‘Social constructionism’ comes in a number of guises, but none seems to sit well with mainstream behavioural scientists. In the current climate, what is taught in undergraduate, graduate and professional courses is becoming more and more determined by the requirements of those professional societies that ‘accredit’ or ‘approve’ courses. By these routes, people can become, for example, ‘registered’ or ‘chartered’ psychologists, titles reserved for the identification of those who have received a ‘proper’ training in the discipline. It is also becoming increasingly common that people who attain these titles are required to ‘keep at it’, and demonstrate they remain up to date with the current discipline. They do this by undertaking various forms of ‘professional development’, particularly by participating in approved courses or attending approved conferences, lectures, seminars, and the like. It is quite possible to gain and retain this recognition without ever coming across any of the work, writers and ideas that we are concerned with in this book: in fact, it is generally the case. In our view, this is a rather odd situation.

Its oddity is well put by the philosopher Thomas Nagel. He pointed out thirty-five years ago (1974: 435–6) that ‘the subjective character of experience … is not captured by any of the familiar, recently devised reductive analyses of the mental, for all of them are logically compatible with its absence … If the analysis leaves something out, the problem will be falsely posed.’