| This dissertation addresses the epistemological and methodological form and status of contemporary psychology. Fundamental concerns are addressed in deconstructivist and therapeutic, constructivist components. In the former, historical review and logical analysis are used to consider the soundness of the present-day logical empiricist approach to psychological investigations. In the subsequent constructivist segment, aspects of Wittgenstein's philosophy are expanded and shown to allow for a novel pre-empirical rendering of the field. The history of the philosophy of science and Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Philosophical Investigations, and On Certainty are reviewed, and are shown to reveal an epistemological “fork in the road.” One tine represents the logical positivist epistemological position that is well developed and expressed in mainstream psychological study. The alternative Wittgensteinian tine stands ripe for consideration and application. Toward this end, the Wittgensteinian distinction between knowledge and certainty is expanded to advance a domain of certainty that can be incorporated as a priori information eligible for psychological investigations. The development of this domain of certainty into an alternative approach to the field is labeled preempirical psychology or the pre-empirical approach to psychology. As part of the summary of this segment of the thesis, four criteria are presented to act as guidelines for this meta-discipline of psychological study. Concepts and technology taken from Ossorio (1975, 1981, 1995), and the discipline of descriptive psychology are used to illustrate the form of the alternative pre-empirical discipline. The descriptive psychology pre-empirical conceptualization of depression is used to further demonstrate the distinctive character of the pre-empirical approach to the field. |
