Foreword
In the chaotic landscape of current psychology, a large number of schools and sub-schools, methods and techniques, currents and ideologies coexist in an isolated and opposing manner. The whole presents the appearance of a true dispersion, without order, without connection, without meaning, and without communication.
This book aims to fill, to some extent, this lack of coherence and unity by presenting a sort of map or project for a general psychology of behavior. It collects, reflects, or develops the conviction that the different schools or currents have contributed fragmented knowledge of a single, unified whole, and that when each of them has believed it saw the whole in its segment, they have given rise to erroneous, distorted, or exaggerated theories. Despite this process (or thanks to it), each school or current reflects part of the reality, which must be rediscovered and re-established in the original unity and totality. The different schools or currents have taken distinct structures or fragments of the same process, but segmentation and the forgetting of the process and the total and concrete context led each of them to believe they captured the entirety in their segment. Thus, the solution to many problems lies solely in reframing them.
This dispersion of the object is compounded by the fragmentation and dispersion of the very process of knowledge and research in moments that are isolated and which have been constituted as methods on their own.
What the schools, methods, and fields of psychology fragmented and scattered, disarticulated and formalized, must be recovered. This task is not an eclecticism that seeks to resolve contradictions but, on the contrary, it accepts and confronts the contradictions because they belong to the reality of the phenomena and their respective dialectical movement. A large part of the task at hand consists of dissolving false antitheses, transforming the irreducible antinomies into what they actually are: moments of a single, unique process. The barriers between schools are no longer fixed and are collapsing. This book seeks to contribute to this, so that a framework for psychology can be built free from arbitrary, strict, and dogmatic divisions and limits.
I am not entirely sure that I have avoided the danger of wavering between a simplified presentation of some topics and a deepening of others. Of course, the main goal is to rethink psychology as the fundamental task of the psychologist. It is not just about learning or teaching psychology; it is about thinking psychologically. Here, I try to apply my conviction that books are not meant to be read, but to be thought through.
Chapter I: Psychology and the Human Being
1. Approach to Psychology
It is very difficult to precisely define what psychology is, just as it is to exactly delineate the object of any science. Definitions are always included at the beginning of books and are only fully understood at the end, when one has a comprehensive perspective of the subject. In an attempt to resolve or avoid the narrowness of definitions, it has been said of another scientific field (sociology) that it is what sociologists do. If we transplant this formula to psychology, we gain nothing, because, in addition to being a truism or tautology, psychological disciplines have not yet fully established their ground, as a practical activity or profession, in the same way that sociology has. In sociology, as various authors have described, practice preceded theoretical systematization and began as a parascience, whereas in psychology, theory and philosophical speculation preceded practice and still, to a large extent, replace it; as Boring said, psychology came first, psychologists came later.
Psychology arrived very late in structuring itself as a scientific field. Like all sciences, it gradually separated from philosophy, although it maintained very close ties with it. The term "psychology" dates back to the 16th century, but it was still very rarely used in the 18th century; it was adopted by Kant and then became more widespread. Comte did not specifically include it in his classification of the sciences, and even today, psychology faces many resistances and doubts. Both idealization and contempt represent real obstacles to its development.
Scientific knowledge increases our real power over things, but diminishes and injures our fantasy and magical omnipotence. Freud pointed out that there are three discoveries that have most damaged our narcissism: first, that our planet is not the center of the universe, but one of many, with no special position; second, that we are not the kings of creation, but products of the evolution of animal species; and third, in chronological order, that we are not entirely rational beings, but that much of our conduct is unknown to us in terms of its motivations. The study of things in the heavens and on earth has not been done without effort or anxiety, but these are compounded when studying the human being himself. Therefore, the sciences of man arrived late and are still in a formative period.
The natural sciences also had to overcome strong resistances in their time, similar to those that currently arise for the sciences of man, especially psychology and sociology. But this resistance is even greater as it approaches and includes the human being itself. Physics and chemistry, as Fenichel observes, overcame resistance before biology, and biology before anatomy and physiology. These, in turn, before psychology. It is not so long ago that anatomists and pathologists were severely prohibited from dissecting corpses. Surely, this development does not solely have its causes in the evolution of psychological resistances or in a pure progress in the domain of ideas, but it is equally true that this resistance acts independently and very intensely at certain moments. The development of science is closely linked to the development of human society and its technical needs, or, in other words, to the need for the species' survival. So far, all scientific progress has propelled the factors of social change, which, of course, clash with all social forces that tend to preserve a given social configuration. In this way, scientific and philosophical advancements and setbacks are linked to complex historical processes of class interests in conflict.
2. Psychology and its Object of Study
Strictly speaking about human beings, and based on everything we’ve discussed so far, we can say that psychology studies humans. However, this does not exactly define or delimit its area of operation, because many other sciences also focus on humans as their object of study (history, anthropology, philosophy, sociology, etc.).
If, in this sense, psychology shares an object of study with many other disciplines, the identity and respective boundaries of each can only be established in two ways: either by considering that each discipline examines a part of the object for its study, or by recognizing that each discipline exclusively and uniquely focuses on a specific aspect of the same phenomenon, an exclusive focus corresponding to a group, class, or level of the object's qualities. We believe that, in general terms, the first criterion has prevailed in the history of psychology, while the second is the one we will develop here, and it should not be confused with the position that only explains and admits the existence of "different points of view" for the same event or quality.
Among the scientific disciplines, we can recognize a group characterized by having a specific object of study that belongs entirely to it: living beings are studied by biology, and the stars by astronomy. Another group is defined and initially configured by the use of a research instrument: microbiology, spectroscopy, ultramicroscopy, etc. Another group of sciences studies different aspects of the same object: chemistry and physics study the same objects, but they differ in how they approach them, corresponding to two distinct, real aspects or qualities of the same object. A table, a muscle, can be studied both by physics and chemistry. This is not meant to be a classification of the sciences, but rather a framework to help orient us in positioning psychology. Furthermore, these delimitations are only valid to a certain extent because phenomena, in reality, overlap, continue, or occur simultaneously.
With regard to psychology, we can say that it studies human beings, but it does so from a particular angle or perspective, one that attends to a specific plane of their organization as living beings. Psychology is not the only discipline that studies humans, and therefore shares its object with other sciences. Attempts to find a specific and exclusive object for each science are closely related to metaphysical assumptions about studying entities or substances. These fallacies have historically led psychology to define its object of study as the soul, consciousness, mind, or psyche, forgetting that these are abstract entities that replace concrete phenomena. With such definitions, the object of study is not clearly delimited; rather, it leads to a complicated mythology from which modern psychological currents have not entirely freed themselves. These definitions structure a verbalist psychology, or else a contradiction arises between the concrete phenomena studied and their respective theoretical formulations.
There is no such thing as a soul, psyche, mind, or consciousness; there are, however, psychological or mental phenomena, but the attribute should not be transformed into a subject or substance.
For all these reasons, it seems important to begin with the statement that psychology studies, or should study, real and concrete human beings. We know that the framing of a problem implies a limitation of the answers to it; as Socrates said, the one who answers a question is not the one who responds, but the one who formulates it. If psychology studies humans, there is always an implicit conception of the human being within it. Even within psychology, which is defined as the study of the mind or the soul, there is a conception of the human being that the human has of themselves at a particular historical moment. These assumptions are not mere speculations that arise from a purely contemplative attitude; they are always linked to the cultural and social characteristics of each era. Each historical-social organization has an image of itself.
We are interested in starting from a scientific conception of the human being, to which psychology itself has already contributed, and—fundamentally—oppose some fallacies with which traditional psychology has historically been constructed, but which still persist, to some extent, even in contemporary psychology.
3. The Myth of the Natural Man
In this type of conception, the existence of a state or original essence of the human being is postulated, one that has been corrupted or distorted by the influence of civilization. In contrast to what is socially acquired, which constitutes the artificial, the natural state of man is sustained as the genuine or ideal. From this, it has sometimes been inferred that the correct path is the "return to nature," a return to the original, natural state, discarding or setting aside everything culturally acquired and conditioned in the human being.
The religious tradition of this hypothesis is evident, even though it has been supported by non-religious authors. Nowadays, it holds historical value, but it is not uncommon to find it as part of the theoretical position or referential framework of some psychological developments.
In this type of postulation, it is implied that the natural man is good and has qualities that are lost or disturbed by the influence of social organization. Thus, an image of this ideal human being has been constructed, or it has been supposed to exist in cultures or populations of primitive organization. The development of culture, therefore, gives a superficial varnish to the human being, but beneath this lies their original nature, which in this way is unchangeable and fixed, and can be rediscovered or placed again in the foreground.
In this regard, authors as diverse as Rousseau, Klages, and Lessing held similar positions. In the seventeenth century, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke postulated a "natural state" prior to civilization, implying that the latter was artificial and conventional. For Rousseau, the arts and sciences had led to the decay of the essentially good primitive being, which had been corrupted by cultural influence, distancing itself from its direct and healthy relationship with nature and its original goodness. Culture was something artificial, and because it was unnatural, it caused the decline of the human being. More recently, Klages argued for an opposition between soul and spirit; the former is in direct and immediate relation with nature, while spirit is the rational sphere, the logical force that progressively destroys the former. Lessing also developed a "naturalism" as the authentic source of life, distorted by the actions of men.
In the theory of the "natural man," there are two different elements that must be recognized, as correctly established by Bidney: on one hand, the assumption of an original prehistoric natural state, from which the current human being has emerged, and—on the other hand—a universal present state, by which the human being, in all places and at all times, is the same. In the latter case, it is not a past genetic condition, but rather a universal condition of the human being that persists as such beneath cultural modifications, which are thus merely superficial.
We now know that there is no such thing as the "natural man," and that this theory is an extension, in the scientific field, of a religious fantasy that assumes the human being was created in a "pure" form by the hands of God, only to later suffer a decadence or "fall" into sin and guilt. The theory of the natural man is not an isolated postulation, but is part of a broader conception that considers the world as invariable and fixed, and that, in addition to the natural man, also postulates a natural justice, a natural right, etc. In other words, it is part of an ideology.
Anthropological research has demonstrated, incontrovertibly, that individuals in primitive cultures are not natural beings either, and that their personality is functionally correlated with the overall structure of their respective social organization, which is also not simple and straightforward, but highly complex.
We know that man is a historical product; he transforms nature, and in that process, he creates culture and transforms his own nature. With humans comes a new way of adapting: the ability to create new environmental conditions by transforming the natural environment, and this process can be carried out, in part, by anticipating the results and objectives. The human being himself is also a product of historical development and becomes a new nature: the human one.
4. The Isolated Man
This is another deeply rooted assumption in our culture and, therefore, in our scientific theories. It is assumed that the human being is originally and primitively—both as a species and as an individual—an isolated, non-social being, who gradually assimilates the necessity of relating to other individuals. Thus, one problem posed for psychology was how human beings establish relationships with one another. To address this, hypotheses were put forward—such as that of a gregarious instinct or a special energy, libido.
This abstraction is closely related to the previous one, that of the natural man, and both overlook the fact that a human is only such insofar as they are social, and that even the high degree of individuality reflected in this postulate is also a social product. In summary, it can be said that even the isolated man often considered by psychology is a social product, and this theory, often referred to as the "Robinson Crusoe theory," has no valid foundation.
The problem, in fact, is currently framed in entirely reversed terms; it is no longer a matter of understanding how isolated individuals become social beings, but rather how members of a culture and eminently social beings become isolated men. Even from the perspective of their biological development, beginning with intrauterine life, the human being exists in intense and profound interconnection with the life of other human beings, in a true symbiotic relationship. Research now focuses on the complex process of acculturation by which the human being transitions from this undivided, primitively undifferentiated state to the condition of an individual and person.
5. The Abstract Man
This is one of the most serious conceptual and methodological errors in the field of psychology, stemming from the corresponding philosophical error. It consists of studying the human being as if they were determined and isolated from the real, historical, and present situations in which their life unfolds, their personality is formed, and all kinds of relationships are established.
As a result, the more abstract the human being being studied is, the more identical all of their characteristics become, and the more fixed, eternal, and immutable the categories elaborated for them are. Abstraction leads to both the concept of the isolated man and the natural man, discarding social and cultural variants as non-essential additions to the human being, which are seen as merely superimposed or even subverting an original nature. This has led to erroneous generalizations and conclusions, to sterile concepts and notions, and to a mythology of psychological entities.
Moreover, as Foucault expresses, "when it comes to humans, abstraction is not just an intellectual error," because it transcends as an ideology, not only in the scientific field but also in the political and social spheres, as an instrument of domination and control.
In contrast, modern psychology tends to consider all psychological phenomena as derived from specific relationships and concrete interactions of the human being, as a social being, with the real situations of their life. This is the aspect that, even with various inconsistencies and errors, has been incorporated into psychology with the rise of the various schools of the past fifty or sixty years, and this is the most serious deficit of traditional psychology. In traditional psychology, the human being is studied in general; perception and memory, for example, are treated as entities in themselves, not as the human being who perceives or remembers, nor as that which is perceived or remembered, in a specific social and economic structure, at this moment, and in this situation.
This process of abstraction, realism, and formalism in traditional psychology and the innovative role of modern psychological currents have been skillfully analyzed by Politzer, to whom we refer the interested reader.
6. Individual-Society
This is a false antinomy that still deeply permeates psychology, as well as other scientific fields. It assumes that the individual is limited, distorted, or coerced by the social organization. It is closely related to the conception of the isolated man, as it assumes that, to achieve the benefits of social life, human beings have had to and still must sacrifice the satisfaction of individual tendencies, which are considered incompatible with social norms and the cultural organization in general.
These assumptions tend to obscure the irrational element of social organization, attributing it to a primitive animal organization of the human being that still exists in each one of us, thus superficially saving a deep contradiction inherent in the social structure itself. This structure is complex and contradictory, and such contradictions are reflected in the human being, both socially and individually considered. The aim is to "save" society in its present organization by considering the human being as bad and animal-like, attributing to them all the misalignments of our organization. This is the opposite of the myth of the natural man, in which the human being is good and society is bad. Thus, at some point, this latter thesis was supported as a social critique and as a progressive and renovative tendency.
If we take the case of delinquency, war, or prostitution, the schema proposed by this individual-society antinomy views them as resulting from primitive, instinctive, or animal impulses that still exist in all individuals and that, at a given moment, surpass the barriers of cultural control and repression. The problem actually lies in the fact that the same society that represses and prohibits delinquency, prostitution, and rejects wars, also paradoxically holds within it—the causal elements of these issues—in the form of irrational social components that are not controlled.
There is a permanent and close relationship between the individual and society, and only by understanding one can we truly understand the other. As human beings, we depend greatly on nature, our peers, and social organization to satisfy our needs.
7. Innate-Acquired
This antinomy has been the focus of research and debate for a long time and is closely related to other antinomies, such as nature-society, inheritance-learning, etc.
All these contradictions are shaped by formalism and a lack of understanding of the dialectical process. However, this does not occur only as an intellectual or ideological process but also reflects the struggle between "fixism" and progressive social currents. All those positions and forces striving to maintain the idea of a fixed, unchangeable nature and society, created once and for all, aligned themselves with theories that postulated the innate, while those advocating for the improvement and progress of social organization emphasized learning, acquisition, change, and development.
8. The Human Being
In contrast to the metaphysical dualisms that still permeate all of our scientific knowledge, the dialectical conception tends to consider the unity and interdependence of all phenomena, seeing all antitheses as phases or moments of a process. Thus, discussions and investigations that isolate the human being or treat abstractly a part of their manifestations—without connection to nature or their social environment—lose relevance. The human being can then be characterized by the following:
a) Their condition of belonging to a very peculiar nature: the human one. Since the Renaissance, humans have understood that they are part of nature, but much later did they accept that they also form part of a very distinct and particular nature. Their social condition gradually structures an integrated synthesis of nature and society, where the latter is not a superficial factor that modifies transient or non-essential characteristics of the human being, but rather profoundly and substantially changes the original state of being natural, in the sense that humans depend significantly, if not entirely, on nature.
b) Their condition of being concrete, meaning that they belong to a specific culture, social class, ethnic group, or religion, and this belonging is not accidental or random, but it is integral to their being and personality. Consciousness and attention should not be studied abstractly but rather the concrete behavior of a particular individual or group in specific conditions and at a given moment.
c) Their condition of being social, meaning that a human being is only a human because they incorporate and organize experiences with other individuals. The entire set of social relationships is what defines the human being in their personality.
d) Their condition of being historical, both individually and socially, as a product of a development in which new potentialities emerge that are not fixed and immutable once and for all. This high degree of development depends on a complex organization of living matter and reflects the social structure in the broadest sense.
e) Because the environment of the human being is a social one, from which fundamental stimuli arise for the organization of psychological qualities.
f) Because the human being cannot be understood purely by reflection; the knowledge that is acquired is, in turn, socially conditioned.
g) Because the human being is the only living being who can think of themselves as an object, use thought, conceive universal symbols, create language, foresee and plan actions, and use tools and techniques that modify their own nature. Even while being part of nature, the human being can, to a certain extent, be independent of it. All of this is closely linked to their unique ability—unlike any other animal—to produce their means of subsistence.
h) That the production of those means of subsistence creates the fundamental matrix of all human relationships.
Bibliography
Complete references for the citations in each chapter can be found in the general bibliography at the end of the book.
Brown, J. A. C.; Buber, M.; Cassirer, E.; Dujovne, L.; Engels, F. (e); Favez Boutonier (a); Foucault, M.; Goldstein, K. (a, b); Groethuysen, B.; Kardiner, A.; Marx, C. (a, b); Marx, C, and Engels, F. (a); Merleau Ponty, M. (b); Plejanov, J.; Politzer, G. (a); Rosenthal, M.