I don't think there is any need to dilute the forum with dedicated space for psychological topics. Quite apart from the fact that most of the so-called 'psychological' topics here are just bar-room musings that barely refer to the clinical field of psychology - if at all - the two disciplines are wildly distinct, and with, I think, good reason. To accuse a philosophical position of psychologism was, for a good while, a serious perjorative, and a great deal of good philosophy has tried to divorce itself quite rightly from just such accusations (Frege, Husserl). It's all interesting as far as it goes, but given how hard it already is to cultivate and maintain substantial philosophical discussions here, I wouldn't support the proposal.

It's all interesting as far as it goes, but given how hard it already is to cultivate and maintain substantial philosophical discussions here, I wouldn't support the proposal. — StreetlightX

My proposal is simply to invite more trained professionals to frequent the forum when issues pertaining to psychology arise. Or to put it more bluntly, we need more psych majors on the moderation team in my opinion.

That's my take. I don't expect the moderation team to be able to maintain such a distinction from arising, as that would be a monumental task.

Thanks for your consideration.

Didn't really work on the old forums. I should know, since I was assigned to moderate that sub forum there.

Didn't really work on the old forums. I should know, since I was assigned to moderate that sub forum there. — Ying

Wow, thanks for your service, heh. Guess not then.

Guess not then. — Posty McPostface

Probably not. I'd find it interesting, but I'm not all that interested in 'academic philosophy' anyway.

My proposal is simply to invite more trained professionals to frequent the forum when issues pertaining to psychology arise. Or to put it more bluntly, we need more psych majors on the moderation team in my opinion. — Posty McPostface

There are a couple of Psyche majors here that I am aware of... :clap:
The question is: will they come forward?
And as always: if nominated will they run and if elected will they serve?
Some maybe for a second time on a moderator team....

Or to put it more bluntly, we need more psych majors on the moderation team in my opinion. — Posty McPostface

How many are on it now? Maybe you know more than me. I'm not aware of what majors the mod team are although I believe everyone except @Hanover has had at least some formal schooling.

I believe everyone except Hanover has had at least some formal schooling. — Baden

:rofl:

I feel as though we need a category dedicated to topics pertaining to psychology — Posty McPostface

If the treatment of topics pertaining to law is any indication, the treatment of topics pertaining to psychology wouldn't be well received particularly if someone with formal training participated.

Just saying.

How many are on it now? Maybe you know more than me. I'm not aware of what majors the mod team are although I believe everyone except Hanover has had at least some formal schooling. — Baden

Moving papers from an inbox to an outbox requires no formal training.

Or to put it more bluntly, we need more psych majors on the moderation team in my opinion. — Posty McPostface

As might surprise you, the moderation application process does not involve the submission of resumes, although we do require an extensive criminal background check and drug testing. Mine both came back positive. I persuasively argued that a positive could not be logically construed as a negative, and I was therefore selected. Had I not been quick on my feet with that response, I'd still be a commoner.

A sub-forum for psychology. I'd've thunk a decent respect for those who might have an opinion on the subject would have been treated to at least a pro forma statement of just what psychology is. That way, those of us who don't know and know that we don't know, would have something to work with, and, those who think they know, would find out that they don't.

A very quick survey of internet "definitions" has them all starting out with, "Psychology is the science of...". Now to be sure, if we put psychology through the wringer and ratchet the pressure to very high indeed, we might wring out a few drops of real science - and all credit to those doing that science. But as to the rest? Not so much. If, then, the bulk of psychology is not science, what is it? Seems a reasonable question to ask if there's a prospect of giving it its own sub-forum.

I'll start. Psychology is the name for a general practice of making arbitrary observations about phenomena in general, under the guise of doing organized thinking about those observations, but that in fact is arbitrary thinking. By "arbitrary" I do not mean that either the observations or subsequent thinking about them just happens to fail to meet any respectable scientific criteria, rather I mean that the observation and subsequent thinking usually cannot meet such criteria, and any pretense that it does is usually just for laymen, to the end of selling books to, or getting grants from, the otherwise bewildered yet fond.

In short, that psychology, with little exception, is in scientific terms (science here understood broadly) a scam.

But that seems harsh. Is there nothing redemptive in the practices of psychology? As a profession of making careful observations, yes, it seems to me. And that is it. Or, if psychology will self-define itself as the pursuit and rendering of opinions on various subjects, I could accept that.

I welcome correction on this point, if there is corrction to be made.

If the treatment of topics pertaining to law is any indication, the treatment of topics pertaining to psychology wouldn't be well received particularly if someone with formal training participated.

Just saying. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Care to expand?

Well, since one of my degrees is in social psychology I suppose I ought to try and mount a defence of it.

The best I can do is probably to liken it to sciences we all recognise as such. Take biology, for example. Recently there was some research into gene mutation rate and its effect on cancer. This was very careful and difficult research to carry out, and I'm sure I don't need to explain that this kind of research is crucial to many medical advances. The research (I don't fully understand it myself) found a specific rate of mutation with a particular chain of physiological response. The headline, however, was "60% of cancers down to nothing but bad luck" (or something like that). I'm not talking here about the headline in some tabloid written up from a press release, I'm talking about the title of the actual paper. A luminary no less than David Spiegelhalter himself was compelled to write to them pointing out that their results showed nothing of the sort. What they'd done is taken their careful measurements and way over-interpreted them in one biased direction. Their paper even opened with a statement that their intention was to reassure cancer victims that it wasn't their fault in any way. A noble aim, but not one appropriate to the detached approach science requires.

I understand physics even less than I understand biology, but I've read enough to be reasonably certain the same happens there. Careful measurements are reported in a way which goes significantly beyond what the measurements actually show, often by the actual scientists themselves.

Psychology is no different. It does make an attempt to gather careful measurements of what people actually do in certain circumstances. It does at least try to eliminate confounding variables, and people do try to repeat experiments with an aim of refining them, or highlighting flaws. It's also true that the conclusions reported, often by the scientists themselves, go way beyond what the measurements could reasonably be said to demonstrate, and usually do so with some bias. But, like the rest of science, I don't think we should let the reporting prevent us from taking those careful measurements, nor from using them to inform our own judgements. Wielding them like a gospel is certainly unwarranted, but I don't see what prevents us from making careful use of them in that which we readily acknowledge are speculative ventures anyway. No-one knows how or why humans behave the way we do, but that doesn't mean we have to be 'paralysed by hesitation' about it.

On the actual topic at hand - no, I don't think we should have a psychology sub-forum. We don't have an electrical engineering sub-forum. This is philosophy site and I think it's probably best it remains one.

On the actual topic at hand - no, I don't think we should have a psychology sub-forum. We don't have an electrical engineering sub-forum. This is philosophy site and I think it's probably best it remains one. — Pseudonym

Not everyone self identifies as a philosopher here, you are aware of that?

Not everyone self identifies as a philosopher here, you are aware of that? — Posty McPostface

Absolutely, I certainly don't, but that doesn't get around the fact that this is a philosophy forum. Presumably we're all here because of a shared interest in philosophy, from amateur to student.

There are loads of really interesting general discussions here, many of which I've enjoyed taking part in, but in a sense, that's the beauty of the system as it is. To have a specific sub-forum for a non-philosophical topic would raise that particular subject above other matters of passing intetest; anthropology, physics, biology, maths, all of which have yielded interesting, but not strictly philosophical, discussions.

We already have a category for psychology: "Humanities and Social Sciences". It's not dedicated to psychology alone, but that seems proper on a philosophy forum. But one tricky area that might require some rejigging of categories is cognitive science, which seems to be a mix of psychology and philosophy, among other things.

EDIT: Actually though, the Philosophy of Mind category seems to cover that.

@Posty McPostface. I'd second what Pseudonym said above. Obviously, the primary focus is on philosophy, and, first and foremost, we want to make this a welcoming place for people at all levels of interest in the subject; we also want to provide a community atmosphere with opportunities for casual socializing (sounds a bit dry to put it like that but anyway...), and to provide some outlet for other topics outside philosophy to be discussed too. Then it's just a matter of trying to balance all that. Regarding psychology, those discussions currently find their place here primarily in the Humanities and Social Sciences category. And as the front page isn't arranged by category, the lack of a dedicated psychological category is unlikely to be an impediment to any of those conversations taking off, and only serves to underline the fact that it's not the main focus here. Which is fair enough I think.

[Edit: Cross posted]

Well, since one of my degrees is in social psychology I suppose I ought to try and mount a defence of it. — Pseudonym

And here is one that I wasn't even aware was within our ranks... :up:
Pseudonym is not alone in this.... :razz: True story. :100:

The best I can do is probably to liken it to sciences we all recognise as such. — Pseudonym

Psychology is no different. It does make an attempt to gather careful measurements of what people actually do in certain circumstances. It does at least try to eliminate confounding variables, and people do try to repeat experiments with an aim of refining them, or highlighting flaws. — Pseudonym

A gracious reply! And that tends toward the heart of the matter.

I define science as 1) an activity using and governed by the scientific method, and also 2) organized thinking about a determinate subject matter. This latter allows for there to be, for example, a science of history.

I'm coming from a bias that science, and scientific method, are good things; that anything that tries to pass for a science without being one is probably not a good thing. Certainly not a good thing so far as science is concerned. Phrenology and eugenics come to mind, but no doubt there are hundreds of examples.

So the question: is psychology a science or collection of sciences. Clearly it partly is. And I buy the notion that some psychology is done in areas where science is at best problematic. But is it entirely a science? If not, what (else) is it?

Or perhaps psychology is a science that needs to be beached and given a good cleaning and scraping, like a ship whose outer hull is fouled with barnacles and seaweed and other sea life. I'm told and believe that the holder of a degree in psychology is an educated person, but what does he, or she, do? (I know, a lot of things, but if they're a psychologist, are they also a scientist? Or can they be something else as psychologists that is not a science, and what might an example be?)

For example, is social psychology a science, understood as a science?

I define science as 1) an activity using and governed by the scientific method, and also 2) organized thinking about a determinate subject matter. This latter allows for there to be, for example, a science of history. — tim wood

So firstly, I think I'm a bit more strict that you in my definitions. I don't take science to be a clearly defined set of activities, but rather (much after Quine) a set of properties an activity could have greater or lesser degrees of. Like 'tall', there are not only 'things which are tall' and 'things which are not tall', there's 'things which are more tall' and 'things which are less tall. So I take science to be more or less your first definition only, but things have that property to a greater or lesser extent. Your second part I would hesitate to include in 'science' because of the rather ambiguous 'organised'. Without an agreed definition here, you end up with just '... thinking about a determinate subject' which to me is too wide a definition to make the term useful.

Nonetheless, with the first definition. Research in psychology is a science. Being a psychologist (which I'm not) is not. In the same way as medical research is a science, but being a doctor is not.

A research paper in social psychology might start with a testable hyposesis, which, if good science, should be something along the lines of "people in situation X tend to exhibit behavior Y" and the experiments done will hopefully be more and more refined efforts to get at exactly 'situation X' and not 'situation X (plus a bit of A, B, and C, that we didn't control for). I know I run the risk of vastly over simplifying, but at its heart, science is simply asking what causes what, and broadly, its doing it by observing the effect with more and more control over the causes. Social psychology is just doing this with human behaviour, hence I consider it a science, just one whose results must always be presumed to be general guides, rather than the specific laws of something like physics.

Sociology, however, is bunk!

I don't quite understand what you mean by this. Care to expand? — Posty McPostface

My impression is that input from actual practitioners of disciplines which become topics in this forum isn't sought, and when given is unwelcome.

Sociology, however, is bunk! — Pseudonym

Can we be clearer? "What" about sociology is "bunk"? Is it not a science? A sociologist could state a falsifiable hypothesis: "Rental agents discriminate against black people". The hypothesis can be tested by presenting potential renters to agents where the only significant difference is being a black person. This experiment has been done and it has been found that rental agents discriminate against black people -- when they are visually identified as black and when they are aurally identified as black (speech patterns tested in phone calls to rental agents).

What is not scientific about that sort of sociological experiment?

Much of sociology is descriptive or speculative. Many books, some of them in the category of sociology rather than history or psychology, have assessed the degree of acceptance by Germans of the National Socialist (Nazi) government between 1934 and 1945. The results vary by the methods of determining acceptance, approval, endorsement, etc. We Thought We Were Free by Milton Meyer conducted long interviews with 10 men from one medium sized German city immediately after the war (well, within a year or two). They represented the sort of vocational and class divisions one would have found in Germany during the first half of the 20th Century. Most of the men thought they were had been free, and were enthusiastic about the years during Nazi rule.

There is nothing "scientific" about Mayer's book, or most of the other books written about the Nazi Germany. The various books can be criticized for being poorly researched, being inaccurate, being very well documented, being thorough, and so on -- but they fit into the categories of history, or descriptive social studies.

History isn't a science either -- since we can't run experiments on the past (at least until we steal some really good time machines from an alien civilization). That doesn't mean "history is bunk" as Henry Ford thought.

Perhaps we could reserve a corner of the lounge and put up a sign "therapy 5 cents. The doctor is in."

Yes, let's start a therapy thread?

Can we be clearer? "What" about sociology is "bunk"? Is it not a science? — Bitter Crank

Sorry, just being facetious. At my old university there was a little friendly rivalry between sociology and social psychology and I couldn't help indulge in a little dig, just in case any were reading. Excellent defence though.

Ah....another degree holder from within our ranks appears..... :clap:
Thank you, I have been waiting for you. :snicker:
Now....one more that I am aware of that has yet to show.... :smirk: