Abstract
Theoretical psychology encompasses numerous topics and scholarly traditions and forms of scholarship, including (but not limited to) narrative and hermeneutic methods, positioning theory, historical ontology, historiometry, conceptual and discourse analysis, philosophical hermeneutics, philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, empirical philosophy, critical studies, feminist studies, social action theory, science and technology studies, and various lenses through which inquiries of specific psychological categories of experience may be viewed (e.g., contemporary psychoanalysis, Aristotelian ethics, existentialism). As a result, not only can it be difficult to know where theoretical psychology “fits” within the larger discipline, it is not always clear how the different topics and scholarly traditions within theoretical psychology interact and inform one another to form a coherent subdiscipline. Add to this the fact that theoretical psychology, like the larger discipline of psychology, is constantly being recreated as specific issues come into and go out of focus and new methods of inquiry become available, and it is indeed quite a challenge for theoretical psychologists to identify the boundaries of their subdiscipline. Furthermore, it is not altogether clear whether and how different inquires and modes of inquiry can be brought together under a unified agenda, or of whether, in fact, such an agenda is useful, or even desirable. In my contribution to this volume, I borrow the concept of intersectionality from critical race and feminist theory to explore ideas concerning how theoretical psychology might be re-envisioned, re-thought, and re-invigorated in light of the multiplicity of interdependent (?) concerns and approaches adopted by theoretical psychologists.
An earlier version of this chapter was presented as part of a presidential forum, entitled “Re-envisioning theoretical psychology: Rebels with(out) a cause?” at the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology Midwinter Meeting in Richmond, VA in March 2017.
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Notes
- 1.
Lindworsky’s (1932) book, Theoretical Psychology, is but one example. Mind you, the manner in which he frames the question of what is theoretical psychology and the answer he provides differ considerably from that seen in more current discussions. Lindworsky states: “The subject matter of theoretical psychology is identical with that of experimental psychology”, that is, “the observed conscious phenomena and their more or less directly accessible connections” (p. 4; emphasis in original). He goes on to suggest that the task (then) of theoretical psychology is to establish the general laws from which empirically tested hypotheses about “observed conscious phenomena” could be derived and tested. Thus, if we can take Lindworsky’s perspective as representative of the thinking at the time, theoretical psychology was “theoretical” primarily in the sense of developing fundamental axioms for empirical psychology.
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- 3.
Treloar (2014) uses the expression “matrix of oppression.”
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Crenshaw (1989) herself acknowledges this ancestry.
- 5.
As with the definition of intersectionality provided here, these core themes presented here draw heavily from the respective accounts of intersectionality given by Crenshaw (1989, 1991), Hankivsky (2014), and Collins and Bilge (2016), and primarily from the latter. It is important to note, however, that, collectively, the seven themes reflect a very large body of intersectionality scholarship, as well as other areas of critical theory, representing a broad array of disciplines and areas of study. Where relevant, I include explicit references to some of this body of work.
- 6.
As it appears in much current critical theory and also mainstream discourse, the term “privilege” has been used in contentious ways which can, for example, perpetuate victimization (Bruni, 2017) and act to silence those deemed to have it, thereby shutting down analysis (Evans, 2015). I use the term in a relatively general sense of recognizing that access and opportunity vary in predictable ways with different social locations.
- 7.
A similar perspective on the complexity of identity and intersections of multiple identifications is also expressed in McCall (2005).
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Slaney, K.L. (2019). An Intersectionality for Theoretical Psychology?. In: Teo, T. (eds) Re-envisioning Theoretical Psychology. Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16762-2_3
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