Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Psychology

Introduction

In this chapter I will introduce the work of John Dewey (1859–1952) (see Box 15.1) and an approach to psychology called functionalism. (Dewey himself preferred the term ‘instrumentalism’, but ‘functionalism’ tends to be the term most commonly used to refer to this approach.) Functionalism can be contrasted with the structuralist approach, exemplified by Titchener. Whereas structural psychology was an attempt to codify the structural elements, such as basic sensations, that went together to make complex states, the functionalists argued that there were no such elements. They argued that psychological phenomena should be understood in terms of processes and functions rather than fixed structural features.

This basic functionalist idea is present in Dewey’s thought in the following ways. Firstly, because psychology is to be understood in terms of processes rather than structures, the things that it deals with are not defined by their intrinsic characteristics, but by the functions that they perform. We should not, then, speak of memory, for example, as if it were a thing, but rather of the process of remembering. In addition, there are no parts of this process that are intrinsically memorial; anything – sensations, emotions, cognitions – that plays a role in the process is, for as long as the process lasts, part of what we call memory. Secondly, functionalists believe that psychological phenomena can only be understood as part of a broader network of connected processes. If we want to understand more about something in psychology, we should not attempt to narrow our focus and isolate it from everything else as if we were looking though a microscope. On the contrary, we should expand our field of view to see how that process functions within the wider context of other processes within the organism and the environment. When we do this, says Dewey, we find that many of the dualisms that have bedevilled philosophy – such as those between body and mind or between thought and action – do not reflect deep-seated metaphysical differences, but only differences of function. According to Dewey, when we see processes in context we find that they are not opposed to one another, but are necessary parts of an overall process. I hope to show in the course of this chapter how Dewey’s functionalist approach allows him to reconcile what were previously thought to be opposing sides of philosophical dichotomies.