走向一种后现代心理学

Toward a Postmodern Psychology

现代思想最基本也是最严重的问题是由笛卡儿发轫的、康德肯定的心物、主客、事实及价值二元论,现代科学和现代大学基本接受了这种二元论。这种二元论是建立在视自然为无价值的死物质基础上的,当进化论显示人是自然的一部分时,唯一被大学容许的反应是我们人类也将像物质一样被客观地看待。这种认识反映在心理学上就是将一切主体性经验都看作是大脑内事件的副产品。然而当代脑科学和心理学的最新发现则从根本上颠覆了现代二元论,它们的发现表明,自然不是死物质,而是有主体性和价值的。这为后现代心理学的发展提供了科学支撑,后现代心理学将发展人们的共情情怀为自己的重要使命,而怀特海哲学则为这种后现代心理学提供了本体论的支持。

The most serious and fundamental problem of modem thought is the dualism of matter and mind, object and subject, fact and value initiated by Descartes and confirmed by Kant. The great successes of modem science and technology, based on his view of nature as only valueless matter have fastened this view into modem science and the modem university as a whole. When evolutionary theory showed that human beings are part of nature, the only response allowed by the university has been that we humans also are to be viewed objectively as matter, The result for the study of the psyche, that is, psychology, is that its task is ultimately to explain that all our subjective experience is only the bye-product of events in the brain. Psychology has never been able to operate on this basis, but the expectation has been that neuroseienee will justify modern materialism. In fact it is proving the opposite. Together with other psychological developments, there is a chance that it will lead the way in overthrowing the de- structive assumptions of modern science and opening it to the evidence that nature has subjectivity and value. Whitehead provides the richest and most rigorous account of this alternative.