Comment

Positivism, Quantification and the

Phenomena of Psychology
Jack Martin
Simon Fraser University

Abstract. While in general agreement with Michell’s (2003) observations,

arguments and positions, I believe two considerations might help to
contextualize his piece further. First, it is important to note just how
widespread have been psychologists’ misunderstandings of positions and
arguments in the philosophy of science, and what this says about the
disciplinary isolation of psychology. Secondly, despite some common
misunderstandings amongst qualitative researchers in psychology, there are
good reasons for psychologists to resist both the quantitative imperative
and the positivists’ overly narrow construal of philosophy of science. These
reasons relate to important, non-quantifiable characteristics of many
psychological phenomena. Nonetheless, Michell’s article is a timely re-
minder to guard against the excesses and limitations that attend any version
of ‘methodolatry’, quantitative or qualitative.
Key Words: philosophy, positivism, psychology, quantification, science

Joel Michell (2003) provides an excellent example of how important a

relevant history of ideas can be to an informed understanding of contem-
porary debates concerning psychological inquiry. Michell, correctly in my
view, reminds us that it is a mistake to identify positivism with particular
scientific research methods such as the use of quantitative measures and
statistical analyses. A positivist is not committed to any particular method-
ology, requires a theoretical explanation that goes beyond establishing
relationships between variables, and, while regarding subjective procedures
as weak, does not necessarily regard ethnography, case study and other
qualitative methods as subjective in any pejorative sense, especially in the
social sciences. Moreover, while often depicted as assuming an absolute
reality to which appropriate research methods provide privileged access,
many positivists are perhaps best portrayed as instrumentalists who actually
oppose the realist interpretation of science. Of course, any potential alliance
between the positivists’ antirealism and the constructivism endorsed by

Theory & Psychology Copyright © 2003 Sage Publications. Vol. 13(1): 33–38
[0959-3543(200302)13:1;33–38;030759]
34 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 13(1)

many contemporary qualitative researchers in psychology is undercut by the

rather different paths that these groups have taken towards their antirealism,
with positivists typically being much the more reluctant travelers along this
road.
Michell also presents a compelling case for maintaining that the quanti-
tative imperative—anathema to qualitative researchers in psychology—
reflects a long-standing pattern of belief in Western thought that dates back
to the Pythagoreans, and gathers considerable force with the accomplish-
ments of Enlightenment and modern natural scientists. I found his
interpretations of the role of schoolmen like Duns Scotus to be particularly
informative and convincing in this regard, especially with respect to soften-
ing the classical Aristotelian challenge of demonstrating how categorical,
non-extensive attributes ‘are numbers’. Apparently, after Duns Scotus and
Ockham, one really could be ‘a little bit in love’.
At any rate, there is no need to belabor what I believe Michell already has
done so well. What I do want to do in this commentary is two-fold. First, I
briefly want to show that it is not just some qualitative researchers in
psychology who seem to have misunderstood logical positivism, empirical
realism and other positions in the philosophy of science. Indeed, I think
that this is one area in which psychology as a whole has consistently
demonstrated an unfortunate tendency to isolate itself from highly relevant
scholarly activity that falls outside of its artificially narrow disciplinary
boundaries. Secondly, I want, again briefly, to elaborate Michell’s considera-
tion of important characteristics of many psychological phenomena that
make their quantification highly problematic and potentially misleading. In
doing so, I hope to remind readers that many qualitative researchers in
psychology have very good reasons for their methodological preferences.
Moreover, some of these reasons do indeed conflict with the analytic
empiricists’ (including positivists—see Hempel, 1979) exclusive concern
with the logical and systematic aspects of scientific theorizing and knowl-
edge claims to the exclusion of psychological, sociological and historical
aspects of science as a human undertaking.

Philosophy of Science for Psychologists

Michell certainly is correct to describe S.S. Stevens as an influential

middleman who significantly affected methodological thinking in psy-
chology by interpreting the writings of philosophers of science for a
receptive audience of psychologists. Indeed, Stevens and his Harvard
colleague E.G. Boring did much to create and solidify psychology’s
methodological consensus that emerged between 1930 and 1950, and in
MARTIN: POSITIVISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA 35

many ways has continued to the present day. Stevens envisioned a psy-
chology aimed at establishing exact functional relationships among carefully
specified experimental operations. For Stevens, and for subsequent gener-
ations of psychologists, the legitimacy of any psychological concept
depended on its being operationally defined in such a way as to reduce the
concept (even to equate the concept) to an objective observation base that
could be accessed by the entire psychological community. As Koch (1992)
has shown, such an approach to operationism contrasts dramatically and
profoundly with that proposed by the philosopher of science P.W.
Bridgman, whose views Stevens claimed to represent. In contrast, Bridgman
understood operations as cues that help us to seek and comprehend the
meaning of a concept, not to comprise or constitute such meaning. Because
Stevens joined the quantitative imperative to his rather crass approach to
operationism, he did much to ensure that psychology would come to be
characterized by many commentators as a pseudo-science that never quite
manages to study what it claims to be studying (Martin, 1996).
My intention here is not to suggest that Bridgman’s conception of
operational analysis equates to the logical positivists’ approach to the
analysis of empirical definition, much less to champion Bridgman’s particu-
lar approach. I simply want to provide yet another example of the way in
which psychology’s methodological consensus was based on selective
readings and misinterpretations of the writings of philosophers of science,
and a strategically eclectic blending of what remained with psychologists’
own home-grown notions of science and scientific procedure. The important
point is that it is not just qualitative researchers in psychology who have
misunderstood logical positivism, empirical realism and other philosophies
of science. Indeed, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the entire meth-
odological consensus that emerged in mainstream American psychology
during the early to middle parts of the 20th century (cf. Danziger, 1997)
depended on exactly such misunderstanding. Consequently, much of what
qualitative researchers in psychology are responding to is the rather crude
and inaccurate way in which positivism and various neopositivisms have
been portrayed within the psychological canon. Of course, this is not to
excuse qualitative researchers from the scholarly responsibility of ‘getting
things right’; it is only to indicate that they are indistinguishable from most
of their brethren in this regard.
And all of this continues at a time when most departments of psychology
in North America are placing even less emphasis on the history and
philosophy of psychology, and their relations to the broader history of ideas,
than the little they may have done in the past. Such ‘turning inward’ is
precisely what has contributed greatly to psychology’s unique brand of anti-
intellectualism, and is exactly what psychology and psychologists should
attempt to avoid at all costs.
36 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 13(1)

Non-quantifiable Characteristics of Psychological Phenomena

Psychological phenomena are meaningful, relational, non-extensive, inter-

active, socioculturally and historically constituted phenomena with moral
and political significance. All of these attributes of psychological phenom-
ena are non-quantitative. None of this is to deny that aspects/dimensions of
such phenomena can be constructed along quantitative lines (witness, for
example, the attitudinal measures pioneered by Thurstone and his student
Likert, as mentioned by Michell). However, when this is done, the result
typically is a ‘watering-down’ of the phenomena of interest and, as I
previously mentioned, with the predictable consequence of studying not
quite what one claims to be studying. Good critical, historical, conceptual,
interpretive and narrative research in psychology (all qualitative) clearly are
appropriate methods for many questions concerning, and inquiries into, such
phenomena. Moreover, positivism, even though it does not exclude
qualitative data and methods, certainly adopts a narrow concern with logical
and systematic aspects of scientific theorizing and knowledge claims that
prevents adequate analysis and attention to several of the attributes of
psychological phenomena I just have enumerated.
For example, as many theoretical psychologists have noted (e.g.
Cushman, 1995), much psychological research on self and agency has
suffered from a failure to recognize the extent to which these important
psychological phenomena are constituted within historical, sociocultural
traditions of human life. As such, they are replete with the moral and
political significance that necessarily attends everyday life with others.
Consequently, it is not just that many psychological phenomena are non-
extensive in either space or time in the manner of many physical phenom-
ena, or the related point that many such phenomena appear to be relational,
rather than substantive entities (cf. Fay, 1996), or even that they interact with
the categories used to study them in a way that most physical, natural
phenomena do not (cf. Hacking, 1999). In addition to this already instructive
list of differences between human and natural kinds that has direct bearing
on matters relating to the viability and advisability of the quantitative
imperative, the moral and political dimensions of psychological phenomena
require a kind of critical study that must include, but go beyond, the
positivists’ concern with logical and systematic matters internal to scientific
theorizing, claims and warrants.
Such study must delve into, and attempt to lay bare, basic conceptual
commitments such as conceptions of evidence, standards of significance and
the social positioning of inquiry and inquirers with respect to other in-
vestigators, audiences and participants in research. Some of the important
issues relating to the latter point include considerations of who is acknowl-
edged as an expert authority and the bases for such acknowledgement;
whose concerns are paramount and whose are perhaps disregarded; and how
MARTIN: POSITIVISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENA 37

such imbalances might constrain and permit (perhaps promote) various kinds
of relationships and actions. These are not matters internal to psychological
research programs in the manner of the positivists’ logical analysis and
rational reconstruction of the meanings of scientific terms, sentences and
theories. The fact that the concerns of critical inquiry into sociocultural,
moral and political dimensions of psychological research resist quantifi-
cation in many ways is not the most important point here, even if positivists
might agree with such a judgment. What is vitally important, and what I
believe many qualitative researchers are attempting to champion, is
an explicit acknowledgement that psychological phenomena are nested in
historical, sociocultural, moral and political practices and significances
in such a manner as to resist positivistic notions of objectivity and narrow
rationalism as entirely internal to science.

Conclusion
Having said all of this, there is always the danger that, in ignorance of the
specific content and limitations of empirical analytic approaches to psycho-
logical science and inquiry, and with a misplaced sense of being different
from (and superior to) positivistically inclined thinkers whom they mis-
understand, some qualitative researchers in psychology might incline toward
their own versions of ‘methodolatry’ and hubris. Consequently, articles like
Michell’s are welcome reminders to those of us who are positively inclined
toward qualitative methods to be self-critically vigilant with respect to the
commitments and assumptions implicit in our inquiries. If inquiry practices
are misunderstood, these commitments and assumptions may be difficult to
detect. The adoption of qualitative methods in psychology is no guarantee
that researchers will not fall prey to well-known difficulties associated with
the adoption of untenable forms of objectivism and rationalism, even while
championing qualitative methods in the face of the quantitative imperative.
Empiricism is not exhausted by quantification. Only by understanding what
positivism and other philosophies of science reasonably can be interpreted as
sanctioning with respect to inquiry practices and theories can we carry
forward a kind of conversation about such matters that is likely to enhance
psychological inquiry in ways that are appropriately self-critical and open to
alternative possibilities.

References
Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history
of psychotherapy. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Danziger, K. (1997). Naming the mind: How psychotherapy found its language.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Fay, B. (1996). Contemporary philosophy of social science: A multicultural
approach. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
38 THEORY & PSYCHOLOGY 13(1)

Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what? Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.
Hempel, C.B. (1979). Scientific rationality: Analytic vs. pragmatic perspectives. In
T.F. Geraets (Ed.), Rationality to-day (pp. 292–304). Ottawa: University of
Ottawa Press.
Koch, S. (1992). Psychology’s Bridgman vs. Bridgman’s Bridgman. Theory &
Psychology, 2, 261–290.
Martin, J. (1996). The ‘top ten’ problems of psychology. History and Philosophy of
Psychology Bulletin, 8(1), 4–10.
Michell, J. (2003). The quantitative imperative: Positivism, naı̈ve realism and the
place of qualitative methods in psychology. Theory & Psychology, 13, 5–31.

Jack Martin is Burnaby Mountain Endowed Professor at Simon Fraser

University. His research interests are in the theory and history of psy-
chology and applied psychology, especially with respect to agency, self
and personhood. His publications include The Construction and Under-
standing of Psychotherapeutic Change (Teachers College Press, 1994), The
Psychology of Human Possibility and Constraint (SUNY Press, 1999, with
Jeff Sugarman) and Psychology and the Question of Agency (SUNY Press,
2003, with Jeff Sugarman and Janice Thompson). He currently is President
of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Theoretical and
Philosophical Psychology. Address: Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser
University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6. [email: jack_martin@sfu.ca]