Clinical Psychology and the Philosophy of Science (eBook) von William O’Donohue

Clinical psychologists have long shown considerable interest in the philosophy of science. This book presents an overview of current schools of thought in the philosophy of science that is accessible to non-specialists.

Introduction.- Special Topic: What are philosophical methods?.-  The Major Problems of the Philosophy of Science and Clinical Psychology.-  Special Topic: The relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science.-  Epistemology and Logical Positivism.-  Special Topic I: Logical Positivism and Radical Behaviorism.-  Special Topic II:  Epistemic and Philosophical Problems of the APAs Ethical Code 61.- Popper: Conjectures and Refutations.- Special Topic I: Three Other Key Evolutionary Epistemologists: Campbell, Quine and Skinner.- Special Topic II: Poppers Political Philosophy.- The Spell of Kuhn on Psychology.- Four Other Major Philosophers of Science.-  Special Topic: A Fifth Account of Science: The B.F. Skinners Indigenous, Behavioral Account of Science.- Post-Modernism, Social Constructionist, and the Science Wars.- The Complexity of Science Studies:  Multiple Perspectives on a Human.

The motivation for this volume is simple. For a variety of reasons, clinical psychologists have long shown considerable interest in the philosophy of science.  When logical positivism gained currency in the 1930s, psychologists were among the most avid readers of what these philosophers had to say about science. Part of the critique of Skinners radical behaviorism and thus behavior therapy was that it relied on, and thus was logically dependent on, the truth of logical positivisma claim decisively refuted both historically and logically by L.D. Smith (1986) in his important Behaviorism and Logical Positivism: A Reassessment of the Alliance. 

William O'Donohue earned a Bachelor's degree in psychology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He went on to study clinical psychology at SUNY at Stony Brook earning a Master's degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 1986. He then earned a Master's degree in philosophy in 1988 from Indiana University Bloomington. He was an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maine, Orono from 1987 to 1991. In Harrington v. Almy the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that a penile plethysmograph test ordered to be administered by O'Donohue as a precondition of employment was a violation of a Maine police officer's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 1996, he was appointed Director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Counseling Services at University of Nevada, Reno. O'Donohue founded CareIntegra with colleagues in 1999 and serves as CEO. O'Donohue has been critical of the use of forensic evaluations administered to litigants in child custody disputes. He told the New York Times, "Psychologists don't have the knowledge to do what they attempt to do when they do custody evaluations," adding that custody decisions are more about competing values than scientific findings when determining a child's best interest.