Psychology's Subject

Abstract

In this article the author aims to highlight or spotlight psychology's subject, that is, who (or perhaps even what) psychology purports to inquire about. I will show how the milestones in modern psychological thinking constitute psychology's subject and note the absence of the lived-body and our historicity in theories of the person.• Die doel van die artikel is om die subjek van sielkunde te belig, dit is, wie (of miskien selfs wat) die sielkunde aanvoer dit bestudeer. Ek sal wys hoe die mylpale in modeme sielkundige denke die subjek van die sielkunde daarstel, en ek sal die aandag vestig op die afwesigheid van die deurleefde-liggaam en ons geskiedkundigheid in teoriee oor die persoon.

What is it That One Knows When One Knows ‘Psychology’?

“…Rorty would like us to give up a quest for grounds, a theory of knowledge and other such 'conversation stoppers' and move onto something more worthwhile such as drawing together in conversation about how to cope. Whether this is even a tenable move given the very groundlessness of our positions according to Rorty is not at issue here (Craig, 1995(Craig, , 1997. I do, however, want to consider certain milestones in the debate about knowing and knowledge from Descartes to the present, because these inform our discussion of what it is to have knowledge.…”

“…In what follows I foreground our bodiliness, other-relatedness and selfrelatedness as three aspects of our identities and, as such, the three faces of a non-psychic conception of ourselves-a conception which invites both science and stories to the game of life. I believe that it is through the interlinking of our bodiliness, other-relatedness (or sociability) and selfrelatedness (or personhood) that our dynamic identities as unique individuals are established and maintained (this is also taken up in Craig, 1995Craig, , 1997Craig, , 1998. Of the three, we give our bodiliness the lion's share because it is through our bodiliness that we are literally placed separated from each other and singly in a particular way in the world: to know and be known.…”

“…(p. 148) This is also a caricature of that previously mentioned conception of the self inaugurated by Descartes: the self-transparent, autonomous subject at the centre of things. Additionally, the ghost inside our bodies, the psyche, and our supposed method of accessing the contents of our own minds, introspec-tion, provided psychology with arguably its most clearly defined subject matter (Craig, 1995) and method. Furthermore, it is specifically this conception of the study of the person which we attempted to overcome in the previous section.…”