Common Sense Is Just One StrategyAuthor(s): Donald W. FiskeSource: Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1991), pp. 345-346Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1448903 .

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COMMENTARIES 345

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Macmillan.

Common Sense Is Just One Strategy

Donald W. Fiske University of Chicago

Smedslund has been working on psychologic (PL), his personal approach to the understanding of psychological phenomena, for more than 15 years. It has been a lonely preoccupation. In the preface to his book Psycho-Logic (Smedslund, 1988), he noted his relative professional isola- tion. The situation may well change soon, however. The president-elect of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science (Lederman, 1991) recently warned us of the increasingly inadequate federal support for basic re- search. If the decline continues, many of those who would like to pursue standard science may have to seek alternative approaches. PL is a very inexpensive alternative, requiring only an armchair, a typewriter or word processer, common sense, and electronic mail or some other way to discuss definitions and axioms with colleagues. It is not exactly an alternative; he describes PL as a "necessary complement" to empirical research. He does not, however, make clear how each complements the other.

His objectives in this article seem to be to criticize pseudoempirical psychology and to sell PL. His attack on the pseudoempirical has the tone of a holy war: He would "pre- vent pseudoempirical research." And "the accumulation of data has not, and could not have, been accompanied by any corresponding accumulation of knowledge."

Although many of us can agree at least to some degree with the judgment that "contemporary psychology can hard- ly be characterized as a well-developed science," we are less inclined to accept the reasoning leading to that conclusion: "Contemporary psychological research does not formally define its concepts, does not state its axioms, neverproves its propositions, and never formally derives its procedures." He does not explicate the idea of formally deriving procedures, yet such derivation appears to be an important principle for empirical research. Certainly procedures should be designed to fit one's definitions, with multiple procedures for multi- faceted constructs. Psychology has, in recent years, slighted the problem of systematically linking procedures and mea- suring operations to the investigator's conceptual frame-

work. (For further discussion of this topic as applied to per- sonality, see Fiske, 1971, 1978.)

Smedslund disparages much of what others call empirical research by labeling it pseudoempirical. What does he mean by that term? Pseudoempirical research, he says, is testing a priori and necessarily true propositions. More fully, it is research testing "propositions believed to be empirical and contingent but that can be shown to be a priori and noncon- tingent, given plausible definitions and axioms." His exam- ples of such research do not convince me that the investiga- tors who did those studies wasted their time. Also, one wonders whether he would have developed the axioms and definitions in PL if he had not been able to draw on the considerable prior empirical research literature. Does PL present a theoretical formulation generated by common sense? Could it have been written a century ago? Or does it systematize and integrate a lot of standard definitions and published research findings?

He says there can be no general and empirical laws in psychology. He will, however, allow us to do research that is "aimed at mapping historically given individuals and condi- tions." Such research can determine what is locally the case. But no one claims that there are universal laws in psycholo- gy, any more than there are in other sciences. All scientific laws have their boundary conditions within which each given law works and beyond which it does not. So I think most psychologists will pursue their empirical research undeterred by his pronouncements on this topic.

We learn later that he grants the legitimacy of research that "involves variables outside the sphere of ordinary language and culture . . . This is exploration of previously unknown territory and involves logically unrelated concepts. The ef- fects of heredity, drugs, brain damage, stimulation of nerve cells, metabolism, and so forth on psychological variables obviously may represent genuinely empirical research areas, because no outcomes can be excluded in advance." So if we know about a phenomenon by ordinary experience and can discuss it in ordinary language, we don't need to do any

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346 COMMENTARIES

research on it? In spite of the axioms and propositions in PL, there is little in psychological knowledge that we really know, so we can go ahead with our empirical research, es- pecially with biological factors as independent variables.

Smedslund feels it unnecessary to compare his position with those of others. Although a detailed analytic com- parison might be inappropriate here, it does seem idiosyn- cratic, to say the least, not to consider other authors with similar positions. For instance, his views about not looking for universal laws but rather trying to describe the current scene sound remarkably similar to views expressed by Cron- bach (especially Cronbach, 1975).

Smedslund neglects a key problem in his comprehensive project. The geometers who are his model (and to whom he dedicates Psycho-Logic) could transfer geometric principles from the abstract to the earthy field. But how do we know when an axiom or a definition from PL is applicable in the psychological field? Take Theorem 2.1.2 from Psycho- Logic: "A conscious person continuously wants something" (Smedslund, 1988, p. 21). Although there may be adequate agreement on what a conscious person is, how do we tell whether that person continuously wants something?

Smedslund proves this theorem by reference to an axiom and a definition. We are still left with the problem of the coordination between his logic and psychological phe- nomena. I suppose he leaves this to common sense. But will his common sense, yours, and mine all lead to the same applications and interpretations? Or, like a Shakespearean play, is each reader to take from it whatever he or she finds of value in understanding human beings?

There is some question whether the basic scientific meth- od can be applied effectively in work on all the kinds of phenomena that psychologists and others want to under- stand. I believe strongly that people should be encouraged to pursue other systematic approaches to the study of some of these phenomena. I hope that the advocates for these other approaches, along with those who subscribe to PL, do not have to compete with those pursing normal science (Kuhn, 1970) for the increasingly scarce funding about which Leder- man (1991) warned us.

Smedslund would have us help him develop his PL. But shall we base it on his common sense or ours? I am not con- vinced that "common sense" is a body of knowledge univer- sally shared. Although he does recommend discussions among professionals, he fails to indicate whether there were such discussions that contributed to the current status of PL or whether his present product is his personal construction.

His emphasis on explicit definitions for concepts has my strong support. But can we expect ever to establish a set of definitions as part of a Constitution for psychology? Even at

a single time, will a given definition be unchanged when it is translated into other languages? I cannot accept Smedslund's belief that there is one basic PL for all languages and cultures.

The problems of definition alone will lead to endless de- bate. For example, Smedslund gives us his formal definition of "sadness," which emphasizes the awareness that some- thing is unattainable. But "sadness" can appropriately be defined in other, additional ways and can have other sources, such as the realization that one has lost some person or thing forever.

In sum, I applaud Smedslund's determination and per- severance, but not his imperialism. He is free to try to per- suade us of the value of his approach. We are free to explore his approach on Mondays, but to spend Tuesdays through Saturdays on our usual research strategies. Psychology has not resolved a fundamental question: What kinds of knowl- edge do we need or want? This question has to be answered for each set of the phenomena that concern us. The practicing therapist needs to know some objective facts, such as the power and tenacity of variable-interval reinforcement, but perhaps not others, such as the sensory pathways. Even more critical in this context is whatever has been established about the many ways in which a person can see himself or herself. And some psychologists want and even need to have the insights provided by good novelists.

Smedslund should certainly pursue and extend his PL so that he and we can see what it can contribute to our under- standing. But just as I (and he too!) would find a common- sense physics or astronomy insufficient, so I believe we cer- tainly need an objective psychology.

Note

Donald W. Fiske, Committee on Research Methodology, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.

References

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Fiske, D. W. (1971). Measuring the concepts of personality. Chicago: Aldine.

F-iske, D. W. (1978). Strategies for personality research: The observation versus interpretation of behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed., en- larged). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lederman, L. M. (1991, January). Science: The end of the frontier? Sci- ence, 251(Suppl.), pp. 1-20.

Smedslund, J. (1988). Psycho-logic. New York: Springer-Verlag.

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