Ours Is to Reason Why

Abstract

When Rychlak first raises the distinction between efficient and final causes in the context of modern psychology, the reader is led to expect a new and important distinction necessitated by the nature of the phenomena which are specific to the purview of the science of psychology. It is both startling and disappointing, then, to have the chapter conclude by saying, in effect, if only psychology would be more like physics, then possibly it might achieve true scientific status. This rather distinct echo of turn-of-the-century American psychologizing is updated by Rychlak in his suggestion that this early belief was, in principle, correct but that it was tied to a too primitive concept of what physics was. In essence, then, he says that if psychologists will simply grasp the scientific basis for modern physics, and then follow the appropriate rubrics, we will finally achieve scientific respectability.