Philosophical and Empirical Approaches to Psychology : Mentalism vs. Antimentalism

Philosophical and Empirical Approaches to Psychology critically assesses various ideas about the mind present in psychological research and their influence on psychologists’ choice and use of research method. This book references and integrates the philosophy of psychology with experimental psychology.

Philosophical and Empirical Approaches to Psychology: Mentalism vs. Anti-Mentalism philosophically analyzes four different approaches to psychology: introspectionism, behaviourism, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to explore the concept of “the mind,” which developed from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century up through present day psychology. The resulting ideas originating from these approaches are divided into two main groups in this book, mentalism (whose supporters assume that mind is not reducible to something else) and anti-mentalism (whose supporters assume that mind is indeed reducible to something else). This book argues that adopting one idea over another can have a profound influence in a psychologist’s research. Further, the author shows that some controversial psychological notions like “consciousness” pertain to a particular mentalistic approach. Many psychologists do not consider such notions scientific, but he argues that this depends upon their adherence to a certain anti-mentalistic approach or to a specific mentalistic perspective. The book examines these issues by assessing experimental psychology in relation to neurobiology and philosophy, offering an integration of philosophical and theoretical chapters along with empirical and experimental chapters. Theoretically, the arguments draw from philosophy of psychology and experimental psychology. Using empirical research, Philosophical and Empirical Approaches to Psychology examines the role of the various mentalistic and anti-mentalistic approaches to psychology by integrating epistemological analysis and empirical research.