Winner of 2007 APA Division 24 (Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology) Student Paper Award—given to the best student paper presented at the annual APA Convention in Division 24’s program.
Prospectus (please email Kevin at metatron99@hotmail.com to request the full paper)
The Ethical-Ontological Foundations of Modernity
Kevin K. Winters
Modernity is the guiding ethos of our day, not only in the broad scope of our culture, but also within the discipline of psychology. Traditionally, scholars have understood modernity as the rejection of Medieval authoritarianism and a new dependence on reason, namely as an epistemological revolution. But modernity’s roots extend deeper than a reliance on rationality. The abysmal failures of the Thirty Years War in the wake of sectarian violence aptly demonstrated the need for a non-sectarian ground for discussion (Toulmin, Cosmopolis). Above and beyond the need for a universal ground for discourse, the rejection of an inherent cosmic order that informed the Catholic and Protestant cultures cleared the path for the development of a non-sectarian valuation (Taylor, Sources of the Self). With this rejection came a new valuation of certainty, not in the sense of epistemological certainty, but of ontologically securing in advance how beings will appear—e.g., as particles in motion (Heidegger, “What is a Thing?”). This prevailing ontological attitude set the stage for modernity’s homogenization of time through a linear metaphor with its inherent homogenization of space as coordination. By establishing in advance how beings will appear in the scientific project, modernity also inaugurated a new valuation of the world: the valuation of objective, third-person experiments over subjective, introspective descriptions, of calculative utility over inherent goods, etc. This analysis is meant to elucidate the ethical and ontological foundations of modernity in order to understand how psychology, as a discipline, is situated within and should respond to the culture of modernity. When psychology is viewed in light of this ethical/ontological interpretation, three important implications become apparent: 1) that we must examine modernity’s valuations more than its dogmas, 2) that these valuations are contingent and not sufficient for psychology’s existence as a discipline, and 3) that alternative valuations and ontologies must be adequately understood before being used to substantiate non-traditional claims—zeal should not step beyond understanding.