ABSTRACT
Should psychology care about metaphysics? Certainly not all advances in science have involved a focus on “what there is and what is its nature,” but, on the other hand, many such advances have had such a focus. Arguably, both metaphysical and descriptive-empiricist approaches are necessary, and must engage in a dialectic. Contemporary psychology, however, has very little focus on ‘what there is’, or simply assumes that what there is is ‘just’ some sort of information processing program. Information processing models pass for a background metaphysics for much of psychology, but it is poorly examined and, when, examined, is shown to be a bad metaphysics. I will outline this argument and offer some alternatives. The primary focus of this discussion is that such alternatives require metaphysical reflection and evaluation in order to consider them at all, and that Psychology is inhibited from being able to engage in such consideration.
