The Psychological Record, 1969, 19, 515·518.

COMMENTS AND QUERIES:

ON THE REDUCTION OF PSYCHOLOGY TO PHYSICS

Ideally, all scientific enterprises should be comparable in general

design, and compatible in operation. This equivalence, however, has
not yet been attained by all the disciplines. For example, throughout
much of its history psychology has had to struggle to gain admission
to the confederation of the sciences. In exact proportion to the venera-
tion of physics, psychology as the custodian of the psyche has rightly
been disparaged. Consequently a number of psychologists have striven
to demonstrate that their discipline is not inferior to the other sciences,
on the basis that it is really not what it is presumed to be, but some-
thing else, either biology or physics. Hence they have supported, if
not invented, a reductionistic philosophy. In this brief note we examine
that version of reductionism which proposes to transmute psychology
into physics.
Psychologists certainly deserve praise for wishing to save their
discipline from commerce with psychics. But can this be done by re-
nouncing the basic rule of science to describe particular events upon
no other ground than their unique organization, mode of occurrence,
and relation to other events? How can we ignore the fact that specific
things and events are refulgent with particularity? May the chemist
overlook the variance in the haemaglobin protein as it is found in the
pig, rat, rabbit, ox, and human organism?1 However true it may be that
every event constitutes a specialized system of occurrences abstracted
out of a giant matrix of similar and dissimilar happenings, still each
particular concatenation of contingencies maintains its own identity.
To what can psychological events be reduced - to mechanics, thermo-
dynamics, electromagnetics, or some sort of radiation? It is significant
that psychological reductionists do not spell out the exact transforma-
tion of their discipline to physics.
To promote the scientific candidacy of their discipline psycholo-
gists would be better advised to show that psychology is different from
physics rather than reducible to it. Is not the multiplication of specialized
guilds of work an important indicator of scientific progress, since the
basic differentiation of the unit sciences rests upon the fundamental
variation of things and events? Are not these gross variations reasonably
if conventionally symbolized by such class names as the mathematical,
the inorganic, the organic, the psychological, and the anthropological
1 See Baldwin, E., The nature of biochemistry, 1961, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, (2nd ed.),
p.15.
516 COMMENTS AND QUERIES

sciences? More specific event variations are illustrated by the botani-

cal and zoological fractionation of biology to reach down to such
subclass disciplines as anatomy, physiology, genetics, embryology, eco-
logy, and ethology. Similar subdivisions are present, of course, in
astronomy, chemistry, physics, and psychology.
Of interest here is the fact that biologists now propose to reject
the traditional two-fold classification of plant and animal kingdoms
in favor of a four or five-fold system of kingdoms, for example, Monera,
Protista, Plantae, Fungi, and Animalia. 2 Similarly a biochemist remarks,
"Concurrently with its expansion, biochemistry has itself begun to
fragment, so that its practitioners refer to themselves as enzymologists,
molecular biologists, neurochemists, even mitochondriologists. 3
We venture the suggestion that the hyphenation of the sciences
such as astrophysics, physiological psychology, geophysics, electrobiology,
biochemistry, biophysics, and so on, as well as the entire concept of
interdisciplinary and cooperative science are indicators of the in-
violability of the specific structures and qualities of things and events.
Just as in studying digestion the chemist and the physicist cooperate
with the biologist without driving out the anatomist, the physiologist,
the evolutionist, and the geneticist, so in psychological investigation
a number of coworkers add their bits to an understanding of particular
types of behavior. While studying perceiving behavior, the psychologist
must cooperate with the physicist (nature and effect of light and air
media), the chemist (composition of stimulus objects, electrochemical
processes in neural conduction, structure of visual substances), the bio-
logist (cellular and organ structures and functions), the mathematician
(geometry of space, metrology, statistics), to suggest only the most
obvious interdisciplinary participation.
If the foregoing is even partially valid we may draw the conclusion
that every science is unique and relatively independent though the
data of each remain coordinated with but untrammeled by those of
any other specialty. Every kind of datum is authentic and significant.
True, some events are more complex than others and hence more dif-
ficult to know and describe. But this is only an occupational hazard.
There is, however, no occasion to reduce one kind to another. As a
matter of fact most types of psychological events are more readily
approachable than those of many other sciences. Ponder the plight (or
the privilege) of the astronomer who determines the central temperature
of the sun to be fourteen million degrees K, or the galactologist whose
time scale ranges to about 1011 years and some of whose distances must
be measured in terms of megaparsecs (106 parsecs) each parsec itself
measuring 3 x 1012 kilometers. Again the psychologist unlike the physi-

2 See Whitaker, R. H. New concepts of kingdoms of organisms, Science, 1969, 163, 150-160.

3 See Rose, S., The chemistry of life, Harmondsworth, Pengnin, 1966, p. 13.
 COMMENTS AND QUERIES 517

cist is untaxed with the labor and expense of pursuing protons and neu-
trons with gigantic machines. Furthermore, while the embryologist is
halted before the problem of how the fertilized cell becomes an in-
tricate organism, the developmental psychologist is only socially ham-
pered in his experiments to produce a prescribed personality.
Is it reasonable to reduce such familiar behavioral events as per-
ceiving, that is differentiating objects and their qualities, to biological
reflexes, to say nothing of baptizing them as physics? The same question
may be asked about attending, feeling, reasoning, and so on. Not only
must the psychologist deal with such behaviors as they occur, but
he is not faithful to his task when he substitutes lame analogies for
them as when their neural components are likened to a telephone
switchboard, or when complex remembering behavior is analogized as
the storage and retrieval of a computer.
Because of the patent vulnerability of reductionism it is of interest
to ask how its proponents attempt to justify that doctrine. There are
two outstanding arguments. One is that reducing psychology to physics
helps to dispose of obvious mentalistic constructs, for example, "cogni-
tive maps," "sign gestalts," "psychic distance," and the like. Apparently
physics is valued because it concerns itself with confrontable things
and events. Then why should not the psychologist do likewise and
deal with psychological events as they are observed? Why prescribe
a needless, severely toxic, universal remedy to cure a local malignancy
that can be treated effectively otherwise?
The other argument is that reductionism makes for the unity of
science and the similarity of descriptive language. But is not the unity
of science a metaphysical problem? What unifies the sciences other
than following the rules of observation and investigation as they per-
tain to the particular events belonging to given sciences? And as to the
uniformity of language, is it not a misinterpretation of the function of
scientific language to regard it as anything other than a mode of re-
ferring to actual and ascertainable occurrences and qualities of things,
howsoever different? What is the value of a leveling language if it
imposes an identity where diversity actually prevails?
The farther we analyze reductionism the more apparent it becomes
that it is a metaphysical enterprise. Now since metaphysics is a matter
of personal attitudes and beliefs and not scientific investigation, our
understanding of reductionism is enhanced by glancing at some of
the grounds for promoting this type of autistic construction. We con-
sider the following three, 1. the insinuation of a dualistic Weltanschuung,
2. the overevaluation of one's own type of work, and 3. the unwarrant-
able reverence of physics.
1. It is apparent that reductionists reflect insinuation by the priestly
dichotomy of the universe into the physical and nonphysical or mental,
and wish to supress the latter. However, those who stand firmly within
518 COMMENTS AND QUERIES

the boundaries of occurring events see clearly the fallacy of reducing

one facet of dualism to the other when both are fabulous constructions.
2. Evident, too, is the fact that reductionists are influenced by
an undue glorification of their own type of work. We are not surprised
when those who specialize in electrically recording organic changes
(EKG's, GSR's, EEG's) look upon electrical and physiological data as
the ultimate realities of psychological behavior. They, then, advocate
the reduction of emotions (feelings) to energy mobilization, while the
great mass of adustmental behavior including thinking, reasoning,
perceiving, learning, speaking, remembering, composing, painting, danc-
ing are converted to such physiological states as hormonal, nutritional,
temperature, and respiratory conditions. It may also be said of such
theorists that they are frequently overimpressed by physical and chemi-
cal apparatus and so incline toward technological proficiency rather
than to the elucidation of confronted events.
3. There are good reasons for admiring physics, for its achieve-
ments are outstanding and it has the great advantage of profiting directly
and immediately from advances in technology. Aside from its con-
quests in its own domain it supplies instruments for many other sciences
including psychology. And yet the claim of physics to sovereignty over
psychology or any other science cannot be sustained. The behavior of
dynamos, cathode tubes, moving particles, and so on is certainly im-
portant, interesting, and useful, but are not the same values attributable
to the behavior of human and other organisms? Moreover, as an ad-
vanced modem discipline, physics does not lack deficiencies. There
are many difficulties of observation and explanation. Uncertainties
abound in physics, and mysticism is rampant when we consider the
doctrines of such writers as Jeans, Bohr, Eddington, Bridgman, and
many others. Here looms up a great paradox, psychologists look for
a model of science in phYSiCS, while physicists seek a rock of ages
in the transcendentalism of spiritistic sensations, and the solipsism
of the individual psyche.
OBSERVER