Principles of Cognition, Language and Action

This book addresses a growing concern as to why Psychology, now more than a hundred years after becoming an independent research area, does not yet meet the basic requirements of a scientific discipline on a par with other sciences such as physics and biology. This work exposes flaws in the reductionist assumptions about mind and matter of naturalism and constructivism, which underlie research and theorizing on cognition, language and action within academic psychology. The author argues for alternative, radically different assumptions about the relationship between the mental and material reality, which are not only tenable, but as a matter of principle must be taken for granted, and be the point of departure for all investigations into both reality and our cognition and description of it. The consequences of the arguments in this book are far-reaching. The assumptions and principles derived from them offer a consistent foundation for a science of psychology. They also open up new and straightforward ways of dealing with the key issues of truth and intentionality, subjectivity and objectivity, of relevance to philosophy, the humanities and social sciences.