Understanding personhood can we get there from here

New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect New Ideas in Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych Discussion Understanding personhood: Can we get there from here? Michael F Mascolo a, *, Catherine Raeff b a b Merrimack College, United States Indiana University of Pennsylvania, United States Understanding personhood: can we get there from here? It may seem rather ironic to publish a special issue of a journal about new ideas on the person because the person is hardly a new idea or issue Indeed, the person can be and has been defined, understood, and represented in countless ways through centuries and across varied disciplines However, and also rather ironically, the person has not been a central topic in psychology Granted, there have been some treatments over the years (including in this journal) However, understanding and investigating what it means to be a person has not been taken up systematically in psychology There are no doubt varied interrelated reasons for this neglect The goal of this special issue is to attempt to identify and clear away some of the obstacles that have impeded the study of persons in psychological science, to explore what it would mean to speak of personhood, and to propose how we might go about studying the functioning of persons or people 1.1 The special problem of understanding persons What does it mean to be a person? This question has several meanings First, it raises the question of the meaning of the term person This sense of the question arises from adopting a third person perspective, namely how are we to define those beings over there that we call persons? The second sense of the question has to with what it means to experience oneself as a person This sense reflects the view from the first-person perspective of the experiencing individual him or herself Third, this question raises issues about how we treat the people with whom we interact as persons In other words, what does it mean to interact with you as a person, or how I treat you as a person? This sense of the question reflects the view from the second person perspective of I-You relationships The multi-faceted nature of this question illustrates the complexity of the problem before us: we are striving to understand the meaning of beings (persons) who define themselves in terms of constructed systems of symbolic meaning Human organisms are simultaneously bio-physical, psychological, and socio-cultural beings The physical and biological aspects * Corresponding author E-mail address: Michael_mascolo@yahoo.com (M.F Mascolo) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.11.002 0732-118X/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd of human organisms are effectively studied using the principles and methods of the natural sciences Problems arise, however, when we assume that the principles and methods of the natural sciences can be readily applied to understand the psychological and sociocultural aspects of persons Contributors to this issue have raised a series of themes that are relevant to understanding persons as psychological and socio-cultural beings These themes include agency, reflexivity and self-awareness, integrated action, the semiotic function, the moral capacity for strong evaluation, and perhaps most importantly, a non-finalizing capacity for self-creation through active co-engagement with culture and world Because the processes by which we come to know ourselves and each other as persons differ qualitatively from how we come to know objects, the methods that we use to study persons must also differ fundamentally In what follows, we examine how common scientific assumptions have impeded rather than advanced our understanding of personhood We synthesize claims from the contributors to this special issue to suggest renewed ways of conceptualizing psychological science that would allow us to confront hard questions related to what it means to be a person Overcoming obstacles to a science of persons Table enumerates a series of obstacles identified by contributors to this volume that have obstructed progress in elaborating a science of personhood psychology In what follows, we elaborate upon each of these obstacles and, drawing on the contributions to this volume, propose suggestions for removing them 2.1 Inescapable philosophical frameworks The founding of Wundt's experimental laboratory in 1879 is often used as a way to mark the separation of psychology from its origins in philosophy As indicated in Table 1, the severing of psychology from philosophy gave psychology a sense of methodological autonomy The accessibility of publically observable behavior was intended to provide an empirical counterpoint to the speculative methods of philosophy To this day, philosophy continues to be seen by many psychologists as a form of unconstrained armchair psychology Because grounding assertions in observable evidence is not a primary or traditional part of its methodology, philosophy is 50 M.F Mascolo, C Raeff / New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53 Table Overcoming obstacles to a science of persons Problem Solution Methodological Autonomy Objectivist epistemology tends to define some psychological processes a priori as outside of the realm of scientific investigation Quintessentially psychological processes are left under-specified (e.g., agency, experience.) Interdisciplinary Acknowledge the inescapable role of philosophical frameworks in psychological research and the need for interdisciplinary coordination Reconcile empirical inquiry with rigorous conceptual analyses of the constructs involved in psychological research Epistemological Broadening Exploit and refine our capacity for intersubjective engagement as a source of psychological knowledge Articulate the strengths and limits of first-, second, and third-person forms of psychological inquiry Dynamic Modeling and Testing Construct models of the functioning of persons as they act over time in particular social and cultural contexts Assess theoretical and empirical consequences of those models with multiple forms of evidence Integrated Model of Person Work toward understandings that show how varied processes work together to form an integrated person Seek ways to study how persons function at the level of the contextualized agentive person Contextualization of Action A person acts within particular contexts and cultural practices that function as part of the process of that action There is a need to understand the ways in which what is often called “mind” extends beyond the skin Cultural Inseparability Humans are symbolic beings who need culture to complete them over time Persons and cultures must be understood not as separate variables but instead as dynamic processes that “make each other up.” System Causality Need to understand persons as complex dynamic systems that operate within larger systems Need for analyses at the level of individual persons to understand the emergence and spontaneity of complex patterns of action Objectivist Methodology The idea that science necessarily relies upon third-person analysis of publically observable behavior marginalizes intersubjectivity as the primary means of gaining psychological phenomena Operationalism Operational definitions often (a) fail to represent the full range of processes that they are intended to measure and (b) result in analyses that represent human action as static variables rather than dynamic processes Fragmentation Psychology is organized into more-or-less isolated sub-divisions that tend to study aspects of psychological functioning independently of each other Encased Psychologism The claim that human action is a result of the internal workings of the mind obscure analyses of the ways in which human action is produced by processes that are distributed throughout dynamic person-environment systems Separation of Person and Culture Culture is often treated as an “independent variable” in psychological research, i.e., something that can be manipulated to determine its causal effect on individuals Persons and cultures are seen as distinct entities Primary Focus on Efficient Causes Search for cause-and-effect relations fails to capture how diverse causal process operate together to produce action and often directs attention away from analyses of teleological and formal causality often seen as something to be avoided, and as something inferior to , 2005; Klein, the empirical methods of psychological science (Harre 1942) However, the idea that empirical psychology can operate independently of philosophy is a chimerical one All inquiry is necessarily prefigured in some way by sets of philosophical or conceptual assumptions, which are often tacit, unarticulated and unquestioned The conceptual foundations on which empirical methods are based, including objectivism and operationalism, are themselves philosophical principles Thus, the very arguments invoked to justify the separation of empirical psychology from philosophy themselves rest on philosophical arguments It follows that empirical inquiry does not operate independently of philosophical claims It is thus necessary to become reflexive about the philosophical issues that structure psychological theorizing We must reaffirm the interdependent relationship between psychology, philosophy and related disciplines Empirical inquiry can only be improved through a rigorous articulation of the philosophical or conceptual commitments that structure our theorizing and methodology 2.2 Rethinking epistemology Psychological methodology is based upon the epistemological assumptions of objectivity and operationalism (Items and in Table 1) In psychology, the concept of objectivity is founded upon the Cartesian distinction between a public exterior and a private interior Scientific psychology adopts a third person approach to understanding the psychological processes of others Objectivity demands that psychological theorizing be grounded in observations of the public exterior This immediately raises the problem of “other minds”: how can we gain access into the “private minds” of others if we only have access to a “public exterior”? The answer, of course, is that we not only have access to a public exterior The problem of “other minds” arises only if we are committed to the traditional Cartesian distinction between the private interior and a public exterior As discussed by contributors to this issue (Bickhard, Mascolo, Sugarman, Shotter), there are ample reasons to discard this assumption For example, in face-toface interaction, psychological life is not something that is a priori hidden behind an opaque exterior Instead, the light of a person's experiential life shines through their bodily and symbolic actions In addition, we are inherently intersubjective beings, capable of engaging with the experience of others from early in life Our sociocultural capacity for language builds upon our capacity for intersubjective relations with others Using language, we draw on historically-constructed meanings to represent our own psychological lives as well as those of others Language becomes a tool not only for understanding but also for transforming each other's psychological and social life If we are intersubjective beings in this way, the hard problem of “other minds” all but vanishes, and empirical inquiry can take a different course An alternative to objectivist methodology can be found in hermeneutic, intersubjective and relational epistemologies that eliminate or otherwise transcend the subjective-objective distinction In invoking a hermeneutic epistemology, our methodological task becomes finding ways to refine and systematize our everyday forms of intersubjective engagement as means of psychological inquiry From this view, verification of theoretical claims does not occur as a matter of matching theory to a world described as it is Instead, knowledge claims are verified through coordinating and corroborating forms of evidence that are always mediated by human conceptual frameworks, purposes and tools It is important to understand that as an epistemology, a hermeneutic or relational approach is silent about endorsing particular methodological techniques in psychological research Researchers are free to adopt first- (e.g., self-report, personal reflection), second- (e.g., inquiry through discursive activity), and third-person (e.g., observation, experimentation, quantification) methods in psychological research The difference lies not in advocating any given qualitative or quantitative method, but instead in the ways in which measures are defined and used in psychological research For example, Bickhard has suggested that to take persons seriously, “one need only generate models of the ontologies of persons, and M.F Mascolo, C Raeff / New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53 examine the theoretical and empirical consequences of those models.” This way of conducting research is essentially what dynamic systems (Mascolo, Van Geert, Steenbeek & Fischer, 2016; Molenaar & Nesselroade, 2015) and person-oriented researchers (Bergman & Vargha, 2013; von Eye & Wiedermann, 2015) are beginning to when they propose and test dynamic models of how integrated forms of human action operate over time within particular contexts To test such models, researchers essentially say, “If the agentive, meaning-mediated system we call a person operates according to parameters i, j and k (the model), then the person-assystem should produce outcomes a, b and c over time within particular contexts and circumstances.” Such an approach would require multiple methodologies e not only discursive and interpretive methods advanced by qualitative researchers, but also mathematical modeling of persons as dynamic self-organizing systems 2.3 From fragmentation to integration Another epistemological assumption that informs conventional methodology in psychology is splitting or fragmenting Raeff argues that to understand a person, it is necessary to go beyond fragmented analyses of psychological processes, viewed as more-orless isolated modules that make up a person (Item in Table 1) There is a need to start with a holistic understanding of how the parts that make up a person operate together to make the whole, and, not inconsequentially, how the activity of the organism as a whole organizes the functioning of the parts (Witherington) Consistent with the ideas advanced by contributors to this issue, to build a model of persons, it is necessary to understand how human action emerges as a product of dynamics that occur both within and between biological, psychological and socio-cultural aspects of functioning (Bickhard, Raeff, Witherington) Fig provides a simple sketch of what an integrative model of the origins of human action might look like as it arises as part of a person-environment system This system is composed of five basic aspects e (A) individual action, the (B) objects (real or imagined) that action is directed toward, (C) the actions of other people, (D) the co-regulation of action that occurs between people, all of which occurs within (E) physical and socio-cultural contexts Action is produced at the (D) person-context nexus (Martin) In interactions with others, action occurs within an intersubjective matrix of experience, and is mediated by socially shared symbol systems Raeff has suggested that the basic unit of understanding psychological functioning for the individual person is action However, action is not taken to occur at the end of a long chain of internal 51 and/or external processes At any moment, an individual's action is made up of the integrative interplay among varied processes, including but not limited to meaning (symbolic or otherwise), affect and motor action Human action is thus an emergent product of the relations between “goes on inside of us” and “what we go on inside of” (Shotter) 2.4 From psychologism to relational becomings Psychologism is the view that the primary causes of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and other psychological processes refer to mental processes that occur within the individual person (Martin, Sugarman) This belief is reflected in many areas in psychology that restrict their focus primarily to processes that occur within individuals (e.g., cognitive psychology; the study of personality, emotion) It also informs the common practice of treating individual action as a kind of dependent variable that is under the causal influence of one or more efficient causes (Witherington) This view separates persons from culture as causal processes in human action Where culture is considered, it tends to be treated as an independent variable e something to be manipulated in order to assess its effects on individual action As indicated in Table (Items 5, and 7), a major principle articulated by all contributors to this volume is that persons are relational beings who act responsively within physical and sociocultural contexts which include the ongoing actions of other people Of particular importance is the capacity for the intersubjective co-regulation of action as it occurs between people The construction of higher-order action is mediated through the use of symbolic cultural tools, the most important being language Language mediates the process by which people coordinate their activities for both personal and common ends People develop as they engage with others in cultural practices that involve using language and other tools to build new skills, understandings, and identities Language is especially important in mediating the processes by which we come to represent our own experiences and form higherorder selves As articulated by Shotter, we neither come to know ourselves directly, nor we direct our actions from some autonomous internal center Instead, we act within dialogicallystructured encounters in which we responsively adjust our action to the ongoing and anticipated action of our interlocutors We come to construct and know our “inner worlds” as we learn to use language to represent, shape and regulate our personal and social experience In this way, we are relational beings – or, in Shotter's words, relational becomings e beings who are never fully finalized As open systems (Witherington), we are continuously able to recreate ourselves in dialogical interactions with others In this way, Fig The dynamic coupling of person and context 52 M.F Mascolo, C Raeff / New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53 although a person is not infinitely malleable, a person is also not something or someone who can be easily pinned down Through our active engagement with the world, we have a capacity for renewal, spontaneity, and the construction of new possibilities (Bickhard) In this way, humans enter the world as incomplete beings or persons who develop in dialogical relations with others They need culture to complete them e even as they can never actually be fully completed 2.5 From efficient to systems causality As described by Witherington, Aristotle identified four causes that together explain how any given phenomenon in the world can come into being Explanation invoking material causes refer to the substance “out of which” an entity is created The material cause of a bronze sculpture is the bronze “out of which” the figure is fashioned Efficient causes involve the antecedent events that bring about consequential effects, as occurs when a sculptor pours melted bronze into a cast The formal cause explains the origins of things in terms of the structure or organization of an entity, that is, with respect to how parts come together to make wholes The statue becomes a statue by virtue of its particular form, or ways in which its parts are structured and organized That form that comes about through the instantiation of a final cause, which refers to the goal, end or good “for the sake of which” the sculptor produced the statue's form In his article, Witherington argues that psychological research is framed primarily as an attempt to identify efficient causes of human behavior If, however, humans are relational and cultural beings, it is essential that we move beyond the logic of efficient causality Also, if humans are dynamic, self-organizing systems, it follows that we need systems principles to explain what they and how they it A systems view does not rule out explanations based on material and efficient causes As biophysical organisms, we cannot ultimately explain how persons act without reference to the structure and functioning of their neuro-physiological substrata But such explanations, of course, are insufficient A systems causality must also rest upon formal and final causes Formal causes are necessary to explain how human action emerges as a product of the relations among the components that make up the person-environment system We may explain how electro-chemical changes activate muscle movements in the vocal chords, tongue and lips These causes can be understood as efficient causes However, what we say at any given moment is necessarily a product of our attempt to act responsively in relation to our interlocutor In so doing, we continuously adjust what we say and to the ongoing and anticipated sayings and doings of the other As a result, our actions are co-regulated by processes that occur between people In this way, our face-to-face social processes cannot be understood primarily in terms of efficient causes Our relational responsivity demands that we understand action arises as a product of formal causes e that is, in terms of dynamic relations that occur between and among aspects of an organized personenvironment system However, formal causes are also insufficient to explain the functioning of persons Our attempt to understand personhood demands that we invoke final causes to explain how goals organize human action Persons are teleological beings whose actions aim toward some sort of good Part of what makes us human is our desire to create and re-create ourselves in terms of norms, values and evaluative ideals that define who we wish to become And while we are embodied beings whose constitution is the result of millions of years of evolution, the values that we espouse or enact are not simple reflections of our biological nature They arise and develop as we relate to each other and create conceptions of what is and is not worth doing, as well as whom it is and is not worth attempting to become As persons, we are thus defined, in part, through shared and contested conceptions of who we think should be What makes a good frog? In 2013, the famous Aristotelian philosopher Alisdaire MacIntyre delivered a talk entitled What Natural Science Can't Explain In the discussion after the talk, MacIntyre was asked about the difference between norms and goods MacIntyre argued that norms e even among animals ecannot be understood as mere statistical descriptions To identify behavior as “normative”, it is necessary to know, for example, whether the animals in question were healthy or diseased, whether they were in a familiar habitat, and so forth Thus, the act of identifying norms e even in nature – requires some sort of evaluative judgment or reference to the good In response to this point, another audience member asked, ““But shouldn't it be biologists who tell us what a good frog is … who tell us what are the norms and what are the fitting behaviors of their subjects” MacIntyre responded by referring to work related to dolphin intelligence: Dolphin studies actually took their great leap forward from a purely accidental meeting between a very distinguished biologist and a dolphin trainer And it turned out that up to this point, the two hadn't interacted at all … Dolphin trainers had their professional expertise And it was when they got together that they had begun to understand what was going on – that dolphin trainers had a much better understanding than the biologists did of what the dolphins were aiming at … of what it was that frustrated them when they were in captivity … What the biologists understood were the mechanisms that enabled the dolphins to respond in this way, and what those mechanisms were which when damaged or distorted led them to be unable to cope in various ways So when you put together these two, then quite suddenly you got a real leap forward What is especially interesting here is that the task of understanding dolphin intelligence was advanced when biologists worked with practitioners who had essentially established a degree of intersubjectivity with the animals with which they worked Understood in this way, the use of traditional third-person methods based on the principle of objectivity were insufficient as means of studying the species-typical behavior of dolphins Like humans, dolphins are biophysical, psychological, social and, to an extent, perhaps cultural beings (Sargeant & Mann, 2009) The physical aspects of dolphin functioning lend themselves to explanations invoking material and efficient causes The biological and organismic aspects of the dolphin functioning are open to material, efficient and final causes However, understanding dolphin behavior requires a different type of inquiry, namely one that seeks to understand the goals and relational experience of dolphins as they act within various ecological niches Explaining the adaptive activity of dolphins demands the invocation of formal and final causes MacIntyre's (2013) remarks underscore the need for an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to understanding the multiplynested behavior of self-organizing living systems If forms of intersubjectivity created between humans and dolphins can advance biological science, certainly our capacity for intersubjectivity must stand as a primary method for a psychological science And so, regarding the person and personhood: can we get there? 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We think we can e but only if we are willing to forge new paths in the process M.F Mascolo, C Raeff... processes, viewed as more-orless isolated modules that make up a person (Item in Table 1) There is a need to start with a holistic understanding of how the parts that make up a person operate together... Shotter, we neither come to know ourselves directly, nor we direct our actions from some autonomous internal center Instead, we act within dialogicallystructured encounters in which we responsively