I am wondering: Do Analytical Philosophers basically just "fine-tune" concepts AFTER a major view has been accepted/adopted by psychology researchers/theorists?
Do Analytical Philosophers ever analyze a whole psychology thought-system BEFORE it has been adopted? IF SO, YOU ARE INVITED TO ANALYZE MINE ** . Do Analytical Philosophers ever contribute in such major ways to psychology?
Many posts are about philosophy contributing to science. I would like to know the details, beginning with the answers to the 2 major (related ) questions, above.
** FOOTNOTE: If you are "game" to analyze my system, you may begin at: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Have_Technologies_in_the_role_of_a_MICROSCOPE_for_psychology_been_developed_which_can_now_be_used_to_investigate_important_observational_specifics?
Concepts of Analytical Philosophers are based on 'intuitive knowledge'.
As an analytic philosopher, I can say that most analytic philosophers don't work on psychological theories at all, either before or after they're accepted! Analytic philosophers are more inclined to work on such topics as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. But there's nothing in analytic philosophy that would prohibit a practitioner from looking at a psychological theory before it's been accepted. I'm going to read yours over!
Dear Kirk MacGregor
The attitude of a philosopher seems to be to readily go off into thoughts and the analyses of them per se. I would submit this is not science, nor particularly productive. I would submit that one would immediately have some tacit/covert pet-concept skews (or hidden "axes to grind") -- and maybe some of these not even known to the philosopher him/herself -- by "virtue" of the nature of THAT "reflective" ACTIVITY ITSELF. I say: Stick very close to substance (concrete, directly observable), as much as possible. This is my outlook and I believe that is demonstrably the outlook of science also.
My perspective would have to be analyzed from the good of that outlook (and considering what is the known and/or the validly and reliably well-discovered nature of the Subject PLUS the recognition of necessarily applicable biological principles, when they are manifest in behavioral response patterns), with very little attention given to the relationship to your ideas THAT generate (or to any thinker's ideas-based-response outlooks, in general) in response. These 'things' (as they are apparently dealt with by most philosophers) are clearly NOT _of_ the Subject. BUT: Getting all understanding from the Subject is another foundation of science, widely agreed upon, and at least given "lip service" to, because it is recognized in science as THE focus (along with environmental factors).
It makes VERY little sense to me to "work on topics" (and then apparently go very broad). This seems to violate findings we have on memory and working memory, in particular, which is the basis of the opinion I gave in the second sentence of this response-post. Doing what philosophers seem to mainly do may make sense to someone (and be of some good to someone), but is not of the nature of anything I understand as cores to science and is, in fact, lacking such foundations.
If you cannot achieve taking on exclusively the core foundational positions of science (and really nothing else), then trying to give any analysis of my position will not be productive. If a philosopher cannot achieve this position, I would say there IS very much SOMETHING in analytic philosophy that would prohibit a practitioner from looking at a psychological theory.
I am beginning to understand why the paid editor of my long paper ("A Human Ethogram ... "), a philosopher (and now a Philosophy Professor), was never able to provide a useful critique, though he often very quickly had questions about general things (like "dualism"). He was a good editor though and did reasonably ask for some clarifications/elaborations. [ By the way, I informed him there were NO dualisms in my perspective and this remains something he seems not to understand or appreciate -- I have answers that apparently cannot "break through" his questions (
Hi Brad,
Do Analytical Philosophers ever analyze a whole psychology thought-system BEFORE it has been adopted?
I am an analytic philosopher and I do not know much of anything coming out of the psychology department, but that does not seem to affect what I and my philosophical colleagues have been doing. As far as I know, even psychologists themselves have many divergent beliefs and theories, and these theories dovetail quite nicely with philosophical viewpoints. To take a very basic example, there is behaviorism, which is essentially a philosophical standpoint. Some psychologists follow it; some don't. Who decides? I think this is left for the philosophers. This is because psychologists, following the usual scientific method, have to accept some premises as given and then start from there. So either they take behaviorism is a given or they are not. If they start to argue whether behaviorism is true or not, then they have become philosophers and they probably won't be doing much of psychology there.
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