Fourth Principle: Towards a General Psychology

Abstract

The historical-philosophical foundations underlying contemporary psychological theoretical-methodological assumptions is grounded on the articulation of a double pronged point of view about psychology as a modern science: the genesis of novel human sociocultural experiences and the genesis of psychological ideas about these experiences. A combined analysis of historical-cultural and philosophical views is relevant considering that psychological theories and methods cannot be automatically applied to empirical facts or data. A fact only exists within a conceptual framework, they are produced or constructed by the researcher, who belongs to a specific scientific community. Psychological theories and systems come from a two-fold concern of the empirical sciences, swinging between general laws to specific events. A task for the contemporary psychologies consists in gradually including new experiences in their conceptual developments. However, which type of psychology could be consistent in the contemporary society, where populations with distinct ways of life coexist? A possible answer can be achieved from an ethical standpoint that includes new subjects, their words and thought systems, in theory and method construction. New paths of subjectivation coexist with the fissured ethos of modernity and the different traditions worldwide are not late versions of closed, pre-modern societies, destined to fade away or integrate into the modern project. This apparently obvious assertion may open space for new psychological reflections and a complexification of the field.