The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychology and Psychoanalysis

Herbert Feigl and Michael Scriven, editors

This first volume of Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science presents some of the relatively more consolidated research of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. The work of the Center, which was established in 1953 through a grant from the Louis W. and Maud Hill Family Foundation, has so far been devoted largely to the philosophical, logical, and methodological problems of psychology. Some of the 12 papers in this volume are concerned with broad philosophical foundations; others consider specific problems of method or interpretation. The contributors, some of whom are represented in the authorship of more than one paper, are Herbert Feigl, director of the Center; Rudolf Carnap; B.F. Skinner; Michael Scriven; Albert Ellis; Antony Flew; L. J. Cronbach; Paul E. Meehl; R. C. Buck; and Wilfrid Sellars.

Herbert Feigl was a Regents’ professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota and director of the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science.

Michael Scriven is Distinguished Professor in the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences at Claremont Graduate University.

Contents

SYNOPSIS

SOME MAJOR ISSUES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE OF LOGICAL EMPIRICISM, by Herbert Feigl
THE METHODOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF THEORETICAL CONCEPTS, by Rudolf Carnap
CRITIQUE OF PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS AND THEORIES, by B.F.Skinner
A STUDY OF RADICAL BEHAVIORISM, by Michael SCRIVEN
AN OPERATIONAL REFORMULATION OF SOME OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, by Albert Ellis
MOTIVES AND THE UNCONSCIOUS, by Antony Flew
CONSTRUCT VALIDITY IN PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS, by L. J. Cronbach and P. E. Meehl
RPOBLEMS IN THE ACTUARIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A PERSON, by P. E. Meehl
ON THE LOGIC OF GENERAL BEHAVIOR SYSTEMS THEORY, by R. C. Buck
EMPIRICISM AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND, by Wilfrid Sellars
A POSSIBLE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TRADITIONAL SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES AND THE STUDY OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR, by Michael Scriven

NAME INDEX
SUBJECT INDEX