Abstract

BUCHER, Richard. Psicologia científica: realidade ou mito?. Psicol. cienc. prof. [online]. 1981, vol.1, n.1, pp. 11-37. ISSN 1414-9893.

In the centennial year of the founding of the first psychological laboratory, cientific psychology is questioned from an epistemological perspective with respect to its theoretical and methodological foundations and its ideological or "mythical" implications. The repeated crises of this psychology are a testimony to its deep uneasiness which is related to artificial enthronement, its insufficient and unilateral definitions, and the discrepancy between psychological science and experience. The historical context of the establishment of psychology as a science is reviewed in a critical analysis of its positivist premises of abstraction, objectivity, and quantification. These, when transposed from the exact sciences to the study of man, are useless for investigating the psychological and anthropological meanings of his experience. A "negative psychology" must explain man's negativ and irrational experiences, like mythical thought that illustrates his attempt to dominate and represent this irrationality and its contradictions, denied by the scientist. Finally,the need for epistemologizing positivist psychology and for a reconsideration of its positions and scientific pretentions is emphasized.

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