What Psychology Is About

Abstract

Many psychologists and psychology watchers complain about the lack of consensus concerning the very object or referent of their discipline. However, psychology is not unique in this regard. Thus, some biologists are not sure whether it behooves them to study the chemistry of biomolecules such as DNA. Many chemists count thermodynamics as their own but on the other hand are apt to surrender to physicists when the latter claim that the whole of chemistry is nothing but a chapter of physics. Even in physics, the oldest and most powerful of the factual sciences, there are some spirited disputes about what it really is about. Thus, whereas most physicists hold that physics happens to be the study of physical things, others (the followers of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory) deny that there are autonomous things, and claim that physics studies what appears to observers—that is, appearances. And a few go as far as to hold that the quantum theory cannot be understood unless it includes the human mind—which, if true, would render physics indissolubly linked to psychology. However, none of these controversies prevents the discussants from going about their business: The uncertainties concerning the proper objects of study certainly affect the way science is taught and philosophized about, but it hardly touches mainstream research.