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(1986) Annals of theoretical psychology, Dordrecht, Springer.

Problems with hypothetical-deductive explanation

Joseph Rychlak

pp. 207-225

Vollmer has written an interesting paper encompassing several issues that need more consideration by all of us in psychology. I especially like his suggestion that our psyche extends into what we say and do, reaching beyond our strictly individual realm of mentation and being reflected within a patterned context. I think that psychologists would profit from considering the logos or patterned context of behavior on the basis of which we human beings frame the rationales (reasons, grounds) for our behavior. Sometimes the context per se takes on a meaning that the person must accommodate even though he or she did not personally initiate such significations. This is especially true in the social realm. In this sense I think it is correct to say that at times we are "being thought" through the contextual influence of others' cogitations as well as doing our own thinking. There is a logic transcending the person that cannot be overlooked. At least some of what Jung (1953, pp. 149, 155) meant by the collective conscious (persona) and/or unconscious relates to some such contextual meaning formulation.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4615-6453-9_15

Full citation:

Rychlak, J. (1986)., Problems with hypothetical-deductive explanation, in L. Mos (ed.), Annals of theoretical psychology, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 207-225.

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