HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY AND THE

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
1, 2

K. B. MADSEN
Institute of General Psychology
The Royal Danish School ofEducational Studies
Copenhagen

INTRODUCTION
Ihope that you will permit me to start with a personal confession.
My primary interest is &dquo;philosophy of science,&dquo; or rather Metascience
in the broadest sense, and my main work has been the comparative
study of psychological theories-especially theories of motivation
(Madsen, 1968, 1971). In connection with these studies, I have become
interested in humanistic psychology, especially in the philosophy be-
hind humanistic psychology. After some doubts and ambivalent at-
titudes toward humanistic psychology, I am now convinced that it
represents a new and broader philosophy of science, and that human-
istic psychology shares in a &dquo;revolution&dquo; in the philosophy of science
with other philosophical trends of European origin. As I see it, this new
emerging philosophy of science is the product of a long development
of the psychologists conception of his own science. Therefore, it is
my intention to trace this development of the psychologists philosophy
of science and to discuss some problems connected with this modern
philosophy of science.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY
CLASSICAL EMPIRICISM
At the time psychology started its existence as an independent science,
the dominant theory of knowledge and science was classical empiricism
1
Paper delivered at the International Conference on Humanistic Psychology,
Amsterdam, August 27-29, 1970.
2
Requests for reprints should be addressed to Professor K. B. Madsen, Royal
Danish School of Educational Studies, Institute of General Psychology, 10 Em-
drupvej. DK-2400, Copenhagen NV Denmark.
1

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 (or &dquo;positivism&dquo; as it is also called). As you know, this philosophy
regarded observation as the main source of knowledge, and the ideal
of scientific knowledge was at that time the experimental, natural sci-
ences. As a young science, psychology had to accept this ideal and try
to keep up with the natural sciences in order to gain independence and

prestige as a &dquo;real&dquo; science. Therefore, the classical experimental psy-

chology of Wundt and others was purely descriptive science, and the
task of psychologists was to describe observations of psychological
phenomena or consciousness, and perhaps, to formulate empirical
&dquo;laws&dquo; about the relationships between these phenomena. But every
attempt to construct explanatory hypotheses or theories was regarded
as &dquo;unscientific,&dquo; because it reminded psychologists of the philos-

ophy from which they had just gained independence, and therefore
they attacked such theories in an &dquo;adolescent&dquo; way. This narrow-
minded empiricism dominated the whole classical period until the
First World War, and after this time empiricism still dominated
American behaviorism and, to some extent, Gestalt psychology.
Freud was the first great psychologist who developed a psychology
going beyond this positivism. As you know, he invented or constructed
a psychological model, the so-called &dquo;lenze-model,&dquo; in 1900 to explain
the phenomena of dreams. This was so great a step in the development
of psychological thinking that for a long time it was rejected by most
psychologists as unscientific. But after the First World War, there was
a new philosophical climate, which facilitated the acceptance of psy-

choanalytic theory-namely, the appearance on the scene of logical

empiricism (or &dquo;logical positivism&dquo;).
LOGICAL EMPIRICISM

Contrary to classical empiricism, the new logical empiricism also ac-

cepted another source of knowledge-namely, &dquo;logical thinking&dquo; in
the broadest sense, especially mathematics and mathematical theories
applied to other sciences. But it was still empiricism, not rationalism,
for empirical observations, experiments, etc. were conceived of as a
foundation-both the starting point and the testing-basis for scientific
knowledge.
This philosophy of science gained widespread acceptance among
American psychologists-perhaps more than among any other group
of scientists. Thus, the leading Neo-Behaviorists-like Tolman, and
Hull-contributed to the almost complete acceptance of this philoso-
phy of science by psychologists in the so-called &dquo;Age of Theories&dquo;3
from about 1930 to 1960.
After the Second World War, it was accepted that scientific knowl-
3 The term "Age of Theories" was first used by Sigmund Koch in his Psychology:
A Study of a Science (New York: McGraw-Hill, Vol. III, 1959).

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edge was both description of facts and laws, as well as hypothetical
explanations using hypothetical constructs or models. Thus, the &dquo;di-
mension of knowledge&dquo; was expanded in these two levels of abstrac-
tion in a scientific theory: the descriptive level, and the hypothetical
level were now accepted. A third level of abstraction, which I suggest
calling the &dquo;Metalevel,&dquo; has been added in the recent past.
The New Emerging Philosophy of Science
Since the Second World War, and especially during the last decen-
nium, a whole new metascience has been developed and, as a part of
this, a new philosophy or theory of science. It is just in the beginning
stages and has therefore not yet gained a universally accepted name.
But the main thesis in this theory of science is that scientific theories
are part of the whole cultural context, and are
especially influenced
by the dominant, contemporary philosophy of science, which guides
scientific research and forms the conceptual frame in which scientific
theories are constructed. Thus, every scientific theory has its philo-
sophical part or &dquo;metatheory&dquo; in the broadest sense of this word.
A part of this metatheory has always been accepted in scientific
productions-even in very technical, experimental reports, namely,
the methodological principles or argumentations which are customarily
explicitly formulated in the papers in psychological journals.
Another part of the metalevel of a scientific theory comprises the
metatheoretical principles, in the narrowest sense of this word: i.e.,
the principles about theory construction, explanations, models, etc.
Such principles have often-even in the logical empiristic period-
been explicitly formulated in the introductory chapters to important
theoretical works like Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (Tol-
man, 1932); Principles of Topological Psychology (Lewin, 1936); and
Principles of Behavior (Hull, 1943).
But the current view, which it seems will soon be accepted, is that
an important part of a scientific theory is a philosophical section con-

taining the philosophical presuppositions of that theory. Thus, a com-

plete psychological theory may-and should-contain explicit formu-
lations of the thesis about the psychophysical, or &dquo;Mind-Body Problem&dquo;
because the psychologists philosophy of the psychophysical problem
greatly influences the &dquo;surplus meaning&dquo; of his hypothetical constructs
and also his choice of methods and data-language (both behavioral and
phenomenological). Therefore, this part of his philosophy ought to be
explicitly formulated so it can be discussed, criticized and possibly re-
vised. This was sometimes done in the logical empiristic period, but
not very often.
A completely new thing, which has been inspired by humanistic
psychology in the broadest sense, is the thesis that a complete psycho-

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logical theory should also contain explicit formulations concerning the
presupposed &dquo;Philosophy of Man.&dquo;
When I first met this thesis, my reaction was that it was unscientific:
a &dquo;Philosophy Man&dquo; could perhaps be a product of psychological re-
of
search, but a presupposed philosophy of Man was the product of a
speculative philosophy, and thus it did not have a legal place in a
scientific, psychological theory. I conceived of it as a kind of &dquo;cheating&dquo;
to put the result before the work, like schoolboys cheating in arithmetic
when they look at the list of results first and then calculate &dquo;backward.&dquo;
But a correspondence with the late Gordon W. Allport and espe-
cially a discussion with the late Abraham Maslow in Forum4 have con-
vinced me that every psychologist has a presupposed conception of
Man which may be unverbalized, but nevertheless influences his whole
psychological research and theory-construction-just as does his pre-
supposed theory of the &dquo;Mind-Body Problem.&dquo; Therefore, it is much
more fruitful for the development of psychology that such unverbalized

presuppositions are verbalized and explicitly formulated, because this

is the only way in which they can be criticized and perhaps revised.
As criticism is one of the most essential elements of scientific activity,
it is thus not unscientific but truly scientific to explicitly formulate all
the philosophical presuppositions of a psychological theory.
This change of my conception of science was not only determined
by Maslows argumentation, but was also influenced by other trends
in the philosophy of science. I refer especially to the so-called &dquo;Frank-
furt-school&dquo; of social philosophers with Jfrgen Habemass as one of
the contemporary leaders. This &dquo;Neo-Dialecticism&dquo;-which is not nec-
essarily a form of &dquo;Neo-Marxism&dquo;-has also stressed that science, at
least the social and humanistic sciences, is intimately related to the
whole philosophy of Man and Society and the whole value system
imbedded in this philosophy. But one of the consequences of this
new dialectical conception of science is that science, especially the
social and humanistic sciences, has criticism of society as one of its
main tasks.
In Europe this Neo-Dialecticism has been one of the main inspira-
tions for the so-called &dquo;Critical University movement&dquo; as well as for
students revolution.
For those of you who are not familiar with this European philos-
ophy, I can strongly recommend my own main source, a book by the
Swedish metascientist, Gerard Radnitzky: Contemporary Schools of
Metascience (1968). This book presents a critical analysis of logical
empiricism, dialectical philosophy and the so-called &dquo;hermeneutic&dquo;
Forum is a kind of "closed bulletin" for
4 correspondence and contact between
people selected by the international Center for Integrative Studies in New York City.
4

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philosophy of the humanistic sciences. Radnitzky has, in cooperation
with the Swedish psychoanalyst Carl Lesche and the German Philos-
opher K. O. Apel made an integration of the so-called &dquo;naturalistic,&dquo;
dialectical and hermeneutic conceptions of science, an integration
which fits in very well with the practices of psychoanalysis. I think
that this integrative philosophy may also be of considerable interest
to humanistic psychologists.
The basis for this integration of different ideals, conceptions, or
philosophies of science is the theory of science created by the Swedish
metascientist Hakon Tornebohm (1957, 1963), which has also been
one of the main inspirations for my work in the last decennium.
In the text that follows this historical survey of the development
of the psychologists philosophy of science, I shall try to formulate
the essential ideas contained in this new emerging philosophy of sci-
ence, and to represent these essential ideas in a name for this philos-
ophy. First, however, the exposition is summarized and presented
herein as Figures 1 and 2.

THE ESSENTIAL IDEAS OF THIS NEW PHILOSOPHY OF

SCIENCE

A NEW NAME?
The above exposition shows that empiricism has gradually been ex-
panded into a logical empiricism, which accepts the existence of two
levels of abstraction in scientific theories: the descriptive and the
hypothetical. And quite recently logical empiricism has been expanded
to include a third level: the metatheoretical. But is it still correct to
call this theory of knowledge and science &dquo;empirical&dquo;?
The answer to this question depends on the answer to another
question: Which of these three levels is the basic or most important
level of a scientific theory?

AN EXPANDED EMPIRICISM?
A modem &dquo;expanded&dquo; version of logical empiricism could be defended
by postulating that the descriptive level is the basic and most impor-
tant as it is the primary level. Science starts with observation and
builds the hypotheses and the metatheory on the foundation of descrip-
tions of observations. But is this conception of scientific research cor-
rect ? I do not think so. The modern history of science has demon-
strated that scientific research starts rather from the top level, the
philosophical part of the metalevel. Thus, Thomas Kuhn (1962) has
convincingly demonstrated that scientific research and theory are de-
termined by a prescientific or philosophical frame-of-reference, meta-
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FIGURE I The development of the psychologists theory of science repre-
sented as a dialectical spiral.

theory or &dquo;paradigm&dquo;-as he calls it. Every &dquo;school&dquo; has a specific

paradigm and in periods without schools, there is one dominating
&dquo;paradigm.&dquo;
Norwood Russell Hanson (1958) has demonstrated this with histori-
cal examples that scientific hypotheses are not constructed on the basis
of induction from empirical data. They are rather constructed by
abduction on the basis of combined empirical and nonempirical evi-
dence.

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FIGURE 2 The hierarchical structure of a theory. This diagram illustrates
the three strata of a scientific text: &dquo;M&dquo; = &dquo;M-level&dquo; or &dquo;Meta-stratum&dquo;;
&dquo;H&dquo; = &dquo;H-level&dquo; or &dquo;Hypothetical stratum&dquo;; &dquo;D&dquo; = &dquo;D-level&dquo; or &dquo;Descriptive
stratum.&dquo; The four arrows (1, 2, 3, 4) indicate that the top level influences the
formation of the next level, which in turn influences the bottom level. But
there is also a &dquo;feed-back&dquo; of influence from the D-level to the H-level and the
M-level (otherwise it would not be a scientific theory).

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 Furthermore, modern cognitive psychologists, like Piaget, claim
that the childs conception of the world is not primarily based upon
sensoric perception, but upon preestablished senso-motoric &dquo;schemata,&dquo;
which of course are revised upon the basis of perception.
The linguist, N. Chomsky (1968), proposes a similar theory-namely,
that the structure of languages predetermines our thinking and our
observations.

AN EXPANDED RATIONALISM?
Thus the evidence assembled from the history of science, cognitive
psychology, and linguistics reveals strong opposition to any form of
empiricism, whether narrow, logical, or expanded. Scientific theories
do not have their origins in empiricism. A scientific theory is not built
from the bottom, up (the descriptive level), but rather from the top,
down (the philosophical and metatheoretical level). But of course,
a scientific theory has to be empirically testable, and to be criticized
and revised upon an empirical basis. If there were no descriptive level
in a theory we should certainly not regard it as a scientific theory,
but rather as speculative philosophy.
Therefore, pure rationalism is just as narrow as pure empiricism.
But an expanded rationalism, a kind of empiristic rationalism-the
reverse of logical empiricism-is more defensible and would be more
in harmony with our metascientific knowledge about the growth and
organization of science. However, this name would also be too narrow,
as it would refer to only the two lowest levels in a scientific theory,
the descriptive and the hypothetical.
To find a more comprehensive and appropriate designation for this
modern philosophy of science, we might borrow an idea from Joseph
Royce, the founder and leader of the Center for Advanced Studies in
Theoretical Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
Royce has created a test of the so-called &dquo;psycho-epistemological pro-
file.&dquo; The basic idea is that every person has his own epistemology-
or theory of knowledge and science. And this epistemology is a com-

bination of three personality factors corresponding to parallel episte-

mologies. The three psycho-epistemological factors are &dquo;empiricism,&dquo;
&dquo;rationalism&dquo; and &dquo;metaphorism.&dquo; While the two first are well known
epistemological terms, the third is unusual. Metaphorism is the episte-
mology which emphasizes intuition as the main source of knowledge.
Therefore, this psycho-epistemological factor is, according to Royces
preliminary investigations, dominant in artists, religious thinkers, and
some humanistic scientists. Rationalism, which emphasizes thinking as
the main source of knowledge, is dominant in mathematicians and
theoretical physicists. Empiricism, which emphasizes perception as the
main source of knowledge, is dominant in chemists and biologists.
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 I have not been tested with Royces test, but should I guess about
the result, I should think that rationalism is the dominant psycho-
epistemological factor in my own personality. If I were to choose an
appropriate name for this epistemology (or rather theory of science)
which I think appropriately covers developments in modern meta-
science, then I should choose the combined label: &dquo;metaphoristic,
empiristic rationalism&dquo;-or, more succintly-&dquo;integrative rational-
ism.&dquo; I try, with this name, to describe an integrative philosophy of
science, the essence of which is that scientific hypotheses and theories
are products of thinking, but are inspired by the intuition formulated
in philosophy and other cultural factors, and tested by empirical
methods.
I hope that this attempt to integrate or synthesize can be a fruitful
basis for discussion among humanistic psychologists, as well as for
other psychologists and scientists.

REFERENCES

HANSON, N. S. Patterns of discovery. (Reprinted) Cambridge: University Press,

1965.
HULL, C. L. Principles of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1943.
KOCH, S. (Ed.). Psychology—A study of a science. New York: McGraw-Hill, Vol.
III, 1959.
KUHN, T. S. The structure ofscientific revolutions. Chicago and London: Chi-
cago University Press, 1962.
LEWIN, K. Principles of topological psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936.
MADSEN, K. B. Theories of motivation. (4th ed.) Copenhagen: Munksgaard,
1968.
MADSEN, K. B. Theories of motivation, in B. Wolman, (Ed.) Handbook of
psychology. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
RADNITZKY, GERARD. Contemporary schools of metascience. Göteborg: Scandi-
navian University Press, 1968.
TOLMAN, E. C. Purposive behavior in animals and men. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1932.
TÖRNEBOHM, H. Fysik och filosofi. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1957.
TÖRNEBOHM, H. Concepts and principles in the space-time theory. Stockholm:
Almquist & Wiksell, 1963.

AUTHOR
K. B. Madsen started as an elementary school teacher, then spent some
time as a school psychologist and later taught in a teachers training
college. His present position is that of Professor in General Psychology
at the Royal Danish School of Educational Studies, Copenhagen.
He has written several textbooks in the Scandinavian languages but
his main work is Theories of Motivation (first ed., 1959, fourth ed.,
1968. Spanish and Czech translations). He is about to finish a second
9

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volume called Modern Theories of Motivation. In addition, he has
written chapters for two American handbooks respectively edited by
R. B. Cattell and B. B. Wolman, both to be published in 1971.
He regards himself as a metascientific psychologist (or psychological
metascientist) concerned with developing the comparative study of
theories into a more exact science, for example, by the use of com-
puter programs.

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