Understanding personhood can we get there from here

The goal of this special issue is to attempt to identify and clear away some of the obstacles that have impeded the study of persons in psychological science, to explore what it would me

Understanding personhood: Can we get there from here?

Michael F Mascoloa,*

, Catherine Raeffb

aMerrimack College, United States

bIndiana University of Pennsylvania, United States

1 Understanding personhood: can we get there from here?

It may seem rather ironic to publish a special issue of a journal

about new ideas on the person because the person is hardly a new

idea or issue Indeed, the person can be and has been defined,

understood, and represented in countless ways through centuries

and across varied disciplines However, and also rather ironically,

the person has not been a central topic in psychology Granted,

there have been some treatments over the years (including in this

journal) However, understanding and investigating what it means

to be a person has not been taken up systematically in psychology

There are no doubt varied interrelated reasons for this neglect The

goal of this special issue is to attempt to identify and clear away

some of the obstacles that have impeded the study of persons in

psychological science, to explore what it would mean to speak of

personhood, and to propose how we might go about studying the

functioning of persons or people

1.1 The special problem of understanding persons

What does it mean to be a person? This question has several

meanings First, it raises the question of the meaning of the term

person This sense of the question arises from adopting a third

person perspective, namely how are we to define those beings over

there that we call persons? The second sense of the question has to

do with what it means to experience oneself as a person This sense

reflects the view from the first-person perspective of the

experi-encing individual him or herself Third, this question raises issues

about how we treat the people with whom we interact as persons

In other words, what does it mean to interact with you as a person,

or how do I treat you as a person? This sense of the question reflects

the view from the second person perspective of I-You relationships

The multi-faceted nature of this question illustrates the complexity

of the problem before us: we are striving to understand the

meaning of beings (persons) who define themselves in terms of

constructed systems of symbolic meaning

Human organisms are simultaneously bio-physical,

psycholog-ical, and socio-cultural beings The physical and biological aspects

of human organisms are effectively studied using the principles and methods of the natural sciences Problems arise, however, when we assume that the principles and methods of the natural sciences can

be readily applied to understand the psychological and

socio-cultural aspects of persons Contributors to this issue have raised

a series of themes that are relevant to understanding persons as psychological and socio-cultural beings These themes include

agency, reflexivity and self-awareness, integrated action, the semiotic

function, the moral capacity for strong evaluation, and perhaps most importantly, a non-finalizing capacity for self-creation through active co-engagement with culture and world.

Because the processes by which we come to know ourselves and each other as persons differ qualitatively from how we come to know objects, the methods that we use to study persons must also differ fundamentally In what follows, we examine how common scientific assumptions have impeded rather than advanced our understanding of personhood We synthesize claims from the contributors to this special issue to suggest renewed ways of conceptualizing psychological science that would allow us to confront hard questions related to what it means to be a person

2 Overcoming obstacles to a science of persons

Table 1enumerates a series of obstacles identified by contrib-utors to this volume that have obstructed progress in elaborating a

science of personhood psychology In what follows, we elaborate

upon each of these obstacles and, drawing on the contributions to this volume, propose suggestions for removing them

2.1 Inescapable philosophical frameworks

The founding of Wundt's experimental laboratory in 1879 is often used as a way to mark the separation of psychology from its origins in philosophy As indicated inTable 1, the severing of psy-chology from philosophy gave psypsy-chology a sense of methodolog-ical autonomy The accessibility of publmethodolog-ically observable behavior was intended to provide an empirical counterpoint to the specu-lative methods of philosophy To this day, philosophy continues to

be seen by many psychologists as a form of unconstrained armchair psychology Because grounding assertions in observable evidence is not a primary or traditional part of its methodology, philosophy is

* Corresponding author.

E-mail address:Michael_mascolo@yahoo.com (M.F Mascolo).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

New Ideas in Psychology

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w e l s e v i e r c o m / l o c a t e / n e w i d e a p s y c h

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.11.002

New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53

often seen as something to be avoided, and as something inferior to

the empirical methods of psychological science (Harre, 2005; Klein,

1942)

However, the idea that empirical psychology can operate

inde-pendently of philosophy is a chimerical one All inquiry is

neces-sarily prefigured in some way by sets of philosophical or conceptual

assumptions, which are often tacit, unarticulated and

unques-tioned The conceptual foundations on which empirical methods

are based, including objectivism and operationalism, are

them-selves philosophical principles Thus, the very arguments invoked to

justify the separation of empirical psychology from philosophy

themselves rest on philosophical arguments

It follows that empirical inquiry does not operate independently

of philosophical claims It is thus necessary to become reflexive

about the philosophical issues that structure psychological

theo-rizing We must reaffirm the interdependent relationship between

psychology, philosophy and related disciplines Empirical inquiry

can only be improved through a rigorous articulation of the

phil-osophical or conceptual commitments that structure our theorizing

and methodology

2.2 Rethinking epistemology

Psychological methodology is based upon the epistemological

assumptions of objectivity and operationalism (Items 2 and 3 in

Table 1) In psychology, the concept of objectivity is founded upon

the Cartesian distinction between a public exterior and a private

interior Scientific psychology adopts a third person approach to

understanding the psychological processes of others Objectivity

demands that psychological theorizing be grounded in

observa-tions of the public exterior This immediately raises the problem of

“other minds”: how can we gain access into the “private minds” of

others if we only have access to a “public exterior”?

The answer, of course, is that we do not only have access to a

public exterior The problem of “other minds” arises only if we are

committed to the traditional Cartesian distinction between the

private interior and a public exterior As discussed by contributors

to this issue (Bickhard, Mascolo, Sugarman, Shotter), there are ample reasons to discard this assumption For example, in

face-to-face interaction, psychological life is not something that is a priori

hidden behind an opaque exterior Instead, the light of a person's experiential life shines through their bodily and symbolic actions

In addition, we are inherently intersubjective beings, capable of

engaging with the experience of others from early in life Our socio-cultural capacity for language builds upon our capacity for inter-subjective relations with others Using language, we draw on historically-constructed meanings to represent our own psycho-logical lives as well as those of others Language becomes a tool not only for understanding but also for transforming each other's psychological and social life

If we are intersubjective beings in this way, the hard problem of

“other minds” all but vanishes, and empirical inquiry can take a different course An alternative to objectivist methodology can be found in hermeneutic, intersubjective and relational epistemologies that eliminate or otherwise transcend the subjective-objective

distinction In invoking a hermeneutic epistemology, our

methodo-logical task becomes finding ways to refine and systematize our

everyday forms of intersubjective engagement as means of psy-chological inquiry From this view, verification of theoretical claims does not occur as a matter of matching theory to a world described as

it is Instead, knowledge claims are verified through coordinating and corroborating forms of evidence that are always mediated by human conceptual frameworks, purposes and tools

It is important to understand that as an epistemology, a her-meneutic or relational approach is silent about endorsing particular

methodological techniques in psychological research Researchers

are free to adopt first- (e.g., self-report, personal reflection), sec-ond- (e.g., inquiry through discursive activity), and third-person (e.g., observation, experimentation, quantification) methods in psychological research The difference lies not in advocating any given qualitative or quantitative method, but instead in the ways in which measures are defined and used in psychological research For

example, Bickhard has suggested that to take persons seriously,

“one need only generate models of the ontologies of persons, and

Table 1

Overcoming obstacles to a science of persons.

1 Methodological Autonomy Objectivist epistemology tends to define some psychological

processes a priori as outside of the realm of scientific investigation Quintessentially

psychological processes are left under-specified (e.g., agency, experience.)

Interdisciplinary Acknowledge the inescapable role of philosophical frameworks in psychological research and the need for interdisciplinary coordination Reconcile empirical inquiry with rigorous conceptual analyses of the constructs involved in psychological research.

2 Objectivist Methodology The idea that science necessarily relies upon third-person

analysis of publically observable behavior marginalizes intersubjectivity as the primary

means of gaining psychological phenomena.

Epistemological Broadening Exploit and refine our capacity for intersubjective engagement as a source of psychological knowledge Articulate the strengths and limits of first-, second, and third-person forms of psychological inquiry.

3 Operationalism Operational definitions often (a) fail to represent the full range of

processes that they are intended to measure and (b) result in analyses that represent

human action as static variables rather than dynamic processes.

Dynamic Modeling and Testing Construct models of the functioning

of persons as they act over time in particular social and cultural contexts Assess theoretical and empirical consequences of those models with multiple forms of evidence.

4 Fragmentation Psychology is organized into more-or-less isolated sub-divisions that

tend to study aspects of psychological functioning independently of each other.

Integrated Model of Person Work toward understandings that show how varied processes work together to form an integrated person Seek ways to study how persons function at the level of the contextualized agentive person.

5 Encased Psychologism The claim that human action is a result of the internal

workings of the mind obscure analyses of the ways in which human action is

produced by processes that are distributed throughout dynamic person-environment

systems.

Contextualization of Action A person acts within particular contexts and cultural practices that function as part of the process of that action There is a need to understand the ways in which what is often called

“mind” extends beyond the skin.

6 Separation of Person and Culture Culture is often treated as an “independent variable”

in psychological research, i.e., something that can be manipulated to determine its causal

effect on individuals Persons and cultures are seen as distinct entities.

Cultural Inseparability Humans are symbolic beings who need culture

to complete them over time Persons and cultures must be understood not as separate variables but instead as dynamic processes that “make each other up.”

7 Primary Focus on Efficient Causes Search for cause-and-effect relations fails to capture

how diverse causal process operate together to produce action and often directs attention

away from analyses of teleological and formal causality.

System Causality Need to understand persons as complex dynamic systems that operate within larger systems Need for analyses at the level of individual persons to understand the emergence and spontaneity of complex patterns of action.

M.F Mascolo, C Raeff / New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53

examine the theoretical and empirical consequences of those

models.”

This way of conducting research is essentially what dynamic

systems (Mascolo, Van Geert, Steenbeek & Fischer, 2016; Molenaar

&Nesselroade, 2015) and person-oriented researchers (Bergman &

Vargha, 2013; von Eye & Wiedermann, 2015) are beginning to do

when they propose and test dynamic models of how integrated

forms of human action operate over time within particular

con-texts To test such models, researchers essentially say, “If the

agentive, meaning-mediated system we call a person operates

ac-cording to parameters i, j and k (the model), then the

person-as-system should produce outcomes a, b and c over time within

particular contexts and circumstances.” Such an approach would

require multiple methodologies e not only discursive and

inter-pretive methods advanced by qualitative researchers, but also

mathematical modeling of persons as dynamic self-organizing

systems

2.3 From fragmentation to integration

Another epistemological assumption that informs conventional

methodology in psychology is splitting or fragmenting Raeff argues

that to understand a person, it is necessary to go beyond

frag-mented analyses of psychological processes, viewed as

more-or-less isolated modules that make up a person (Item 4 inTable 1)

There is a need to start with a holistic understanding of how the

parts that make up a person operate together to make the whole,

and, not inconsequentially, how the activity of the organism as a

whole organizes the functioning of the parts (Witherington)

Consistent with the ideas advanced by contributors to this issue, to

build a model of persons, it is necessary to understand how human

action emerges as a product of dynamics that occur both within and

between biological, psychological and socio-cultural aspects of

functioning (Bickhard, Raeff, Witherington)

Fig 1provides a simple sketch of what an integrative model of

the origins of human action might look like as it arises as part of a

person-environment system This system is composed of five basic

aspects e (A) individual action, the (B) objects (real or imagined)

that action is directed toward, (C) the actions of other people, (D) the

co-regulation of action that occurs between people, all of which

occurs within (E) physical and socio-cultural contexts Action is

produced at the (D) person-context nexus (Martin) In interactions

with others, action occurs within an intersubjective matrix of

experience, and is mediated by socially shared symbol systems.

Raeff has suggested that the basic unit of understanding

psycho-logical functioning for the individual person is action However,

action is not taken to occur at the end of a long chain of internal

and/or external processes At any moment, an individual's action is made up of the integrative interplay among varied processes, including but not limited to meaning (symbolic or otherwise), affect and motor action Human action is thus an emergent product

of the relations between “goes on inside of us” and “what we go on inside of” (Shotter)

2.4 From psychologism to relational becomings

Psychologism is the view that the primary causes of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and other psychological processes refer to mental processes that occur within the individual person (Martin, Sugarman) This belief is reflected in many areas in psychology that restrict their focus primarily to processes that occur within in-dividuals (e.g., cognitive psychology; the study of personality, emotion) It also informs the common practice of treating individ-ual action as a kind of dependent variable that is under the causal influence of one or more efficient causes (Witherington) This view separates persons from culture as causal processes in human ac-tion Where culture is considered, it tends to be treated as an in-dependent variable e something to be manipulated in order to assess its effects on individual action

As indicated inTable 1(Items 5, 6 and 7), a major principle ar-ticulated by all contributors to this volume is that persons are

relational beings who act responsively within physical and

socio-cultural contexts which include the ongoing actions of other

peo-ple Of particular importance is the capacity for the intersubjective co-regulation of action as it occurs between people The construction

of higher-order action is mediated through the use of symbolic

cultural tools, the most important being language Language me-diates the process by which people coordinate their activities for both personal and common ends People develop as they engage with others in cultural practices that involve using language and other tools to build new skills, understandings, and identities Language is especially important in mediating the processes by which we come to represent our own experiences and form higher-order selves As articulated by Shotter, we neither come to know ourselves directly, nor do we direct our actions from some auton-omous internal center Instead, we act within dialogically-structured encounters in which we responsively adjust our action

to the ongoing and anticipated action of our interlocutors We come

to construct and know our “inner worlds” as we learn to use lan-guage to represent, shape and regulate our personal and social experience In this way, we are relational beings – or, in Shotter's

words, relational becomings e beings who are never fully finalized.

As open systems (Witherington), we are continuously able to

re-create ourselves in dialogical interactions with others In this way,

M.F Mascolo, C Raeff / New Ideas in Psychology 44 (2017) 49e53

although a person is not infinitely malleable, a person is also not

something or someone who can be easily pinned down Through

our active engagement with the world, we have a capacity for

renewal, spontaneity, and the construction of new possibilities

(Bickhard) In this way, humans enter the world as incomplete

beings or persons who develop in dialogical relations with others

They need culture to complete them e even as they can never

actually be fully completed

2.5 From efficient to systems causality

As described by Witherington, Aristotle identified four causes

that together explain how any given phenomenon in the world can

come into being Explanation invoking material causes refer to the

substance “out of which” an entity is created The material cause of

a bronze sculpture is the bronze “out of which” the figure is

fash-ioned Efficient causes involve the antecedent events that bring

about consequential effects, as occurs when a sculptor pours

mel-ted bronze into a cast The formal cause explains the origins of

things in terms of the structure or organization of an entity, that is,

with respect to how parts come together to make wholes The

statue becomes a statue by virtue of its particular form, or ways in

which its parts are structured and organized That form that comes

about through the instantiation of a final cause, which refers to the

goal, end or good “for the sake of which” the sculptor produced the

statue's form

In his article, Witherington argues that psychological research is

framed primarily as an attempt to identify efficient causes of

hu-man behavior If, however, huhu-mans are relational and cultural

be-ings, it is essential that we move beyond the logic of efficient

causality Also, if humans are dynamic, self-organizing systems, it

follows that we need systems principles to explain what they do

and how they do it A systems view does not rule out explanations

based on material and efficient causes As biophysical organisms,

we cannot ultimately explain how persons act without reference to

the structure and functioning of their neuro-physiological

sub-strata But such explanations, of course, are insufficient A systems

causality must also rest upon formal and final causes.

Formal causes are necessary to explain how human action

emerges as a product of the relations among the components that

make up the person-environment system We may explain how

electro-chemical changes activate muscle movements in the vocal

chords, tongue and lips These causes can be understood as efficient

causes However, what we say at any given moment is necessarily a

product of our attempt to act responsively in relation to our

inter-locutor In so doing, we continuously adjust what we say and do to

the ongoing and anticipated sayings and doings of the other As a

result, our actions are co-regulated by processes that occur between

people In this way, our face-to-face social processes cannot be

understood primarily in terms of efficient causes Our relational

responsivity demands that we understand action arises as a

prod-uct of formal causes e that is, in terms of dynamic relations that

occur between and among aspects of an organized

person-environment system

However, formal causes are also insufficient to explain the

functioning of persons Our attempt to understand personhood

demands that we invoke final causes to explain how goals organize

human action Persons are teleological beings whose actions aim

toward some sort of good Part of what makes us human is our

desire to create and re-create ourselves in terms of norms, values

and evaluative ideals that define who we wish to become And

while we are embodied beings whose constitution is the result of

millions of years of evolution, the values that we espouse or enact

are not simple reflections of our biological nature They arise and

develop as we relate to each other and create conceptions of what is

and is not worth doing, as well as whom it is and is not worth attempting to become As persons, we are thus defined, in part, through shared and contested conceptions of who we think should be

3 What makes a good frog?

In 2013, the famous Aristotelian philosopher Alisdaire

MacIn-tyre delivered a talk entitled What Natural Science Can't Explain In

the discussion after the talk, MacIntyre was asked about the

dif-ference between norms and goods MacIntyre argued that norms e

even among animals ecannot be understood as mere statistical descriptions To identify behavior as “normative”, it is necessary to know, for example, whether the animals in question were healthy

or diseased, whether they were in a familiar habitat, and so forth Thus, the act of identifying norms e even in nature – requires some

sort of evaluative judgment or reference to the good In response to

this point, another audience member asked, ““But shouldn't it be biologists who tell us what a good frog is…who tell us what are the norms and what are the fitting behaviors of their subjects” Mac-Intyre responded by referring to work related to dolphin intelligence:

Dolphin studies actually took their great leap forward from a purely accidental meeting between a very distinguished biolo-gist and a dolphin trainer And it turned out that up to this point, the two hadn't interacted at all… Dolphin trainers had their professional expertise And it was when they got together that they had begun to understand what was going on – that dolphin trainers had a much better understanding than the biologists did of what the dolphins were aiming at…of what it was that frustrated them when they were in captivity…What the bi-ologists understood were the mechanisms that enabled the dolphins to respond in this way, and what those mechanisms were which when damaged or distorted led them to be unable

to cope in various ways So when you put together these two, then quite suddenly you got a real leap forward

What is especially interesting here is that the task of under-standing dolphin intelligence was advanced when biologists

worked with practitioners who had essentially established a degree

of intersubjectivity with the animals with which they worked

Un-derstood in this way, the use of traditional third-person methods

based on the principle of objectivity were insufficient as means of

studying the species-typical behavior of dolphins Like humans, dolphins are biophysical, psychological, social and, to an extent, perhaps cultural beings (Sargeant & Mann, 2009) The physical aspects of dolphin functioning lend themselves to explanations invoking material and efficient causes The biological and organ-ismic aspects of the dolphin functioning are open to material, efficient and final causes However, understanding dolphin behavior requires a different type of inquiry, namely one that seeks

to understand the goals and relational experience of dolphins as they act within various ecological niches Explaining the adaptive activity of dolphins demands the invocation of formal and final causes

MacIntyre's (2013)remarks underscore the need for an inte-grated, multidisciplinary approach to understanding the multiply-nested behavior of self-organizing living systems If forms of intersubjectivity created between humans and dolphins can advance biological science, certainly our capacity for intersubjec-tivity must stand as a primary method for a psychological science And so, regarding the person and personhood: can we get there?

We think we can e but only if we are willing to forge new paths in the process

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