Perhaps the reason that postmodern thought has been less influential in Psychology than in some of the other social sciences is that Psychologists have frequent opportunities to observe that when you strip away the superficial facade of culture and society we are all pretty much the same. Regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or culture, we have similar wants, needs, and desires. Our thoughts, and feelings, our hopes, and dreams, our fantasies are all pretty much alike. Psychologists who study people in depth find their similarities are far more striking than their differences and the un-crossable chasm of culture, gender, and ethnicity which is postulated by the postmodernists seems little more than a big step.
There are a variety of behavioral processes which transcend race, religion, culture, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference: psychological universals that enable us to predict the behavior of individuals of all races and cultures. These principles transcend species as well and allow us to accurately predict the behavior of not only people of all races and cultures but all vertebrates (and invertebrates for which suitable testing situations can be devised). So not only do all people, everywhere, respond the same way but most of the animal kingdom is governed by these behavioral laws as well. Examples include principles governing reinforcement (positive and negative) and punishment; principles governing the effects of schedules of reinforcement; principles of shaping and chaining, secondary reinforcement, extinction, and many others.
The broad range of applicability of these principles
as well as the complexity of the phenomena to which they apply is illustrated
by the pattern of response to various schedules of reinforcement.
Responses are recorded using a device called a cumulative recorder which
produces a graphic display showing the timing and pattern of responses.
Specific patterns are characteristic of specific schedules of reinforcement.
The fixed interval schedule of reinforcement, for example, produces a scalloped
cumulative record. It is most amazing that this complex pattern of
responding is exhibited by all people of all ages (who are capable of responding)
and all species for which suitable testing situations can be devised.
It is truly awe inspiring to watch an organism from some species, well
trained on a fixed interval schedule, produce a cumulative record which
is indistinguishable from the record produced by your fellow graduate students:
particularly when one realizes that these results have been replicated
in laboratories all over the world, by researchers from a great variety
of cultures and backgrounds.
Foundational to each person's understaning of reality stands a "metaphysic." The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy defines metaphysics as " . . . the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution, and structure of reality." A person's metaphysic ultimately defines and guides his or her thought, action, values, and so on. Underlying postmodernism is a metaphysic which ultimately unites all other strands of thought within that lineage, and as such may aptly be identified as the essence of postmodernism. This essential postmodern metaphysic maintains (1) an unmitigated nominalism (the rejection of universals of any kind) and (2) the rejection of truth as correspondence to an objective, mind-independent world.
Are there any universals?
First, postmodernism is essentially nominalistic. This may be best understood by comparing it to the alternative: metaphysical Realism (hereafter simply "Realism"). Realism maintains that universals do exist-entities which are transcendent (i.e., exist apart from, or transcend the individual and culture), objective (not mind-dependent), and capable of being multiply-exemplified ("had" by more than one individual thing at the same time). This final point is often identified as the essence of Realism. Reinhardt Grossmann, using the property "whiteness" as an example, summarizes the position by stating:
Is the whiteness of the two billiard balls literally the same? Is there just one entity which is exemplified by both balls? Or does each ball have its own whiteness? This is the so-called problem of universals.... Philosophers who believe that the color of billiard ball A is the very same as that of billiard ball B are called realists. Those who deny this, are called nominalists.
As examples of such universals, Realists point to moral values, natures, and propositions. Realism maintains that such things as goodness and justice exist and are transcendent, objective and multiply exemplifiable. The same is true of human nature and propositions (such as the laws of logic), according to the realist.In contrast, Nominalism maintains that no universals exist, but rather all that exists are particular, discrete things. Nothing is transcendent. Hence it follows that such things as moral values, human nature and propositions are created by the individual (or collectively by the society), not discovered as existent "out there." As such, they are not objective and absolute, but rather subjective, bound to the individual and/or culture for their existence and validity. We find this metaphysic echoing throughout the writings of the leading proponents of postmodernism. Concerning values, Michel Foucault writes, “The domination of certain men over others leads to the differentiation of values; class domination generates the idea of liberty.” Concerning propositions, Jacques Derrida states, “The absence of a transcendental signified extends the domain and the play of significations infinitely,” which echoes the words of Nietzsche: "There are no facts, only interpretations." Again, in reference to natures, Foucault writes,
"Why does Nietzsche challenge the pursuit of the origin (Ursprung) ... ? First, because it is an attempt to capture the exact essence of things.... because this search assumes the existence of immobile forms that precede the eternal world of accident and succession.... However, . . . there is 'something altogether different' behind things: not a timeless and essential secret, but the secret that they have no essence.
In sum, the nominalistic metaphysic of postmodernity denies the transcendence, objectivity and multiple-exemplification of moral values, natures and propositions. The important point here is that for the postmodernist there are no universals. Realists disagree as to just how many universals there are, but are in agreement that some properties exist as universals, as illustrated above. The postmodernist stands against this as a thoroughgoing nominalist: there are no universals whatsoever.
Is reality "out there"?
Furthermore, we may identify a second essential feature of postmodernism: the rejection of truth as “correspondence." On a correspondence view, a proposition (such as "snow is white") is "true" in virtue of it corresponding to the state of affairs in (mind-independent, objective) reality (snow really being white "out there" in the world). Such a view is squarely rejected by postmodernity. For the postmodernist, no appeal is made to an external "reality" beyond the individual and/or culture which ground a proposition as "true." Hence truth is ultimately grounded in the individual or culture. As Richard Rorty has stated,
Those who wish to ground solidarity in objectivity ... have to construe truth as correspondence to reality.... By contrast, those who wish to reduce objectivity to solidarity ... view truth as, in William James' phrase, what is good for us to believe. So they do not need an account of a relation between belief and objects called 'correspondence.’
In the words of Nietzsche, to whom many postmodernists look for inspiration, truth is
a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms--in short a sum of human relations, which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people."
Foucault concurs, writing "The forcejul appropriation of things necessary to survival and the imposition of a duration not intrinsic to them account for the origin of logic." Once understood, it is not difficult to see the ubiquity of this metaphysic in the outworkings of postmodern thought. While space does not permit a detailed explanation, several examples should suffice to illustrate the point. Take, for example, the postmodern view of rationality. As a result of rejecting truth as correspondence to objective, mind-independent reality and thus asserting that reason and truth are individually or culturally determined, one can see why it is anathema to postmodernists for someone to assume to have "objective" truth. Such assertions are paramount to cultural imperialism--the violent imposition of subjective, cultural tendencies on others in order to conquer and subjugate. The same is true concerning deconstructionism and the hermeneutics of suspicion: the greatest of all errors is to assume to have the one "true,” “correct” or "preferred" interpretation of a text, for to do so is to assume truth is objective and knowable. Given the postmodern metaphysics those who assume such an objective interpretation of a text has been obtained (or is even possible) must be motivated to claim as much due to political or social factors--ultimately the desire to have power and authority over others. As Foucault summarizes,
Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true . . .
Furthermore, this postmodern metaphysic explains the motivation to reject metanarratives, which by definition are comprehensive worldviews understood to be the accurate and "true" understanding of reality. Such metanarratives as religious traditions (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) and philosophical systems (e.g., Marxism, Humanism, Modernity) are to be unequivocally rejected due to their claim of having truth that transcends the individual, or culture-truth which can give one knowledge of reality as it is. These views are diametrically opposed to the postmodernist metaphysics Jean-Francois Lyotard summarizes: "Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives." Finally, following from the rejection of an objectively-grounded human nature, it follows that one's personal identity must be grounded not in virtue of being human per se, but rather in terms of more narrow groupings-such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and so on. Similar examples of the outworking of this metaphysic are to be found in the various other doctrines often associated with postmodernism.(Wallace, 1999)
First, Psychology and Psychologists have generally had great respect for the postmodern critique of cultural imperialism, cultural elitism, and racial, gender, and ethnic bias which has characterized so much of western thought in past centuries. Postmodern thought has made a significant contribution to clarifying our thinking in these areas. It has raised our consciousness, increased our cultural sensitivity, and called attention to areas which had been largely ignored.
Second, the human mind is incredibly complex and the discipline of Psychology has developed only a primitive understanding of its functioning and its intricacies. There are a number of models of mental processes currently under development, particularly in the area of Cognitive Psychology, which take as their premise the notion that the mind must actively construct reality based on the meager and ambiguous perceptual data available to it. While it is questionable whether this premise is valid, substantial progress has been made in developing these models and in using these models to account for behavioral data. These models appear to be consistent with the basic philosophical premises of postmodernism.
Third, there is a substantial body of psychological data which is consistent with a "Direct Realism" metaphysic. These data suggest that the perceptual data available to the mind is sufficient to specify the reality in which the organism acts and that the "constructive" processes hypothesized by some models may have been over emphasized or may be entirely unnecessary to account for mental processes and behavior. In addition, the best contemporary understanding of perceptual processes recognizes the existence of detectors, implemented in neural circuitry, which detect the existence of particular characteristics of the environment and signal the mind concerning the existence and location of these "qualia." These characteristics are transcendent (exist for organisms of various species, places and times), are objective (depend on the physical properties of the object rather than the properties of the perciever), and are capable of being multiply-exemplified ("had" by more than one individual at the same time). Detectors for lines, edges, and bugs have been identified and localized in the nervous systems of various animals. Detectors for higher order elements (for example an edge at 45 degrees from the horizontal, anywhere in the visual field) have also been located. Evidence exists for the existence of more complex detectors as well. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that there is a "Whiteness" neuron in each of our brains, (in primates the detectors for specific perceptual qualities are located in the same place in all animals brains), which fires when a white object appears in our perceptual field. Thus, not only is the whiteness of two billiard balls the same, but it corresponds to the whiteness of other objects as well and a demonstrably similar physiological response occurs in all members of the species when presented with the same stimulus array. (See quote from Grossmann, above).
The visual world of a frog is not constructed under the constraints of frog culture and frog politics. The frog directly percieves the ecologically relevant features of its environment and responds to those features in inherited and learned ways. A number of the feature detectors have been discovered and analyzed. The wiring and operation of them is well enough understood that good models of the visual system and visual response of the frog can be developed. Physiological psychologists believe that analogous mechanisms account for the perceptual processes of humans.
Another example comes from research mound building ants in Africa.
This theory has been extended to humans by J. J. Gibson and his students.
Gibson hypothesises that humans have evolved neural mechanisms which directly
percieve (extract) the ecologically relevant affordances in the environment.
Essentially, the idea is that humans perceptual system is an extremely
elaborate version of the frogs.
Concerning reason, postmodernists shun modernist views which inflate reason to the status of an entirely independent, neutral, unbiased and objective instrument with which truth can and will be found. Regarding progress, postmodernists are quick to point out that, contrary to the optimistic outlook of modernity, we are not "every day, in every way, getting better and better," but rather in some cases we are creating survival-threatening conditions by the unbridled rush toward technological "progress." The same is true in terms of views on freedom. Whereas modernity placed, freedom and human autonomy as one of the highest values to be embraced, the postmodernist suggests our freedom is an illusion. In fact, postmodernists maintain that our freedoms are determined by factors well beyond our control, be they race, gender, culture, or otherwise. (Wallace, 1999)
But the biggest failing of modernism was in the attempt to establish
correspondence. This relates to the question of knowledge.
When we say we know something, what does that mean. How do we know
stuff. What does it mean to say we know something is a fact.
If I tell you a fact, how do you know what I mean. Clearly, knowledge
depends on the meaning of words and language. If you don't understand
the words I use, you won't understand what I say. If the words mean
something different to you than they mean to me, we will not be able to
communicate very well.
I remember sitting up arguing all night with some guys in the dorm about X, Y, or Z and in the end concluding our differences were all a matter of semantics. I was using the words to mean something different from the other fellows and we mostly agreed with each other or at least were able to respect and understand each other's position, once the semantic differences were resolved. It is clear that it is very important that we understand and develop ways to specify what words mean and what they refer to.
Modernists developed elaborate philosophical systems to allow them to prove that words could correspond to particular things. Their systems were based on logic and reason. None of these worked. Every system they came up with had some hidden flaw or fallacy which was discovered later. Most of their systems worked pretty good for the meaning of most words but they claimed that the system could be used to establish the correspondence of all words, concepts, facts, and truths and could therefore be used to find ultimate truth. To disprove one of these systems, all you have to do is come up with one example of a word, concept, fact, or truth that the system said was true but it was actually false or the other way around.
Since all the modern systems for demonstrating correspondence had been
disproved, the postmodernists began to question whether correspondence
was necessary at all and to ask why anyone cares about correspondence.
In the 1800's Nietzsche had argued that "There are no facts, only interpretations."
Nietzsche argued that there really are no facts or truths, people just
say things are true or are facts to get you to do what they want you to
do. The postmodernists went back to Nietzsche's approach and concluded
that attempts to prove correspondence were just part of the attempts to
control other people.
Copyright © 1999 Steve Falkenberg