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This article analyzes the central weaknesses of both relativism and traditional empiricism as overarching accounts of science appropriate for psychology. A third approach, a variant of scientific realism, is described and discussed, and it is argued that this approach avoids the most pernicious features of both relativism and empiricism. This version of scientific realism postulates that the rational structure of science is composed of four interlocked categories: aims, epistemic values, methodological rules, and theories. These categories are described, and the nature of the links between them is analyzed. Various other issues are discussed, including the nature of scientific debate, the extent to which psychology is different from other sciences, and whether scientific realism really avoids a relativist fate. In conclusion, scientific realism is a viable alternative account of scientific thought that is suitable for psychology.
At the heart of both philosophy and psychology are questions about the nature of knowledge: Is the world an invention of the human mind? Are some methods of gaining knowledge (e.g., scientific methods) more reliable and rational than others? And can we ultimately justify fundamental beliefs concerning such things as the laws of logic, the existence of other minds (in addition to our own), and the durability of causal relationships?
In contemporary philosophy, such questions receive the most intense scrutiny in relation to science and scientific method by philosophers of science. In psychology, such hoary epistemological issues surface whenever there is debate concerning the appropriate overarching theories that psychology should adopt. In the 20th century up to the 1960s, mainstream psychology, along with philosophy of science, was by and large locked into a nonrelativist approach that assumed there was indeed a real world out there and that scientific methods and reliance on systematic observation and experimentation were capable of giving us objective knowledge about that world.
This traditional approach, usually termed positivism or empiricism, was associated in psychology with a strict focus on behavior as the object of study and with the acceptance of rigorous empirical research as the cornerstone of the scientific method. Some allowance was made for the use of cognitive variables, provided they were tied to observable reality by operational definitions (although Skinner fought a long, but ultimately fruitless, rearguard action against the introduction of mentalistic...