心理学经验主义、理性主义与解释学认识论比较研究

A Comparative Study of Psychological Empiricism and Rationalism and Hermeneutical Epistemology

虽然现代心理学一直想摆脱哲学的束缚与羁绊,但心理学的发展中总是自觉不自觉地表露出不同的认识论取向。经验主义、理性主义和解释学哲学对现代心理学的发展产生了重要影响。三种取向的心理学在心理学研究对象本质的理解、知识形成的途径、研究结果的表现形式以及研究方法的选择上各执己见,由此展现出三种不同的心理学风景。经验主义认识论注重事物各种特征的描述,经验材料的收集,主张采用自然科学研究方法以揭示现象的规律与法则。理性主义认识论关注现象背后的深层次结构,主张用信息加工、记忆检索、图式与结构、感觉输入等方式获得对现象本质的认识,并以形式结构的方式呈现研究结果。解释学认识论则注重对人类实践活动的理解,重视人与环境的相互作用,主张以语义的言说阐明研究结果。在未来,心理学仍需寻求完善的认识论基础,真正确立适于人性的心理学研究方式,以期展示人的完整本质。

Though modern psychology has been trying to break away from the confinement of philosophy, its development is spontane- ously epistemologically oriented. And in fact empiricism and rationalism, as well as hermeneuties, have vital impacts on the develop- ment of psychology. And each of the three, in terms of psychological study, holds fast to its own views in the aspects of the comprehen- sion of natural property, the approach to knowledge acquisition, and the manifestation of research findings as well as the selection of re- search methods, from which they are displaying three different features in psychology today. Since, in fact, empirical epistemology sticks to the conception that the objects of psychological study are constructed with primary substance and elements, all of which have their concrete characteristics such as size, volume, location and speed. It focuses on characteristic descriptions of various objects and empirical materials collected, and advocates that all thesedata should be disclosed as natural phenomena are by natural scientific studies via observation and experimentation. For example, in the history of psychology, Wilhelm Wundt＇s consciousness psychology, Edward Bradford Titchener＇s structural and functional psychology all held to such beliefs. On the other hand, rationalism holds the idea that the objects of psychological research lie behind the phenomena, regards knowledge acquisition as a process of ＂ rationalism＂ and believes that it should concern more about the intrinsic nature of objects and prefer to acquire a full understanding of definite phenomena through the ways of information processing, memory retrieval, schematic structure and perceptual input, and argues that the research findings can be revealed in the end by formal schemata. Noam Chomsky＇s linguistic research, Jean Piaget＇s children＇s mental operation research and Lawrence Kohlberg＇s stages of moral judgment division are all done in this way. But hermeneutical epistemology argues that the ob- jects of psychological study are nothing but human activities and their consequences such as scene, history, text, story and human life, can be taken as text for interpretation. It stresses the mutual impacts between human beings and the environment, and states that no ab- solute truth exists in psychology. It points out that the only way to a real and close understanding of psychology is through method of ex- periencing--~ expressing--~ comprehending-~ interpreting, and advocates semantic paraphrase of the research findings. Hermeneutical epistemology has a significant effect upon Wilhelm Dilthey＇s comprehensive psychology, psychoanalytical theory, Lacan Jacques＇s struc- tural psychoanalytical theory and humanistic psychology. Though the three orientations in psychological studies contribute separately to the development of psychology, they hold biases against each other without considering that other epistemology is also reasonable. Hence, none of them can fully reveal what psychology really is. As for the psychology in the future, it is still required to perfect the the- oretic foundation to confirm the research methods that really fit for the study of human society and can completely illustrate human na- ture.