More Melodramas. Critical Commentary to Covarrubias
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rp.e350703Keywords:
Melodramas, Philosophy, Psychology, Essentialism, Dualism, CognitivismAbstract
For the most part, Covarrubias’ article is a kind of commercial showcase in which some assumptions of J. J. Gibson’s approach to perception are put on display, without justifying why they should even be considered, much less accepted, establishing itself as yet another not-so-distinct separatist bulwark. from the Kantorian, Skinnerian, or traditional mentalist cognitivist. For this reason, a substantial and substantive comment requires placing the article in a broader context that transcends its axiomatic expository mood. The context is philosophical because, ultimately, in one way or another, all the debates, conflicts, and disagreements around the themes of this monographic issue, including that of Covarrubias’s article, deal with metaphysical and epistemological assumptions. Such assumptions tend to be tacit, so their central importance in determining the issues, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, go unrecognized. In this commentary I identify some of those assumptions that, due to their tacit nature, have led to melodramas, that is, propagandistic presentations, frivolous struggles that are philosophically superficial and unnecessarily prolonged, confusing, superfluous and, therefore, harmful to psychology. The three main melodramas that he identified are: 1) the allegedly ‘revolutionary’ and ‘paradigmatic’ character of the Gibsonian approach; 2) the disputes around several core questions of this approach, rooted in an essentialist fundamentalism endemic in psychology that considers them, capriciously, as necessary for research; and 3) the false charge that traditional mentalistic cognitivism is dualistic. I end my comment with a critique of the application proposed by Covarrubias of the Gibsonian approach to the Experimental Analysis of Behavior.
Downloads
References
Ben-Zeev, A. (1981). J. J. Gibson and the ecological approach to perception. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 12, 107–139. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0039-3681(81)90016-9
Bickhard, M. H., y Richie, D. M. (1983). On the nature of representation: A case study of James Gibson’s theory of perception. Praeger.
Burgos, J. E. (2020). A goldilocks approach to the philosophy-science relation. Behavior and Philosophy, 48, 47–68. https://behavior.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BP-V48-7-BURGOS-revised.pdf
Burgos, J. E. (2021). The real problem with hypothetical constructs. Perspectives in Behavior Science, 44, 683–704. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40614-021-00311-0
Cabrera, F., Jiménez, Á. A., y Covarrubias, P. (2019). Timberlake’s behavior systems: A paradigm shift toward an ecological approach. Behavioural Processes, 167, 103892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103892
Costall, A. P. (1984). Are theories of perception necessary? A review of Gibson’s. The ecological approach to visual perception. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 41, 109–115. https://dx.doi.org/10.1901%2Fjeab.1984.41-109
Covarrubias, P. (2022). Percepción directa: detectando las propiedades relacionales permanentes en los patrones de estimulación cambiantes. Revista de Psicología Universidad de Antioquia, 14(2), 105-129. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rp.e350102
Covarrubias, P., Cabrera, F., y Jiménez, Á. A. (2017). Invariants and information pickup in The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems: Implications for the experimental analysis of behavior. Ecological Psychology, 29, 231–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2017.1332460
Covarrubias, P., Cabrera, F. y Jiménez, Á. A. (2021). Detection of invariants in probabilistic relations between events by means of exploratory behaviors. Journal of Behavior, Health and Social Issues, 13, 68-80. http://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/jbhsi/article/view/77678
Covarrubias, P., Cabrera, F., Jiménez, Á. A., y Costall, A. (2017). The ecological revolution: The senses considered as perceptual systems, 50 years later – Part 2. Ecological Psychology, 29, 161–164. https://doi.org/10.1080/10407413.2017.1331316
Cutting, J. E. (1982). Two ecological perspectives: Gibson vs. Shaw and Turvey. The American Journal of Psychology, 95, 199–222. https://doi.org/10.2307/1422466
Flynn, S. B., y Stoffregen, T. A. (2011). Gibsonian theory in comparative psychology. En G. Greenberg, y M. M. Haraway (Eds.), Comparative psychology: A handbook (pp. 120–127). Routledge.
Fodor, J. A. (1980). Methodological solipsism considered as a research strategy in cognitive psychology. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 63–110. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00001771
Fodor, J. A., y Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1981). How direct is visual perception? Some reflections on Gibson’s “ecological approach”. Cognition, 9, 139–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(81)90009-3
Fuller, S. (2003). Kuhn vs. Popper: The struggle for the soul of science. Icon Books.
Gibson, J. J. (1960). The concept of the stimulus in psychology. American Psychologist, 15, 694–703. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0047037
Gibson, J. J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin.
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.
Goldstein, E. B. (1981). The ecology of J. J. Gibson’s perception. Leonardo, 14, 191–195. https://doi.org/10.2307/1574269
Gyr, J. W. (1972). Is a theory of direct perception adequate? Psychological Bulletin, 77, 246–261. https://doi/10.1037/h0032352 https://doi.org/10.1037/h003235
Hamlyn, D. W. (1977). The concept of information in Gibson’s theory of perception. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 7(1), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5914.1977.tb00374.x
Kugler, P. N., y Turvey, M. T. (1987). Information, natural law, and the self-assembly of rhythmic movement. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. The University of Chicago Press.
Leibnitz, G. W. F. (1890). A new system of nature. En G. M. Duncan (Trad. Ed.), The philosophical works of Leibnitz (pp. 71–93). Publicado originalmente en 1695.
Mace, W. M., y Pittenger, J. B. (1975). Directly perceiving Gibson: A further reply to Gyr. Psychological Bulletin, 82, 137–139. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0078105
Malebranche, N. (1997). Dialogues on metaphysics and on religion (N. Jolley, Ed.; D. Scott, Trad.). Publicado originalmente en 1688.
Masterman, M. (1970). The nature of a paradigm. En I. Lakatos y A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 59–89). Cambridge University Press.
Putnam, H. (1960). Minds and machines. En S. Hook (Ed.), Dimensions of mind (pp. 138–164). New York University Press.
Putnam, H. (1967) Psychological predicates. En W. H. Capitan y D. D. Merrill (Eds.), Art, mind, and religion (pp. 37–48). University of Pittsburgh Press.
Putnam, H. (1988). Representation and reality. mit Press.
Reed, E. S. (1988). James J. Gibson and the psychology of perception. Yale University Press.
Reed, E. S., y Jones, R. K. (1978). Gibson’s theory of perception: A case of hasty epistemologizing? Philosophy of Science, 45, 519–530. https://www.jstor.org/stable/186967
Reed, E. S., y Jones, R. K. (1979). James Gibson’s ecological revolution in psychology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 9, 189–204. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F004839317900900206
Rowbottom, D. P. (2011). Kuhn vs. Popper on criticism and dogmatism in science: a resolution at the group level. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 42, 117–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2010.11.031
Rozemond, M. (1998). Descartes’ dualism. Harvard University Press.
Sanders, J. T. (1997). An ontology of affordances. Ecological Psychology, 9, 97–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326969eco0901_4
Tonneau, F. (2011). Holt’s realism: New reasons for behavior analysis. En E. P. Charles (Ed.), A new look at New Realism: The psychology and philosophy of E. B. Holt (pp. 33–55). Transaction Publishers.
Ullman, S. (1980). Against direct perception. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 373–415. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0000546X
Uttal, W. R. (2000). The war between mentalism and behaviorism: On the accessibility of mental processes. Lawrence Erlbaum.
Uttal, W. R. (2004). Dualism: The original sin of cognitivism. Lawrence Erlbaum.
van Dijk, L., y Kiverstein, J. (2021). Direct perception in context: radical empiricist reflections on the medium. Synthese, 198, 8389–8411. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02578-3
Wray, K. B. (2007). Kuhnian revolutions revisited. Synthese, 158, 61–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27653574
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Revista de Psicología Universidad de Antioquia
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Texts submitted for evaluation to the Journal of Psychology of the University of Antioquia must have never been published before, nor been accepted for future publication by any other journal.
Upon the Journal’s acceptance for publication of submitted material, the author partially transfers his/her rights on the article, preserving those relative to its non-commercial use and academic circulation as a free-access file.
Except if otherwise decided, this Journal’s content is covered by a Creative Commons licence “Attribution - Non-commercial – share a like” Colombia 4.0. The licence can be checked out here.
