CONTEXTUALISM - IS THE ACT IN CONTEXT THE ADEQUATE METAPHOR FOR SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY

According to some, psychology as it has been practiced is based on a w orld view known as mechanism. Individuals from a number of different a reas of psychology, most recently within the behavior-analytic communi ty, have strongly argued that psychology should be based on a differen t world view, contextualism. They emphasize a variety of characteristi cs that, in their view, differentiate a contextualistically based psyc hology from one based on mechanism. We examine these characteristics a nd find them to be of dubious value for differentiating a contextualis tic approach to psychology from others. One proposal of some advocates of contextualism is that contextualistic approaches should develop in dependently from most of the remainder of psychology, which they regar d as mechanistic. This proposal is said to be derived from the metaphi losophy of Pepper (1942). We evaluate this proposal and reject it. We go on to suggest that the mechanistic/contextualistic dichotomy is too constraining to realistically describe various approaches to psycholo gy.