ABSTRACT
The vast majority of disciplinary psychologists, and many practitioners, adhere to a conception of knowing informed in large part by mainstream science. In other words, knowing for the psychological researcher typically involves the same or similar set of theoretical tools and research methods and practices as the natural sciences-deducing from theory and testing hypotheses using experimental design, measurement and other forms of “objective observation,” mathematical and statistical analysis and other mechanisms for removing the influence of subjective bias, and other forms of “noise.” Although certainly not the only one, construct validity theory (CVT) serves as a paradigmatic framework for knowledge acquisition in psychological and related fields of study. Built largely from the hegemony of positivism and a version of critical realism that grew out of it, CVT is committed to particular conceptualizations of explanation and meaning and thus of what constitutes bona fide knowing, knowledge, and ultimately what it is to understand the psychological domain. In this chapter, I contrast this received view with a humanities approach to knowledge acquisition and illuminate possibilities for the psychology of personhood through two personal examples of coming to know and understand a specific psychological experience, each through a particular piece of art.
