying matter, is forced to the absurd extremes of phenomenalism, solipsism and skepticism, or, what is worse, pantheism (objective idealism).(3) The way in which these errors entailed a misunderstanding of the doctrine of faculties and hence the loss of the basic principles and concepts of philosophical psychology. It is interesting to observe that both positivism and idealism converge upon, and reinforce each other in making, a purely phenomenalistic construction of the subject-matter of psychology.Note: The four metaphysics thus have four psychologies correlated with them. The three metaphysical errors generate errors in psychology. The history of modem philosophical psychology (usually without an explicit metaphysics) is a history of these errors, two of which are the consequences of Platonism. If we are Aristotelians in the philosophy of science and in metaphysics, we must be Aristotelians in psychology.2 These issues cannot be avoided 2 Vd. Lecture II supra. 96
II. i. a. L E C T U R E F O U Reralizations from observations made under special circumstances and by special methods.b. Such generalizations are a contribution to knowledge only if men are not able to make them from common experience, or if men are not able to make them as well, that is, with as much precision or in as much detail. W e must remember, of course, that precision and detail are in some matters gratuitous. Thus, many of the generalizations of social research are in no sense a contribution, because they are common knowledge. The precision supposed to be added by investigation is, for the most part, pretentious.5c. A scientific fact is a general proposition inductively achieved from scientific evidence. Scientific evidence consists of the data obtained by special investigation.(1) Scientific facts are the basic inductions. What are called scientific laws are usually inductions from these inductions; i.e., higher generalizations. Both scientific facts and scientific laws are descriptions of what is the case in the phenomenal order. The law does not “explain” the facts, except in the sense in which the less general is made intelligible by subsumption under the more general.(2) The words “hypothesis,” “theory” and “explanation” have two quite distinct meanings in relation to science. Thus, an hypothesis means either a supposed entity (a Active hypostasis), or a proposition to be proved (a problem); a theory means either an imaginative description of the properties and behavior of hypothetical entities or a systematic organization of the facts and laws which constitute a body of scientific knowledge; an explanation means either a statement of the causes or the demonstration of a conclusion by premises.(3) A scientist should not make “hypotheses” in the first sense, and should not have a “theory” in the first sense. If he does, the result is merely guessing; it is neither scientific knowledge nor philosophy [48].(4) A scientist may attempt explanation by turning to descriptions of phenomenal systems of lower order, as the biologist turns to chemistry;5a but as a scientist he 5 C f. Art and Prudence, N e w York, 1937: Ch. 9 on Knowledge and Opinion. 5a V d . Notes 33a and 47 infra.
