Discursive Tensions: Crisis or Stagnation

The immanent dynamics of development in science entail revolutionary shifts of paradigms as well as phases of stagnation that lack theoretical advancement. In psychology, latent controversies about the subject-matter of the discipline as well as its methodology determine the discursive field for possible development and growth. It would be ill-advised to accept available answers without consulting a meta-perspective. Logical and epistemological concerns, such as the generic conception of mind, the relationship between subject-matter and methodology, the unity of psychology and the possibility of privation, express criteria of adequacy for an eventual solution. Similarly, making the structure of methodological reasoning explicit discloses the problem space in which psychological methods emerge.