Category (Psychology)

Category is a fundamental general term used to order the content of knowledge.

History of the theory of psychological categories

In the philosophical theory of categories, see category (philosophy) , a distinction must be made between the general (fundamental) categories and the special (regional) categories. Especially the psychology in its border position between the humanities , social sciences , the physiology and biology , with the various theories and methods of these areas, is at least dependent on outlines of a systematic special theory of categories.

This reflection can provide insights into previously hidden philosophical decisions and category errors, for example in one-sided research strategies or in the ongoing disputes about the consciousness-brain problem ( body-soul problem ) or free will .

“The dispute between the various branches of psychology is, in large part, a dispute over categories, even if it is fought out in other, secondary areas. Many disputes would be greatly simplified if they were to be tackled at the root. H. with the category problem. "

With this argument, Richard Müller-Freienfels asked to work on a special category theory in psychology, as Johann Friedrich Herbart and Wilhelm Wundt had already requested.

Definition according to Herbart

Herbart was critical of Immanuel Kant's table of categories and added additional categories that Kant had forgotten: irritability, self-determination and other “main determinations of internal events”. He understood these categories as the result of a conceptualization based on experience and stated that psychology as a science had yet to create its categories. In this turn of the eye, Baumgartner et al. according to the “beginning of an empirical theory of categories. As the most general concepts, categories result from the regularities of experience. ”...“ With this, the concept of category ... loses the a priori validity for phenomena that is peculiar to it in transcendental theory. ”

Definition according to Wundt

Wundt was the first psychologist to work out the traditional philosophical theory of categories in connection with the categorical peculiarities of psychology. Wundt distances himself from the traditional notion of a soul, thought to be substantial, with enduring “soul faculties” and argues that processes of consciousness are to be understood as processes that are connected according to independent psychic principles (“psychic causality”) in contrast to the natural causality of physiology. He explains the special concepts that are fundamental to psychology (categories and relational concepts ) at various points in his work: the subject reference, value orientation, purpose setting and volitional activity. He characterizes the human being as a “willing and thinking subject” in order to identify the similarities with the humanities and the categorical difference to the natural sciences.

Context , contrast , emergence , interaction and self-development are outstanding relational terms that characterize psychological relationships. As independent cognitive principles of psychology in the sense of Wundt, they have direct consequences for methodology and research strategies and lead on to empirical psychology. In his perspective view ( perspectivity ) they guide the appropriate methodological approach in psychology.

In scientific psychology, Wundt created the beginning of a special category theory, which, however, was hardly taken into account or directly continued. Other psychologists developed a variety of psychological terms, but, as in biology, a special category theory did not yet emerge.

literature

Hans-Michael Baumgartner, Gerd Gerhardt, Klaus Konhardt, Gerhard Schönrich : Category, category theory . In: Joachim Ritter et al. (Ed.). Historical dictionary of philosophy. Volume 4. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1976, pp. 714-776.
Jochen Fahrenberg : Wilhelm Wundts theory of science. - An attempt at reconstruction . In: Psychologische Rundschau , Volume 63, 2012, pp. 228–238.
Jochen Fahrenberg : On the theory of categories in psychology. Complementarity principle. Perspectives and change of perspective. Pabst Science Publishers, Lengerich 2013, ISBN 978-3-89967-891-8 . [1]
Johann Friedrich Herbart : Psychology as a science newly founded on experience, metaphysics and mathematics. Second, analytical part. Unzer, Königsberg 1825.
Wilhelm Wundt : Logic. An examination of the principles of knowledge and methods of scientific research. Volume 3. Logic of the Humanities. 4th edition. Enke, Stuttgart 1921.

Individual evidence

↑ Richard Müller-Freienfels : The categories of psychology. In: Otto Klemm (Ed.): Report on the XIII. Congress of the German Society for Psychology in Leipzig from 16.-19. October 1933. Fischer, Jena 1934, pp. 156–157.
↑ Baumgartner et al .: Category, Category Theory , 1976, p. 737.
^ Wilhelm Wundt: About psychological causality and the principle of psycho-physical parallelism . In: Philosophical Studies , Volume 10, 1894, pp. 1–124.
↑ Wundt, 1894; Logic, 1921, pp. 15-19.

[1] Richard Müller-Freienfels : The categories of psychology. In: Otto Klemm (Ed.): Report on the XIII. Congress of the German Society for Psychology in Leipzig from 16.-19. October 1933. Fischer, Jena 1934, pp. 156–157.

[2] Baumgartner et al .: Category, Category Theory , 1976, p. 737.

[3] Wilhelm Wundt: About psychological causality and the principle of psycho-physical parallelism . In: Philosophical Studies , Volume 10, 1894, pp. 1–124.

[4] Wundt, 1894; Logic, 1921, pp. 15-19.