Toward an epistemological basis for humanistic psychology
pp. 109-134
in: Joseph R. Royce, Leendert Mos (eds), Humanistic psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1981Abstrakt
It may be that each period in the history of human thought manifests a dominant philosophic presupposition or Weltanschauung. The general populace, and even some of the educated who should know better, are culturally conditioned to uncritical acceptance of whatever way of thinking happens to be dominant at the time. As Susanne Langer (1948, p. 15) aptly puts it: "such implicit "ways' are not avowed by the average man, but simply followed.... They constitute his outlook; they are deeper than facts he may note or propositions he may moot." Langer goes on to show that the adoption of a particular way of thinking effectively limits the kinds of questions one can ask. Thus, each age produces its own questions, which in turn generate the particular academic enterprise of that era.
