METAPHILOSOPHY

Vol. 6 , No. 2, April 1975

THE RELEVANCE OF PSYCHOLOGY TO

EPISTEMOLOGY

SUSANHAACK

The appeal to psychology: an example

It is not uncommon for philosophers to appeal to psychology
in support of an epistemological theory. An instructive example
of such an appeal is to be found in Carnap’s Aufbau ([1927]). The
aim of this book is to do for empirical science what (Carnap
thought) Russell and Whitehead had done for mathematics-to
provide it, that is, with a foundation. In the logicist program all
statements of mathematics were to be expressed in purely logical
terms, and, ultimately, all theorems of mathematics were to be
derived from purely logical principles. Analogously, in Carnap’s
program, all statements of empirical science were to be expressed
in purely phenomenal terms, and, ultimately (although this goes
beyond anything attempted in the Aufbau), all laws of empirical
science were to be based on purely phenomenal statements.
Carnap described himself as giving a “rational reconstruction’’
of empirical science.
But Carnap intended to do more than simply investigate the
definability relations between phenomenal and scientific terms;
for he thought that, from the point of view purely of definability,
he might as well have started from a physicalist as from a
phenomenalist basis. He favored the phenomenalist on grounds
of epistemological priority. Whatever, exactly, epistemological
priority amounts to, the motivation which underlies the intro-
duction of the concept is clear enough. If one is undertaking a
foundationalist programme, trying, that is, to provide founda-
tions for a part of human knowledge, one naturally requires
that the statements which will form the basis have some kind of
epistemological virtue, that they should be, so to speak,
epistemologically better off than what is based upon them; and
hence, the terms in which the knowledge to be justified is ex-
pressed must have a correponding epistemological virtue.
Carnap, using the definition :
a is epistemologically prior to b = df. b is recognised via
recognition of a
161
162 SUSAN HAACK
took it to be reasonably obvious that psychological states are
epistemologically prior to physical objects, and that one’s own
psychological states, or, as he put it “autopsychological objects”,
are epistemologically prior to owner-neutral psychological states.
He had then to decide whether, among autopsychological objects,
to take concrete individuals, i.e. momentary cross-sections of ex-
perience, or repeatable universals, i.e. phenomenal properties, as
epistemologically prior. And at this point he appealed to the
work of the Gestalt psychologists as supporting the former
choice. This work, he thinks, shows that we recognize colors,
smells etc. only via recognition of whole, structured perceptions.
There are many difficulties in Carnap’s definition of epistemo-
logical priority,* and many difficulties in the argument that the
Gestalt psychologists’ discoveries show that Carnap’s elexes are
epistemologically prior. But-and this is my present concern-
there is also a very considerable disagreement about whether an
appeal to psychology is proper at all. There is, in fact, very con-
siderable disagreement, in general, about what the relation
between psychology and epistemology is, or ought to be. It is
this disagreement that I wish to investigate.

Structure of the Paper

Some writers, like Popper, take the view that epistemology is,
and should be, wholly distinct from, and independent of, psy-
chology. Others believe, like Piaget, that epistemology and
psychology are, quite properly, inextricably intertwined. My
sympathies, as the title of the paper indicates, are with the
latter opinion. And so it seems an appropriate procedure to
begin by discussing the arguments of those who insist on a
rigid separation of epistemology and psychology : the argument
from the distinctness of philosophy from science; the argument
from the definition of epistemology; the argument for the irrele-
uance of psychological data to questions of justification; and the
argument for the circularity of appeal to psychology in epistemo-
logy. I shall argue that none of these considerations is con-
clusive. I shall then offer some reasons in favor of the relevance
of psychology to epistemology, and finally some considerations
to show that, if its relevance is admitted, the appeal to psycho-
logy is not only permissible, but actually desirable.

*So many that Goodman, who in The Structure of Appearance ([1951]) chooses
qualia-repeatable universals-as basis, expressly rejects epistemological priority as a
motivation for this choice.
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 163
Part I
Arguments for the separation of epistemology and psychology.
The autonomy of philosophy argument
Some of those who insist on separating epistemology sharply
from psychology do so on the quite general grounds that philo-
sophy is distinct from science, and so, a fortiori, epistemology
from psychology. I shall call this view, following Stoothoff in
E19661, the “autonomy of philosophy” thesis.
Some adherents of this view make a sharp analytic I synthetic
distinction, and entrust philosophy with the task of seeking
synthetic truths. Hamlyn, who is also an autonomist, depends
rather on a different, though related, distinction, between con-
ceptual and empirical truth. Analytic truths, according t o
Hamlyn [1970], constitute only a degenerate subclass of the set
of conceptual truths : while the denial of an analytic truth results
in contradiction, the denial of a conceptual but not analytic
truth results in ungrammaticality (apparently in some “logical”
rather than strictly syntactical sense of ‘grammaticality’, a sense
Hamlyn derives from Wittgenstein). These non-degenerate con-
ceptual truths, according to Hamlyn, are both necessary and
informative; and the discovery of such truths is the business
of philosophy.
A clear statement of the consequences of his view for the
status of psychology vis & vis epistemology is to be found in
Hamlyn’s [1967]. The object of his paper is to distinguish the
logical (or, equivalently by his lights, the philosophical or
epistemological) from the psychological aspects of learning. And
Hamlyn insists that
. . . there are questions about learning which are not psycho-
logical questions-questions such as what learning is and what
is implied when it is said that someone has learned some-
thing. To answer such questions we have to clarify the con-
cepts which we employ in this sphere. . . . Investigations of
this kind are not so much a matter for the psychologist as for
the philosopher.
([19671, p. 24)
Hamlyn evidently also thinks that the philosopher’s conceptual
investigations have a certain priority over the psychologist’s
empirical investigations; for he argues, in the course of the
paper, that it is a necessary truth that the abstract is more diffi-
cult to learn than the concrete, and consequently, that Piaget’s
164 SUSAN HAACK

experiments supposedly confirming the hypothesis that children

acquire concrete operations before abstract ones, are simply
pointless. Why should one laboriously seek an empirical verifica-
tion of a logical truth? (I am reminded of Geach’s claim, in
[19651, that the temporal “logic” discoverable from ordinary
language shows relativity physics to be conceptually confused.
And cf. the views expressed about philosophy vis B vis psycho-
logy in his [1957].)
Although I have taken Hamlyn as my example, there are
numerous other exponents of this view-including Ryle, who
regards the job of the philosopher as “logical cartography”, and
Ayer, who in [1963] argues that-despite the preoccupation of
Locke and his philosophical successors with the study of the
mind-“philosophy is not the science of the mind”.
I suppose one might argue, against this conception of philo-
sophy, that it is not traditional, that the great philosophers (e.g.
Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkely, Hume, etc.) cer-
tainly did not confine themselves to the narrow sphere which
this conception allows them. Since so little of the work of these
writers would count as properly philosophical by autonomist
standards, this argument has some plausibility. But it would
inevitably be inconclusive, since it could be replied, that the fact
that the great philosophers concerned themselves with scientific
as well as with genuinely philosophical questions in no way
threatens the distinction between science and philosophy. Ayer
is quite as ready as Piaget to admit that sciences have grown up
within, and then emancipated themselves from, philosophy-see
119621 p. 82, and cf. Piaget [1970] p. 64-but unlike Piaget, he
does not think that this fact impugns the autonomy of philo-
sophy.
Or, again, one might argue that the autonomist conception
depends upon either an analytic I synthetic, or a conceptual I
empirical, distinction; and that the feasibility of the first of these
distinctions has been thrown into serious doubt by the work of
White, Quine et al., while the feasibility of the latter depends
on a notion of logical grammar which is, if anything, less clear
than that of synonymy. This argument is one with which I have
great sympathy, but it has the drawback of requiring rather a
strong, and controversial, premiss.
However, the autonomist position requires for its plausibility,
not only that a distinction be maintained between factual and
linguistic truths, but also that it be maintained in a form which
ignores the possibility of linguistic change. Even granted a dis-
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 165
tinction between “factual” and “linguistic” truth, an argument
appealing to the possibility that factual discoveries should
prompt linguistic changes can seriously damage the autonomist
case. One might concede, for example, that relativity theory
involves some linguistic novelty, without allowing that this
shows that relativity theory must, for “logical” reasons, be mis-
taken; it is only that the temporal idioms of ordinary language
are conditioned by pre-relativity physics. If even this much inter-
dependence between factual and linguistic truth is admitted, the
autonomist position loses much of its plausibility.
In what follows, therefore, I shall take it that the independ-
ence of epistemology from psychology cannot be established on
the basis of a generalized independence of philosophy from
science.*
The argument for the irrelevance of psychology to epistemology
properly so called
A sharp distinction between epistemology and psychology is
made, and a rationale for the distinction clearly stated, in
Reichenbach’s [19381. Reichenbach thinks of knowledge as a
sociological phenomenon, and believes, consequently, that
epistemology is, in a sense, part of sociology. But a distinct
part : for epistemology concerns itself solely with the internal
relations between those propositions which constitute know-
ledge, whereas sociology proper also concerns itself with external
relations between those propositions and, e.g., the class or social
status of their proponents. Although epistemology is concerned
with ‘the internal structure of knowledge’, i.e. “the system of
connections as it is followed in thinking” (p. 4), Reichenbach
particularly stresses that this doesn’t mean that epistemology
and psychology are to be identified :
There is a great difference between the system of logical
interconnections of thought and the actual way in which
thinking processes are performed . . . it would be, therefore,
a vain attempt to construct a theory of knowledge which is at
the same time logically complete and in strict correspondence
with the psychological processes of thought.
The only way to escape this difficulty is to distinguish care-
fully the task of epistemology from the task of psfchology.
(C1938l p. 5)
Epistemology considers “a logical substitute rather than real
processes”, or, as Reichenbach also puts it, borrowing a locution
*Further arguments against the autonomist view can be found in Stoothoff [1966].
166 SUSAN HAACK
from Carnap’s Aufbau, it gives a rational, not an historical,
reconstruction of knowledge. He also uses, in the same context,
a correlated distinction between questions of justification (an
epistemological task) and questions of discovery (a psychological
task). Reichenbach emphasises that once the distinction between
epistemology and psychology has been properly drawn it will be
apparent that that actual thinking doesn’t conform to it, is never
a pertinent objection to an epistemological construction, and,
that actual thinking does conform to it, never justifies an
epistemological theory.
In spite of the many and important differences between his
philosophical views and Reichenbach’s, Popper seems to take an
attitude to the relations between epistemology and psychology
which is very like Reichenbach’s.
In [19681 Popper distinguishes three “worlds”
(1) the world of physical objects,
(2) the world of mental states and
(3) the world of “objective contents of knowledge”,
i.e., propositions, theories, conjectures, proofs etc. This “third
world” is more Fregean than Platonic, since its contents are
rather propositional than conceptual. Although the contents of
the third world are described as “objects of knowledge”, they
include false as well as true propositions.
It is a dominant theme of this paper of Popper’s that it is
world (3) which is the proper concern of epistemology; indeed,
Popper claims that traditional epistemology has been unsuccess-
ful precisely because, and to the extent that, it has illegitimately
concerned itself with world (2) a t the expense of world (3).
Thus :
In upholding an objective third world I hope to provoke
those whom I call ‘belief philosophers’: those who, like
Descartes, Locke, Berkely, Hume, Kant, or Russell, are inter-
ested in our subjective beliefs, and their basis or origin.
. . .
Traditional epistemology has studied knowledge or thought
in a subjective sense-in the sense of the ordinary usage of the
words ‘I know’ or ‘I am thinking’. This, I assert, has led
students of epistemology into irrelevances; while intending to
study scientific knowledge, they studied in fact something
which is of no relevance to scientific knowledge.
([19681 p. 107)
Even if the details of this position are not too clear, the general
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY P 67
scheme can be put thus: the proper concern of epistemology is
the study of “scientific knowledge”. This is to be achieved only
by consideration of the logical relations between the propositions
etc. which are the content, or the object, of knowledge and belief.
It cannot be achieved by psychological investigation of the state
of belief or knowledge. Epistemology should be “without a
knowing subject”.
Popper’s insistence on the separation of epistemology and
‘psychology seems to be due, in part, to a fear that if episte-
mology allows itself to get entangled with psychology it
will inevitably fall into subjectivism. (Popper refers to “tradi-
tional epistemology” as “subjectivist” on e.g. pp. 108, 111, 114
and 115 of f19681.) This fear seems ill-founded, since psycho-
logical theories are not obviously less objective than theories in
other sciences; of course it is true that beliefs are held by a sub-
ject, but this does not make them subjective in any objection-
able sense.
I think it is clear, and important, that the separation of
epistemology from psychology achieved by Reichenbach and
Popper is not wholly the result of their definitions of the scope
of epistemology. These philosophers assign questions of justifica-
tion to epistemology, questions of genesis to psychology. But to
establish their separateness a further premiss is required,
namely, that information about the genesis of beliefs is irrele-
vant to questions about their justification. This assumption is
more explicit in [19591, when Popper distinguishes between
justification and discovery, and insists that the philosopher of
science should concern himself with the question, how scientific
hypotheses, theories etc. are justified, rather than with the
question, how they are thought up. (It follows, incidentally, that
the title, The Logic of Scientific Discovery is contradictory!)
Here too he criticizes writers who, according to him, have trans-
gressed this distinction, not only on the grounds that they have
thereby lapsed into subjectivism but also on the grounds that
they have concerned themselves with psychological (or socio-
Eogical) issues which are irrelevant to the really epistemological
issues.
Unfortunately, the matter is complicated by Popper’s use of an
overlapping distinction, between the discovery, on the one hand,
and the testing, on the other, of theories. It seems clear that how
scientists test their theories is quite as psychologicalI sociological
a question, as how they discover them. Yet Popper often writes
as though he supposes that whereas how scientists discover
168 SUSAN HAACK

theories is a purely psychological question, how they test them

is a philosophical, a logical, question. It would be better to say
that, given certain views about the logical relations between
theories and basic statements, certain consequences follow, not
about how scientists do, but about how they should, test
theories. So the picture is as follows:
world (3) vs world (2)
(logical relations (psychological relations
between) theories, between) beliefs
propositions etc.

justification discovery, test

normative how scientists

consequences- do behave
how scientists
should behave

PHILOSOPHY / PSYCHOLOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY

And the argument against the appeal to psychology would go

like this: the proper concern of epistemology is the study of
scientific knowledge, i.e. the logical relations between theories
and data; no amount of psychological evidence about how a
theory was thought up can possibly establish anything about
whether the theory is or isn’t justified, and so psychology is
irrelevant to epistemology. As Popper reports in [1972], he has
always laid
. . . great stress upon the distinction between two problems
of knowelge: its genesis or history on the one hand, and the
problems of its truth, validity, and ‘justification’ on the other
. . . questions of truth or validity, not excluding the logical
.
justification of the preference for one theory over another . .
must be sharply distinguished from all genetic, historical, and
psychological questions.
W 7 2 1 , p. 67)
Like Hamlyn, Popper attributes priority to epistemological
issues : psychological considerations are irrelevant to questions
of justification, but logical considerations can be relevant to
questions of psychology :
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 169
. . . . we epistemologists can claim precedence over the
genetecists : logical investigations of questions of validity and
approximation to truth can be of the greatest importance for
genetic and historical and even for psychological investiga-
tions. They are in any case logically prior to the latter type
.
of question . .
W721, p. 67)
The crucial issue now is whether good arguments can be pro-
vided for the irrelevance claim. In [1960] Popper gives two argu-
ments. The first is that the view that information about the
genesis of beliefs is relevant to questions about their justification
is associated with the thesis, which Popper quite rightly rejects,
that there are infallible sources of knowledge. However, although
it is certainly true that if there were infallible sources of know-
ledge, then questions of genesis would be relevant to questions
of justification, it does not follow that, since there are no such
infallible sources of knowledge, questions of genesis are not
relevant to questions of justification. This argument is incon-
clusive.
Popper’s second argument is that “the strange view that the
truth of a statement may be decided upon by inquiring into its
sources’’ (p. 18) rests upon a confusion of questions of truth with
questions of meaning, a confusion which he thinks is the inevi-
table consequence of “essentialism”. This argument fails for the
same reason as the first. Although, if all the fundamental prin-
ciples of the sciences described the true essences of things and
were true in virtue of the meanings of key terms, and if origins
determine the meaning of words, then questions of genesis
determine questions of truth, it does not follow that, if the
fundamental principles of science are not true in virtue of their
meaning, questions of genesis are not relevant.
So the independence of epistemology from psychology does
not follow merely from the definition of epistemology as con-
cerned with questions of justification; and the arguments given
for the further premiss, that questions of genesis are irrelevant
to questions of justification, are inconclusive. Of course, it will
require further argument to show that psychological information
is relevant.

The circularity argument

Other writers find another defect, more serious even than
irrelevance, in the appeal to psychology : circularity. This argu-
170 SUSAN HAACK

ment would apply to Carnap’s procedure as follows: If Carnap

seriously intends to provide foundations for science, must there
not be a begged question in his appeal to psychology, since psy-
chology is, after all, precisely one of the sciences to be justified?
The picture would be:
+Science (including psychology)
I-Aufbau +I
(A criticism much like this is sometimes made against Hume,
who, on one interpretation, offered, in default of a justification
of induction, a psychological explanation of the plausibility of
inductive arguments; which, according to some critics, requires,
and so, cannot non-circularly support, the concept of cause).
The circularity argument is used by Price, in 119321 p. 171, n.,
where he observes that use of psychological data presupposes
induction, the justification of which is one of the tasks of
epistemology. It is also, according to Kolakowski [1968] p. 141),
used by Husserl against Avenarius’ “principle of least action”
and Mach’s “economy of thought”.
It is clear, however, that this argument only applies to appeals
to psychology undertaken in the course of foundationalist pro-
grams. It does not rule out such appeal on the part of any less
optimistic epistemologies. This reply to the circularity argument
can be extracted from Quine’s emistemological work.
One of the issues with which Quine concerns himself in 119683
is the problem of the justification of induction. Now in this
matter, Quine thinks, we are really no further forward than at
Hume’s time. No work since Hume, according to Quine, has
avoided impalement on one or other of the horns of Hume’s
dilemma : that a deductive “justification” of induction must be
too strong, and an inductive “justification” circular. In view of
this unpromising situation Quine proposes that we give up try-
ing to justify induction, and retreat, instead, to explaining why
we find inductive arguments plausible. (According to Quine, this
is what Hume did too.) The title of Quine’s essay derives, in fact,
from this “retreat” to psychology.
Again, in [1963], when he is attempting to motivate a prefer-
ence for simple theories, Quine observes that, since simplicity
varies with the way a a theory is expressed, whereas truth can-
not, it will be hard to establish a straightforward correlation
between simplicity and truth. He proposes, instead, the thesis
that simple theories are more likely to be verified, because
human perceptual apparatus, and experimental design just are
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 171
such as to favor the simple outcome. This, again, is a retreat from
epistemological justification (of which Quine despairs) to psycho-
logical explanation.
It is, I think, of some importance that Quine regards appeal
to psychology as, in some sense, a retreat; in that it would have
been nice if our penchant for induction, or simplicity, could have
been justified, but, since it can’t, explaining it is better than
nothing. This attitude, I think, suggests the following view of the
alleged circularity of the appeal to psychology: if, in the course
of an attempt to give foundations for empirical science, an appeal
is made to psychology, that appeal is objectionably circular.
However, a justification of empirical science-in the sense of an
argument resting upon assumptions and using principles which
themselves either do not need, or can readily be provided with,
justification-is, Quine thinks, impossible. And once its impossi-
bility has been recognized, epistemology may turn to a more
modest, but more feasible, task-the explanatory task; and here
it may need, and is entitled to ask, the help of psychology.
Something like this position is also adopted by Pasch. He
agrees that the circularity argument has “a measure of credi-
bility”, but, if we are realistic about what epistemology can hope
to achieve, it is not conclusive:
. . . the proper attitude to take toward circularity is that
it is something empiricist philosophers must learn to live with.
Unless unquestioned assumptions are made somewhere along
the line, or unless some problems are solved by fiat, circularity
is unavoidable.
([1958], p. 151)
On this view, Carnap’s appeal to psychology is, indeed, vici-
ously circular. For Carnap is attempting a foundationalist pro-
gram. But, though the circularity objection may be used ad
hominem, it is not, in general, conclusive. It fails to apply, in
particular, to epistemologies not of a foundationalist kind.

Part I1
Arguments in favour of co-operation
The arguments against the relevance of psychology have been
shown to be inconclusive; but further argument is needed to
establish relevance.
It seems clear that sometimes information about the origin of
beliefs is regarded as bearing upon their justification. (“How do
172 SUSAN HAACK
you know?”-“I read it in The Times”, “I saw it happen” . . .
etc.). Even Popper (inconsistently) admits this. ([ 1961) p. 22).
But one can, although Popper fails to realize it, perfectly well
allow this much without supposing that such information con-
clusively establishes the truth of the beliefs in question-and
therefore, without supposing that The Times, or one’s perceptual
judgements, or whatever, are infallible. It is quite sufficient
that there be a presumption that they are reliable.* Information
about genesis is then not conclusive, but it is, in a weaker sense,
relevant to justification. (Goodman’s comments in [1955] pp. 61-4
on the justification of induction, could be thought of as a pro-
posal that we should understand ‘justification’ in a more modest
sense, in which information on genesis might constitute justifica-
tion).
It also needs to be said that Popper’s view about the scope of
psychology is unnecessarily narrow. Investigation of the genesis
of beliefs is not the sole task of psychology.
It also seems clear that other kinds of psychological data than
information about the origins of beliefs has a prima facie rele-
vance to epistemological questions. Such work as, for instance,
that reported in Gregory’s 119661, concerning the effect of
expectation upon perception, bears upon the plausibility of the
tabula rasa views of Hume or Locke-although once again, of
course, the reply that these were not strictly epistemological, but
properly speaking, psychological, views of Locke and Hume,
remains possible. (The interpretation of the data Gregory pre-
sents requires, I think, rather more sophistication than it re-
ceives, but this does not detract from its interest to epistem-
ology.)
If this much is admitted, a positive case can be made in favor
of co-operation. Powerful arguments of this kind can be found
in the work of Piaget.

The “you do it anyway so you might as well do it properly”

argument
Piaget regards the appeal to psychology as not merely proper,
but actually required. He wholly rejects the idea that philosophy
and psychology can, or should, be sharply demarcated. He thinks
it a mistake to suppose that philosophers do or should restrict
*In the case of judgements based on observation there is an argument, derived
from the fact that acquisition of observational language takes place in the presence
of appropriate stimulation, which supports this presumption of reliability. See Witt-
genstein 119691, e.g. 480, and Quine [1970].
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 173
themselves to “pure deduction”, or psychologists to “experi-
mental reality” [1970], p. 64). One can distinguish philosophy
from science, he thinks, only on the following, admittedly vague,
criterion : that philosophers tend to study knowledge as a whole,
whereas scientists restrict themselves to more specific questions.
But when science and philosophy are distinguished in this way,
it becomes quite clear, he argues, that they are, and must be,
mutually dependent. For how could philosophers hope to dis-
cover truths about the whole of knowledge, in ignorance of any
of its specific parts?
Piaget admits a mutual dependence : psychologists may need
to call on epistemology, as well as epistemologists on psychology.
But I think it is fair to say that he stresses the latter dependence,
the dependence of epistemology on psychology, much more
heavily.
One of his arguments, which recurs several times, is this: that
all traditional epistemologies, whether empiricist or rationalist,
do raise questions of fact, and that these questions should, in-
deed must, be answered by appeal to the relevant science, i.e.,
in many cases, by psychology. For both empiricists and rational-
ists make certain assumptions about the means by which know-
ledge is acquired (whether the favored means is experience,
association of ideas, reminiscence of Forms, Reason, or what-
ever), and such assumptions can only be properly tested psycho-
logically. The only alternative is an altogether unsatisfactory
reliance on unrigorous “commonsense” psychology :
.
. . all epistemologies, even those which are anti-empiricist,
raise questions of fact, and thus implicitly adopt positions
which, however, lack effective verification, even though this is
indispensable as far as sound method is concerned.
([19701 pp. 4-5)
A very similar view is, interestingly, found in a writer from a
rather different tradition :
Whether called introspection, inspection, or simply and
vaguely “experience”, some sort of factual appeal is made at
one point or another by every epistemologist considered
(though usually the empirical techniques so employed would
not pass muster in a sophomore psychology lab.).
(Pasch, [1958] p. 145)
I shall call this the “you do it anway, so you might as well do it
properly” argument. Piaget’s appeal for epistemologists to co-
174 SUSAN HAACK
operate with psychologists is based on the belief that much
traditional epistemology uses bad psychology, which some real,
rigorous, scientific psychological work could clear up. One of his
main targets, especially in [19651, is the phenomenologist school,
the members of which he thinks are, in effect, doing bad, intro-
spectionist, psychology; but his arguments can be used, and in
[19701 are used, against philosophers in the Anglo-Saxon tradi-
tion as well.
It is worth stressing that, although it is true that Piaget
defines the scope of epistemology far more liberally than Popper,
this verbal difference is not the main reason for their disagree-
ment about the role of psychology. These passages are character-
istic :
Epistemology is the theory of valid knowledge, and, even if
this knowledge is always a process rather than a state, this
process is in essence the change from a lesser to a greater
validity. It follows from this that epistemology is by its very
nature an interdisciplinary subject, since a process of this kind
raises questions both of fact and of validity. . . . The first rule
of developmental epistemology is consequently a rule of
collaboration. . . .
([19701 p. 6)
And, under the heading “The Methods of Scientific Episte-
mology” :
The study of the growth of knowledge involves two comple-
mentary methods . . . these methods are logical analysis and
historical or developmental analysis. . ..
(p. 70)
Logical analysis . . . calls upon, rather than contradicts, the
developmental analysis of concepts, which is the second essen-
tial method of scientific epistemology.

What is happening here is that Piaget is distinguishing tradi-

tional, “static” epistemology, which investigates a corpus of
knowledge assumed fixed, from (what he thinks more fruitful)
“developmental” epistemology, which is to investigate the
growth of knowledge. There seems no question that Popper
would agree with Piaget so far, since Popper lays considerable
stress upon the importance of looking at theories qua responses
to problem-situations, and thus allows for a dynamic element.
 PSYCHOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY 175
But Piaget, unlike Popper, seems willing to include the historical,
sociological and psychological questions which arise in the study
of the growth of knowledge, as part of epistemology. The use of
such locutions as ‘developmental epistemology’ and ‘scientific
epistemology’ signals a generous view of the scope of epistemo-
logy.
But there is much more than a verbal issue here. For Piaget’s
first argument-the “you do it anyway so you might as we11 do
it properly” argument-applies to epistemology even narrowly,
statically conceived. Even static epistemology, Piaget argues,
cannot be concerned solely with the logical relations between
propositions, for even knowledge-as-a-state is knowledge of the
world, and so its study cannot wholly exclude psychological
considerations. Piaget is committed to a thesis which Popper
strenuously denies, viz., that psychological data can be relevant
to questions of the validity of theories-questions which, as he
and Popper agree, belong to epistemology. Piaget, in fact, is
advocating exactly the kind of appeal to psychology which Car-
nap makes, and which Popper deplores.
It is also worth stressing that although the “you do it anyway
so you might as well do it properly” argument is compelling, it
requires the premiss for which I have argued, but which Piaget
takes for granted, that psychology may be relevant to epistemo-
logy; since otherwise the reply “But you ought not to be doing
it at all” would be possible.

~ ~ ~ r ofnConclusions
u r ~
Although some of the disagreement about what the proper
relation is of psychology to epistemology turns on an essentially
verbal matter-how broadly or narrowly the scope of epistemo-
logy is conceived-much of the disagreement is substantial.
Appeal to psychology is circular if undertaken in the course of
a program which is ‘foundationalist’ in the sense of p. 171. Car-
nap’s program is of this kind, so his appeal to Gestalt psychology
is out of order.
However, the scope of epistemology can be construed in such
a way as to allow the possibility of epistemologies of a non-
functionalist kind. Indeed, although Popper and Reichenbach
confine epistemology to questions of “justification”, even they
certainly do not envisage the provision of conclusive justification
of the kind for which Carnap hoped.
Psychological information can be relevant to epistemology, and
MPH D
176 SUSAN HAACK

use of such information is proper, provided the epistemology

is not foundationalist.
Finally, appeal to psychological work, when it is relevant,
positively ought to be made. Once relevance is conceded there
is no reason (other, perhaps, than what Pasch calls philosophers’
“unemployment phobia”!) to deny the force of the “you do it
anyway” argument.

REFERENCES
AYER,A. J. [1963] “Philosophy and Science”, Ratio (2). 1963, and in Metaphysics
and Common Sense, Macmillan, 1969: page references to Metaphysics and Common
Sense.
CARNAP,R. [1927] Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, 1927-English translation by
George, R. A., Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.
GEACH,P. T . [1957] Mental Acts, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957.
- [1965] “Some Problems About Time”, Henrietta Hertz Memorial Lecture,
1965.
GOODMAN, N. [1951] The Structure of Appearance, Bobbs-Merrill, 1951.
- [1955] Fact, Fiction and Forecast, Bobbs-Merrill, 1955.
GREGORY, R. L. [1966] Eye and Brain, World University Library, 1966.
HAMLYN,D. [1967] “The Logical and Psychological Aspects of Learning” in The
Concept of Education, ed. Peters, R. S., Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967.
- [1970] The Theory of Knowledge, Papermac, 1970.
KOLAKOWSKI, L. [1968] Positivist Philosophy (1968), Penguin Books, 1972 : page
references to Penguin edition.
PASCH, A. [1958] Experience and the Analytic, Chicago U.P., 1958.
PIAGET, J. [1965] Zmights and Zllusions of Philosophy, Presses Universitaires de
France, 1965, and Meridian, 1971.
- [1970] Psychology and Epistemology, Denoel 1970, Penguin books, 1972 :
page references to Penguin edition.
POPPER,K. R. [1959] The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1959.
- [I9681 “Epistemology without a Knowing subject”, Proceedings of Third
International Congress f o r Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, ed.
Rootselaar, B. van and Staal, J. F., Amsterdam, 1968, and in Objective Knowledge,
O.U.P., 1972 : page reference to Objective Knowledge.
- [I9721 “TWOFaces of Common Sense”, in Objective Knowledge, O.U.P., 1972.
PRICE, H. H. [1932] Perception, Methuen, 1932: page references t o 1961 edition.
QUINE, W. V. 0. [1963] “On simple theories of a complex world”, SynthPse, 1963,
and in Ways o f Paradox, Random House, 1966.
- [1969] “Epistemology naturalized” in Ontological Relativity, Columbia U.P.,
1969.
- [1970] “Grades of Theoreticity” in Experience and Theory, Duckworth, 1970.
REICHENBACH, H. [1938] Experience and Prediction, U. of Chicago Press, 1938.
STOOTHOFF, R. [1966] “The Autonomy of Philosophy”, Philosophical Quarterly (16).
1966.
WITTGENSTEIN, L. [1969] On Certainty, translated by Paul, D. and Anscombe,
G. E. M., Blackwells, 1969.

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK