R.G. Collingwood: Bad Science & Bad Psychology Lead to Bad Ends--or Do They?

R. G. Collingwood, philosopher & prophet

A prescient thought from R. G. Collingwood, writing in 1935, ten years before nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima & Nagasaki to begin the nuclear age. As someone who grew up with the (very real) fear that we could all end-up being flash-fried in a nuclear holocaust and who can now add (alas, not replace) that fear with the thought of an Instant Pot slow-cook (global warming) to threaten our collective future, I take Collingwood's observation and (implicit) admonition very seriously. We'd damned-well better learn to act rationally ("our honour") and put our faith in that path ("our nerve") or we'll end up in the other place.

The situation is . . . that science has taught us how to manipulate nature; it has given us extraordinary technological powers and enabled us to make anything we please in any quantities we like; and at the same time it has not only failed to give us that instructed wisdom which might be based on a true self-knowledge, but it has taken away the unreflective virtue and simple faith in ourselves which we possessed before psychology dispelled our belief in our own rationality. We have therefore, directly through the work of science, lost at once our honour, or habit of acting rationally, and our nerve, or belief that we can so act. Every increase in the power which science gives us over Nature has been attended by a decrease in our ability to use that power wisely; and if the process could go on long enough it is hardly to be doubted that mankind would all but annihilate itself in a series of mutually destructive wars, while the scientists stood by lamenting over the folly of human beings. 

R. G. Collingwood. The Principles of History: And Other Writings in Philosophy of History (pp. 175-176). Kindle Edition.

Same song, second verse. Lyrics by R. G. Collingwood:

What the scientist fails to understand, when he finds himself an impotent spectator of movements he can neither control nor arrest, is that the folly and wickedness which he deplores, the Mephistopheles of this rake's progress, are of his own creating; it is he that raised the devil by inventing psychology and teaching man that he is neither virtuous nor rational but a mere bundle of instincts with nothing in himself either to respect or to obey. But this is understood strongly enough, though confusedly, among mankind at large; and that is why, among the various movements of the modern world, none is more widespread and more characteristic than a certain anti-intellectualism, irrationalism, hatred of thinking, which is simply the revolt of man against the modern scientific tradition. 

R. G. Collingwood. The Principles of History: And Other Writings in Philosophy of History (p. 176). Kindle Edition.

N.B. Collingwood is not in the least "anti-science." His understanding & appreciation of modern science is without question. But what this quote and others like it reveal, is that he wants to put modern science in its place, as it were. Science is different from history; they are complementary ways of knowing. One (science) studies patterns of behavior; the other, the particularities of human action. The criteria that govern the human mind are established by the fields of logic, ethics, and aesthetics. These are "criteriological" (normative) fields of thought established to guide the human actor. Most (lab & social) psychology seeks to study patterns of behavior in the field, as it were, which is, in Collingwood's view (and mine), a step down. Perhaps useful and insightful, but dangerous if taken as establishing norms.

Also, to what extent can ideas about modern science, and psychology, in particular, be shown to influence popular opinion. Collingwood was able to look about his world and see the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany and Mussolini and the Fascists in Italy, but to what extent can we blame the irrationality and anger underlying these movements upon subjects of academic thought? Collingwood is far from alone in making this type of accusation; Pankaj Mishra, Brad Gregory, and Patrick Deneen pop to mind as others who've made similar sorts of allegations about social and political theories influencing popular behavior. Is there a way to demonstrate this? How do we discern any connections that can be accurately said to cause changes in attitudes and behaviors as opposed to mere accusations of such? Such accusations are popular with American conservatives and reactionaries, and they no doubt come from the left as well. How do we sort the gold from the dross in this field of cultural and intellectual history?

New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution by Colin Wilson

After writing my recent appreciation (and critique) of Colin Wilson, I found that one of my favorites books of his was available on Kindle, so I bought it and re-read it. I’m glad I did. It reminded me of what I find so valuable in Wilson (and it reminded me of some annoyances as well). This is Wilson at his best. He started the book as a biography of Abraham Maslow, with whom he met and corresponded, but it turned into more than that. In addition to it's appreciation of Maslow, it’s a history and appraisal of how psychology developed from the early moderns through the publication of the book in 1972. 

Wilson reports that when he first came upon Maslow’s work he ignored it, only to have it come back to his attention at a later time. We should be happy for that second look. Wilson’s first book, The Outsider, and continuing through a cycle of books that bore the imprint of the first, explored the contemporary human dilemma. How do we successfully engage in life? In the Outsider cycle, Wilson examined the dilemmas of modern life through extraordinary individuals, many of whom failed to find a satisfactory resolution to their problem of existence, such as Van Gogh, Nietzsche, and T.E. Lawrence, to name but three. Wilson explored the European existentialists such as Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger, but he found their responses unsatisfactory. Wilson went on the construct a “new existentialism” that gloried in choice and will. When Wilson got around to looking at Maslow’s work, he found a kindred spirit. Maslow’s most well-known contributions to psychology, his hierarchy of needs and the reality of peak experiences, fit with Wilson’s growing belief that we ignore opportunities and abilities to summon peak experiences at will.

After some initial reflections touching on many of Wilson’s favorite themes and examples, as well as a brief introduction to Maslow’s work, Wilson begins a summary of modern psychology and philosophy starting with Hobbes and Descartes. I found this brief history valuable and instructive. Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and Hume, despite their rationalist-empiricist differences, all premised their understanding of humans as essentially mechanistic with little (if any) room for free will. But there is another current of thought that blossoms later in the 19th century. It manifests in the work of Brentano and Husserl on the Continent and in America through the work of William James. Wilson quotes James a lot, and rightly so. Wilson finds James, especially in his essays, pointing in the right direction, although James doesn’t connect all the dots for Wilson. But while James was pointing in the right direction, Sigmund Freud was taking a different perspective in Vienna. 

Freud gave us depth psychology, but his “depth”, with its reference to hidden sexuality and Greek myths, overlays a deterministic and mechanistic outlook. While prying deeply into psychic injuries, Freud's theories reflected a rigid idea of how our psyche works. Freud, who had a deep personal rigidity about him, dismissed various disciples who tried to take the master’s work in different directions, like Adler, Jung, and Rank. Wilson does an excellent job of mixing biography and ideas in this section (something that he tends to do well). Each of the three apostates (Adler, Jung, and Rank) pointed psychoanalysis in new and promising directions, identifying different sources of psychic disturbance and motivation. But still, Wilson concludes, this viewpoint focused on the disturbed, unhealthy individual. 

After this informative and entertaining history of psychology and philosophy, Wilson turns to Maslow’s biography and work. I was surprised to learn that Maslow started in the rat and monkey business. Stimulus-response theory was all the rage at the time (1930’s), and Maslow worked that angle. He also came to terms with Freud and considered himself a Freudian. However, Maslow realized that Freud and his cohort focused on the sick individual, and Maslow decided to explore the psychology of the healthy. Maslow follows a path similar to Wilson’s in turning his focus from the sick to the healthy. Wilson explores and appreciates Maslow’s insights and how Maslow developed his theories. The down side of the tale is that Maslow died relatively young (bad heart) and wasn’t able to further develop his perspectives. 

In the final chapter, we get Wilson’s synthesis of his own insights, Maslow’s, and a host of others, especially those connected with “existentialist psychology”. Existential psychologists, such as Victor Frankel and Rollo May, draw upon Husserl’s intentionality and its concern with will to help put a patient back in control of his or her destiny. Meaning, intentionality, and will once again become important aspects of psychology. As Wilson does, he dances between psychology, literature, and anecdote to make his points. This trait is both delightful and frustrating, as Wilson can be. But Wilson is a man of ideas, not a scientist or academic who does the necessary grunt work of the lab or field, necessary as that is. Sometimes Wilson seems dated, as in his adherence to the right brain-left brain dichotomy or his understanding of schizophrenia, but I don’t think that these dated conceptions have much affect on his arguments. (I am interested to learn if Leah Greenfeld’s work Mind, Modernity, Madness: The Experience of Culture on Human Experience about mental illness or Ian McGilchrist’s work on the different brain functions in The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Modern World provide any vindication of Wilson’s larger perspective.) 

I’ve read about six or eight Wilson books, and other than perhaps the first two works in the Outsider cycle (The Outsider and Religion and the Outsider), this might be the best book to jump into. Wilson’s speculations—his strength and his weakness—are tempered by his commitment to Maslow’s project and by his exposition of the history of modern psychology. Thus, we get the best of Colin Wilson’s enterprise here in a balanced, informative, and thought-provoking work.

Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast & Slow

Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast & Slow was a delight to listen to. Kahneman, the psychologist who won a Nobel in economics, shares his insights from years of research and study about why we do what we do. He describes our brains as having 2 separate systems, one fast and one slow (among other characteristics). These different systems lead to quite different outcomes, depending on which one we use in any given situation (and "fast" of course, always arrives first!). Read (or listen) to this book and you'll have a better understanding of yourself and those around you. Really delightful, and told in some measure through autobiography.