Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct Psychology Since its formulation by George Kelly in the mid-1950s Personal Construct Psychology has been distinguished by its links with general philosophy and by the philosophical richness of its fundamental postulates. Personal Construct Psychology recognises that any attempt to understand why we behave as we do must begin with an understanding of how we create meaning. After a brief general introduction Bill Warren traces the philosophical history of Personal Construct Psychology through the broad and complex tradition of phenomenology and thinkers such as Spinoza, Hegel and Heidegger. He also gives credit to the influence of general creative and dramatic literature across a variety of cultures. Specific issues addressed in depth include the position of Personal Construct Psychology with regard to philosophy of science, cognitive science, clinical psychology, concepts of mental illness and the implications for social and political philosophy. Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct Psychology will provide counsellors, therapists and students of Personal Construct Psychology with a broader appreciation of its historical and philosophical context and its importance to contemporary psychology. Bill Warren is Associate Professor in Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Routledge Progress in Psychology Emerging Patterns of Literacy A multidisciplinary perspective Rhian Jones Foundational Analysis Presuppositions in experimental psychology Pertti Saariluoma Modelling the Stress-Strain Relationship in Work Settings Meni Koslowsky Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct Psychology Bill Warren Family Argument Dispute and the organization of domestic identities Charles Antaki, Ava Horowitz and Peter Muntigl Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct Psychology Bill Warren London and New York First published 1998 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1998 William G.Warren All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Warren, Bill 1942– Philosophical dimensions of personal construct psychology/ Bill Warren. 1. Personal construct theory—Philosophy. I. Title. BF698.9.P47W37 1998 98–17308 150.19'8–dc21 CIP ISBN 0-203-00469-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-22091-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-16850-3 (Print Edition) [The suspension] of the ‘subject’ and ‘self-understanding’…cannot mean that we should liquidate the subject (the actually existing industrial societies and the institutions of the ‘administered world’ are far more adept at this; why compete with them on the level of theory?); rather it can only mean that one has to explain subjectivity better and in a more adequate way… (Frank, 1989:343–4) One cannot understand a spoken statement without knowing both its most general and its most personal and particular value. (Schleiermacher, 1977:48) What is not supposed to be my concern. First and foremost, the Good Cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. ‘Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!’ (Stirner, 1845:3) Contents Preface ix Acknowledgements x A note on citations xi Introduction 1 1 Locating philosophy 8 History 8 Developments 11 Domains 16 Modes 19 Concluding comment 21 2 Links and latencies 23 Direct references 23 Latencies 29 Constructive alternativism as philosophy 48 Realism and idealism 52 Concluding comment 60 3 Constructivisms 61 Social theory 61 Psychology 65 Concluding comment 72 4 Structuralism and beyond 73 Structuralism and poststructuralism 75 Modernity and postmodernity 78 Psychology and postmodernity 80 Concluding comment 85 viii Contents 5 The problem of the self 87 The notion of the self 87 Decentred and recentred subjects 92 Constructing selves 93 The self in personal construct psychology 99 Concluding comment 103 6 Philosophical psychology 105 Philosophy of science 105 Cognitive science 109 Determinism and free will 116 Philosophical issues in clinical psychology 118 A caveat 120 Concluding comment 126 7 Psychotechnology 128 Psychotechnology, applied psychology, technology 128 Personal construct psychology and applied psychology 131 Personal construct psychotherapy as praxis 135 Concluding comment 139 8 Political and social life 141 The social-political in personal construct psychology 141 The egalitarian outlook 145 Ideology 146 Religion 150 Concluding comment 154 9 Being human, making meaning 156 Hermeneutics 158 Personal construct psychology and hermeneutics 164 Psychological philosophical anthropology 166 Concluding comment 169 Conclusion 171 References 174 Index 192 Preface I came to personal construct psychology from a background jointly in social philosophy and a fairly traditional ‘psychology is a science’ education in psychology. I had been led to existentialism and to anarchist thinking by my preoccupation with the subtleties of individual interpretation in and of life. Personal construct psychology was discovered, by accident, during my education and training in clinical psychology. It appeared to offer a congenial way of thinking about individual lived-experience in a most thoroughgoing way. It appeared also to be consistent with the types of ideas generated in the anarcho-psychological tradition of western thought with which I had become familiar. Thus developed an interest in probing personal construct psychology for its links to the ideas generated in this tradition and in social philosophy generally. There is now something of homelessness felt by those with an outlook that is fascinated by individual variation, recalcitrance, endurance, resistance, and the like. The intellectual climate is one in which the dominant wisdom accepts a more collective view of human beings; thus, it would take those with such an outlook to be naive and suffering from ideology. Still, there is something in lived-experience that resists the insistence on giving up the sense of difference and individual efficacy, of uniqueness and ultimate aloneness. Thus, the present volume is an outcome of excavating the philosophical in personal construct psychology, and a construction of it in terms of a construct system the core constructs of which keenly focus the personal. A different construction, both of personal construct psychology and of life, would, obviously, understand matters differently; but the tolerance of difference and of plurality, might be the mark of an optimally functioning person and of a good approach in philosophy.