Historical leads for theory construction in psychology

Abstract

This chapter contains a commentary to the historical coverage of the issue of agency by Roger Smith and Luca Tateo, and introduces the need to use history of psychology as the basis for future theoretical advancements in the field (rather than a “museum of old ideas”). The habitual treatment of history in textbooks along the lines of “history and systems” is deemed inappropriate as it juxtaposes opposite ideas in a mutually exclusive way. The question—where does agency start—is addressed. It can be solved through analogy with the biological notion of “stem cells” we can posit the existence of the most basic ideas of the self-reflexivity of human beings: I AM, I WILL, I NEED, I WANT. In terms of their relations, we can set up the basic structure of their relationships. Psychology has historically concentrated on the I AM part under the disguise THEY ARE. The researcher has been, likely to be, left out of the study of the psyche, in favour of the study of some others (“THEY” = “subjects” or “research participants”). The agency of the researcher him-/herself is traditionally downplayed—even if it is actually the central trigger of all data through the construction of any method of investigation. The goal of the researcher is to make sense of him-/herself (I AM), yet the evidence through which such understanding can be reached is alien to him or her (plural: THEY ARE is turned into generic singular S/HE IS, yet maintaining the distance from I AM). Agency cannot be successfully introduced into scientific psychology unless the sequence of helical transition {I AM THEY ARE I AM} becomes exemplified. Agency is presented as a temporally located concept.