Psychology's Interpretive The Search for Truth and Agency in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology Barbara S. Held American Psychological Association Washington, DC Copyright © 2007 by the American Psychological Association. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, the process of scanning and digitization, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by American Psychological Association 750 First Street, NE Washington, DC 20002 www.apa.org To order APA Order Department P.O. Box 92984 Washington, DC 20090-2984 Tel: (800) 374-2721; Direct: (202) 336-5510 Fax: (202) 336-5502; TDD/TTY: (202) 336-6123 Online: www.apa.org/books/ E-mail:
[email protected]a.org In the U.K., Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, copies may be ordered from American Psychological Association 3 Henrietta Street Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU England Typeset in Goudy by Stephen McDougal, Mechanicsville, MD Printer: Book-mart Press, Inc., North Bergen, NJ Cover Designer: Naylor Design, Washington, DC Technical/Production Editor: Tiffany L. Klaff The opinions and statements published are the responsibility of the authors, and such opinions and statements do not necessarily represent the policies of the American Psychological Association. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Held, Barbara S. Psychology's interpretive turn : the search for truth and agency in theoretical and philosophical psychology / Barbara S. Held. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-59147-925-3 ISBN-10: 1-59147-925-8 1. Psychology—Philosophy. I. Title. BF38.H448 2007 150.1—dc22 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP record is available from the British Library. Printed in the United States of America First Edition 2006102168 To the memory of Edward Pols, philosopher and poet CONTENTS Preface ix I. Introduction and Origins Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Postmodernist Roots of the MiddleGround Theorists II. The Interpretive Turn in Moderation: Ontology Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. 1 3 27 49 An Introduction to the Middle-Ground Theorists 51 Ontological Point 1: An Ontology of "Being in the World," or, a Situated Psychological Existence 77 Ontological Point 2: A Middle-Ground Realist Ontology? 99 Ontological Point 3: An Ontology of Situated Agency and Transcendence 157 Ontological Point 4: An Ontology of Flux and Flow 191 III. The Interpretive Turn in Moderation: Epistemology Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Situated Knowing: A Middle-Ground Antiobjectivist Epistemology? 207 Situated Warrant: A Middle-Ground Realist Epistemology? 265 IV. Truth and Agency Chapter 10. 205 Rational Agency 321 323 References 365 Author Index 379 Subject Index 383 About the Author 415 viii CONTENTS PREFACE With the publication of Bock to Reality in 1995,1 thought I had said all that I had to say about the antirealist epistemology, or the postmodern "linguistic turn," that had impacted psychotherapy theory and practice by the late 1980s. As it turns out, I was wrong. At the 1997 annual convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in Chicago, I was encouraged to join APA's Division 24 (Society for Th