Table Of ContentPhilosophical Dimensions of Personal
Construct Psychology
Since its formulation by George Kelly in the mid-1950s Personal Construct
Psychology has been distinguished by its links with general philosophy and by
the philosophical richness of its fundamental postulates. Personal Construct
Psychology recognises that any attempt to understand why we behave as we do
must begin with an understanding of how we create meaning. After a brief
general introduction Bill Warren traces the philosophical history of Personal
Construct Psychology through the broad and complex tradition of
phenomenology and thinkers such as Spinoza, Hegel and Heidegger. He also
gives credit to the influence of general creative and dramatic literature across a
variety of cultures. Specific issues addressed in depth include the position of
Personal Construct Psychology with regard to philosophy of science, cognitive
science, clinical psychology, concepts of mental illness and the implications
for social and political philosophy.
Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct Psychology will provide
counsellors, therapists and students of Personal Construct Psychology with a
broader appreciation of its historical and philosophical context and its
importance to contemporary psychology.
Bill Warren is Associate Professor in Education at the University of
Newcastle, Australia.
Routledge Progress in Psychology
Emerging Patterns of Literacy
A multidisciplinary perspective
Rhian Jones
Foundational Analysis
Presuppositions in experimental psychology
Pertti Saariluoma
Modelling the Stress-Strain Relationship in Work
Settings
Meni Koslowsky
Philosophical Dimensions of Personal Construct
Psychology
Bill Warren
Family Argument
Dispute and the organization of domestic identities
Charles Antaki, Ava Horowitz and Peter Muntigl
Philosophical Dimensions
of Personal Construct
Psychology
Bill Warren
London and New York
First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1998 William G.Warren
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Warren, Bill 1942–
Philosophical dimensions of personal construct psychology/
Bill Warren.
1. Personal construct theory—Philosophy. I. Title.
BF698.9.P47W37 1998 98–17308
150.19'8–dc21 CIP
ISBN 0-203-00469-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-22091-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-16850-3 (Print Edition)
[The suspension] of the ‘subject’ and ‘self-understanding’…cannot mean
that we should liquidate the subject (the actually existing industrial societies
and the institutions of the ‘administered world’ are far more adept at this;
why compete with them on the level of theory?); rather it can only mean that
one has to explain subjectivity better and in a more adequate way…
(Frank, 1989:343–4)
One cannot understand a spoken statement without knowing both its most
general and its most personal and particular value.
(Schleiermacher, 1977:48)
What is not supposed to be my concern. First and foremost, the Good
Cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of
humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my
fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes.
Only my cause is never to be my concern. ‘Shame on the egoist who thinks
only of himself!’
(Stirner, 1845:3)
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgements x
A note on citations xi
Introduction 1
1 Locating philosophy 8
History 8
Developments 11
Domains 16
Modes 19
Concluding comment 21
2 Links and latencies 23
Direct references 23
Latencies 29
Constructive alternativism as philosophy 48
Realism and idealism 52
Concluding comment 60
3 Constructivisms 61
Social theory 61
Psychology 65
Concluding comment 72
4 Structuralism and beyond 73
Structuralism and poststructuralism 75
Modernity and postmodernity 78
Psychology and postmodernity 80
Concluding comment 85
viii Contents
5 The problem of the self 87
The notion of the self 87
Decentred and recentred subjects 92
Constructing selves 93
The self in personal construct psychology 99
Concluding comment 103
6 Philosophical psychology 105
Philosophy of science 105
Cognitive science 109
Determinism and free will 116
Philosophical issues in clinical psychology 118
A caveat 120
Concluding comment 126
7 Psychotechnology 128
Psychotechnology, applied psychology, technology 128
Personal construct psychology and applied psychology 131
Personal construct psychotherapy as praxis 135
Concluding comment 139
8 Political and social life 141
The social-political in personal construct psychology 141
The egalitarian outlook 145
Ideology 146
Religion 150
Concluding comment 154
9 Being human, making meaning 156
Hermeneutics 158
Personal construct psychology and hermeneutics 164
Psychological philosophical anthropology 166
Concluding comment 169
Conclusion 171
References 174
Index 192
Preface
I came to personal construct psychology from a background jointly in social
philosophy and a fairly traditional ‘psychology is a science’ education in
psychology. I had been led to existentialism and to anarchist thinking by my
preoccupation with the subtleties of individual interpretation in and of life.
Personal construct psychology was discovered, by accident, during my
education and training in clinical psychology. It appeared to offer a congenial
way of thinking about individual lived-experience in a most thoroughgoing
way. It appeared also to be consistent with the types of ideas generated in the
anarcho-psychological tradition of western thought with which I had become
familiar. Thus developed an interest in probing personal construct psychology
for its links to the ideas generated in this tradition and in social philosophy
generally.
There is now something of homelessness felt by those with an outlook that
is fascinated by individual variation, recalcitrance, endurance, resistance, and
the like. The intellectual climate is one in which the dominant wisdom accepts
a more collective view of human beings; thus, it would take those with such an
outlook to be naive and suffering from ideology. Still, there is something in
lived-experience that resists the insistence on giving up the sense of difference
and individual efficacy, of uniqueness and ultimate aloneness.
Thus, the present volume is an outcome of excavating the philosophical in
personal construct psychology, and a construction of it in terms of a construct
system the core constructs of which keenly focus the personal. A different
construction, both of personal construct psychology and of life, would,
obviously, understand matters differently; but the tolerance of difference and
of plurality, might be the mark of an optimally functioning person and of a
good approach in philosophy.
