Unified positivism philosophy for the revolution to unity

Arthur W. Staats

pp. 11-54

in: Arthur W. Staats, Leendert Mos (eds), Annals of theoretical psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

Psychology has had a major aim of making its purview of study into a science. The natural sciences were to be the model, with logical positivism (until recently) describing that model. But the natural sciences solved the central problem of disunity faced by all sciences before there was a logical positivism to describe what was involved. This model thus provided no understanding of how a science acquires unity and no analysis of the special characteristics that psychology and the other behavioral sciences possess as modern disunified sciences.A philosophy is presented that focuses on the disunity of psychology—on the confusion of knowledge that results from its chaos of competing theories, methods, fields, and schisms. This philosophy then lays a foundation for resolving the central problems that result from the disunity. The analysis includes the stipulation of new types of theory that are needed to transform the knowledge chaos to knowledge that is organized, systematic, generally meaningful, and unified. The philosophy opens a new field of study, unification psychology, leading into the chapters that follow which treat different aspects of this disunity and the need for unification.