Methodology is the bridge between philosophy and the specialized sciences. In other words, the primary way in which philosophy shapes scientific theory is by establishing the proper rules that should guide the inquiry into a particular field of study. Before I explain the new developments in my theory of mind, then, it makes sense that I explain the methodology behind it.
The classical cause-and-effect approach to causality proved rather sufficient for the natural sciences. Since there is no choice involved in the movement of a planet, or the chemical reactions between different substances, one needs only to isolate the causes of a particular type of event, identifying the principles by which it operates. This is done by designing and executing controlled experiments, in which all factors that influence a particular event are planned, measured and interpreted without contradiction.
When it comes to the human sciences, methodology gets considerably trickier, as scientists don't quite know how to deal with choice. This has led to a field permeated by either materialism or idealism - two sides of the same inability to deal with the volitional nature of Man's consciousness.
On one hand, materialists have tried to apply the cause-and-effect methodology of natural sciences to human action, ignoring the role and nature of choice altogether. This has led to deterministic schools of thought, such as Positivist economics, or Marxist political science, which view one's actions simply as a result of past. In Psychology, this led first to Behaviourism, and its view of thoughts as predictable epiphenomena, causally defined by the chemical makeup of one's brain. Later, it led to Cognitivism, a less radical offshoot of Behaviourism which focuses on the role of our physical structures in defining our subjective experience, regardless of our choices.
On the other hand, idealists have attempted to reject general causality, positing exclusively teleological standards - a type of "causality of the mind", completely separate from the "causality of matter". In Economics, this is exemplified by subjectivist theories, such as Ludwig von Mises’ apriorism, which rejects any objective criteria of economic valuation, and Modern Monetary Theory, which denies the causal roots of money. In Psychology, this view led to the Constructivist approach, which sees the mind as a perfectly maleable “dough” with no objective nature, which can be shaped at will by social pressures. To a smaller, but significant degree, idealism has also influenced Psychoanalysis, leading authors to focus on the individual’s subjective needs more than on his objective nature. A good example of that is Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy, which focused on the individual’s subjective need for a purpose, without delving into how that need, or the nature of a particular purpose, might relate to one’s objective biological necessities.
The proper approach – which is the one I’m using in my own theory - was pioneered by Franz Brentano, concretized by Carl Menger, and explicitly identified and made into a system by Antal Fekete. With his idea of “intentionality”, Brentano proposed a type of teleological causality, which is a particular instance of, and cannot contradict universal causality. Menger then put this to practice, developing a theory of economics based on Man’s objective needs, which must be met by means of subjective choice. Unlike the materialists, Menger acknowledged the role of choice – but unlike the idealists, he identified that choice is constrained by the objective necessities of one’s life. In other words, you will not value water automatically, but you cannot survive by choosing to drink liquid nitrogen – you must actively identify and value water (choice) if you are to survive (causality).
Antal Fekete later defined this method of research as “dealing with the contact points between the logosphere and the protosphere”, the first being the realm of reason and teleological choice, and the latter being the realm of strict causality and natural phenomena. In other words, an economist must look at the realm of choices made possible to an individual by the causal factors around him, and the necessary consequences of his choices, once he has made them. To put it in concrete terms, we cannot look into what makes an individual choose to buy a bottle of water, but we can look into the factors that make that choice available and desirable, and the consequences of this choice to the economy as a whole.
In Psychology, this approach means looking at one’s objective faculties, and what they enable one to choose. It also means looking at one’s objective biological needs at every single stage of life, and seeing what choices are available to an individual at each particular stage, and the consequences that these choices will have throughout his life. We must look at the faculties possessed by a toddler, and how he must choose to use these faculties to survive qua toddler – to be able to communicate his hunger, and to breastfeed, for example. Looking at all these possibilities, we must then see how different choices lead to different paths of development, and influence his scope of choices as a child, then as a teenager, then as an adult. This idea is at the root, albeit implicitly, of Sigmund Freud’s theory of Psychossexual development - which I will be dealing with next week.
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