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From: "Alan J. Robinson" <robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Re: Quantifying literary progress
Message-ID: <47153.robin073@maroon.tc.umn.edu>
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Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 15:17:54 GMT
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On 21 Aug 1995 14:05:00 -0500, 
Jorn Barger  <jorn@MCS.COM > wrote:

>Fiona Webster <fi@access.digex.net> writes, quoting me:
>>> I contend that literature is the naturalistic/descriptive phase of 
>>> psychological science.
>>
>>Hmmm -- you got my goat with that one.  Why?  Because I'm a 
>>psychiatrist.  I would argue, rather, that detailed clinical case 
>>reports are the naturalistic/descriptive phase of psychological 
>>science.  A trained clinician always perceives psychological phenomena 
>>through the lens of theory, of course, but they at least try for an
>>agreed-upon terminology for psychological description, so that 
>>observations can be compared from one case report to another.
>
>Do you write fiction as well?  Have you ever read case reports written
>novelistically?
>
>I belong to the school that thinks psychological jargon is dangerous
>pigeonholing...
>
>>  A writer 
>>of literature is not trying for this level of disciplinary 
>>"objectivity" (I put that in quotes because all scientific observations 
>>are fundamentally subjective, etc. etc.).  A writer of literature is 
>>striving, rather, for an artistic achievement.  It's like the 
>>difference between how a botanist describes a tree, and how a poet 
>>describes a tree.  The botanist, because they know *what* to observe 
>>and *how* to express their observations in technical terms, will 
>>provide a description that is scientific.  The poet's description isn't 
>>trying to be science, and shouldn't be compared to science.
>
>But the novelist may be trying to be psychologically exact.  And this
>may be called 'objectivity', without diminishing its artistry in the
>least!
>
>And the language available to the novelist seems much, much, *much*
>more precise than psychological jargon...
>

Observers of the human condition since ancient times have realized 
that there are substantial differences (most likely innate) between 
individuals in personality and how they react in specific situations, 
and that these reactions are often quite predictable.

In the 20th century things became a little confused as psychology 
struggled to establish itself as a science, and attempted to explain 
human behavior based on rigorously established scientific theories.  
Because of the extreme difficulty of observing the thinking process in 
brains, several of the theories that were put forward such as 
Freudianism and behaviorism were not really grounded in scientific 
observation at all, but were really thinly disguised political 
statements.

Psychology and psychiatry are only now beginning to recover from 
these trips up bind alleys, and it is true that often one can gain 
better insight into human nature by reading Shakespeare than by 
reading research papers in psychology.

But the times they are a changing, and the behavioral and brain 
sciences are entering a period of revolutionary change, where 
it is now becoming possible to establish SCIENTIFICALLY the 
neurophysiological basis for observations about human behavior that 
were made as long ago as Ancient Greece.

Much of the definitive research in these fields has only been 
published since 1985, and even very few researchers have more than a 
limited knowledge of these developments.  Moreover, this research 
often contradicts what has been commonly taught in school, so there is 
some additional reluctance to move on to the new ideas.

AJR

