ABSTRACT
Many psychologists are happy enough to abandon the contemplations of metaphysicians to the nether world of the irrational and psycho-logical. Psychology is not philosophy, it is science. Leaving aside physics and physiology, the study or human nature is, or course, plagued by enduring metaphysical puzzles such as mind and body, determinism and human volition, the nature of self-consciousness. Ideologies in psychology are typically regarded as those fundamental sets of ideas about the very nature of the discipline, its subject matter and its methods. Scientific values about psychology include a focus on objectively measureable phenomena; an emphasis on reducing complex phenomena to their most elementary, molecular parts; an emphasis on reductionistk explanations of phenomena. William James' metatheoretical views about psychology may be regarded as somewhat more humanistic than scientific. James' great openness to experience may be seen as reflected in his metatheoretical views about psychology.
