Theoretical Psychology in a Post-Empiricist Era
后经验主义时代的理论心理学

With the progressive undermining of empirical positivism, psychology is now entering a post-empiricist era. New understanding has been taken on the relationship between theory and observation. Theory is no more a second-class enterprise psychologists make in spare time after completing the difficult empirical researches. Rather, theory is active and empirical facts are meaningful only when explained by corresponding theories. On this account, theory does not come from the generalization and induction of empirical facts; instead theory is a social construct and is invented by people in a particular culture and society. In addition, theory in the post-empiricist era is not a finished product. Theory is only provisional, and merely a tool that makes communication easier. In the empiricist era, the philosophical fundamentals of theoretical psychology are empiricism and positivism. But in the post-empiricist era, theoretical psychology is based on Kuhn's theory of paradigm, Husserl's phenomenology, hermeneutics and social constructionism. All the doctrines have stood as the critical counter to the empiricist tradition. Kuhn claimed that a paradigm is in essence a theoretical framework that dictates which is and is not a fact. Therefore, theory is very important in scientific activities. The phenomenological tradition emphasizes the metaphysical method which is a kind of theoretical thinking. The hermeneutic perspective criticizes the empiricist view that understanding can be derived from observation. It has laid the groundwork for what is commonly regarded as interpretive science. According to this perspective, the study of psychological phenomena is irreducibly interpretive. Interpretation is also a way of theoretical thinking. Therefore, hermeneutics can be a support of theoretical psychology. Social constructionism argues that no theoretical views can warrant its own truth either with evidence or empirical data, for all the theories are social construction and we have no way to validate these claims. Psychological phenomena are no exception. Therefore theoretical thinking is needed to facilitate the capacity of theory construction. Due to the demise of the empiricist standards for evaluating theoretical positions, we need alternative criteria. The standard of conceptual logic is one of them. Evaluation of a theory does not always need the support of empirical evidences. Most problems that psychologists want to investigate can be analyzed with the help of logic. The second standard that can be used is value and ideology. For empiricism, good science should be value-free, and thus ideological evaluation should not be involved in scientific investigation. However, scholars have become increasingly aware of the relationship between science and society and culture, and have reached the conclusion that there is actually no scientifically neutral theory. Therefore, the value and ideological standard can be taken as a useful criterion for theoretical psych