Jeff Sugarman proposes a groundbreaking and interesting approach to the study of psychological phenomena, their nature, and how they are to be explored and understood. To explain his historical dimension to his work, Sugarman illustrates the works of similar scholars who have attempted to explain the history of science in terms of thinking, logic, and reasoning including Alistair Crombie, Manheim and Fleck, and Hacking. This aspect is an informative introduction that enables the reader to build a perspective about what Sugarman is about to dwell in.
The author seems to agree with Hacking’s “styles of reasoning” to Crombie’s “styles of thinking”. Indeed, science is an all-round engagement that does not only involve thinking but also demonstrating, arguing, and most importantly in my view, experimenting. He terms his style of reasoning as “psychologism”, founded on the tenet “possessive individualism”. Psychologism attributes an individual’s perception, knowledge, experiences, and actions to their mental lives and built of neurophysiology. The assumption is that all psychological mechanisms and phenomena are private to individuals. The author cites Wundt’s and Titchener’s assumption that psychologism is the absolute basis of psychological explanation.
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I disagree with Wundt’s and Titchener’s assumption. It is a limiting supposition and its generalization of neurophysiology as the causative factor is subjective. But Sugarman introduces a new approach to psychologism. It should be studied as a style of reasoning rather than a discipline on its own. He authoritatively and clearly goes on to explain what informed his approach and how psychologism is formulated as a style of reasoning. The author also identifies the main weakness of psychologism, according to him. He identifies the issue of psychologists basing their explanation on effective, cognitive, and volitional processes and structures to persons without adequate consideration of social, cultural, economic, and political environments that constitute the person. In my view too, this is the major weakness of psychologism. Apart from mental activities, there are external factors affecting psychological phenomena. That is why Sugarman’s approach is the right one. Treating psychologism as a style of reasoning gives scholars to study it broadly alongside other assumptions.
