Psychologists Caught: A Psycho-logic of Psychology

William Glassman is a professor of psychology at Ryerson Polytechnical
University in Toronto.

In Psychologists Caught, Lewis Brandt provides an analysis of the discipline of psychology, but also of its participants. Unlike many works in the philosophy of science, it concerns the ethics and values of researchers as well as their assumptions and methods — hence the subtitle. Others before him have suggested that science is not value-free (notably Watson, Kuhn, and Persig in recent years), but Brandt’s work is unusual in focussing on psychology, using a mutual analysis of various approaches.

Born in Germany, educated in Switzerland and the United States (and now teaching at the University of Regina), fluent in several languages, Brandt has a broad perspective, which he combines with a strong moral sense. Since he is basically a phenomenologist, he starts by examining the relation between language and experience, and between theoretical frameworks and their contents. He then extends this to an analysis of five major approaches to psychology: psychoanalysis, behaviorism, Piagetian genetic analysis, Gestalt-phenomenology, and dialectical-materialism. Not everyone will be happy with his categories: physiological and animal research are banished (Brandt is only concerned with the human psyche), cognition is used as a superordinate term but ignored with regard to current trends, and behaviorism is used to refer to any experimental methodology (including social psychology!). Despite any objections to these categories (and Brandt would likely be the first to say other classifications are possible), the substance of his analysis remains intact.

Because each chapter uses a different evaluative framework, the book is not always easy reading. Generally, readers with a broad knowledge of psychology and with fluency in German will have an advantage. Even so, the issues he raises are worth considering, as are some of his insights. For example, in discussing Milgram’s work on obedience, Brandt draws a parallel between the actions of the researcher and those of his subjects. In both cases, an experimenter was subjecting another person to stress, in the name of science. If Milgram was willing to do so, Brandt notes, why wouldn’t he expect his subjects-as-experimenters to do so?

At other points, Brandt’s analysis falters. This is most evident in his treatment of the behaviorist category. By first stating that behaviorism ignores consciousness, and then equating all experimental work with behaviorism, he engages in a kind of solipsistic reasoning which precludes serious debate. In the end, this is a complex and significant work, alternately fascinating and frustrating — but one which deserves a wide audience.