A New Coherent Scientific Ontology that Includes Psychology
A core part of the Unified Theory of Knowledge is that it seeks to develop a coherent naturalistic ontology that includes the science of psychology. Central to this effort is UTOK’s first key idea, which is the Tree of Knowledge System. The ToK System is a descriptive metaphysical system that provides a new theory of reality and our scientific knowledge of it. This blog deconstructs this argument. We begin with defining our terms.
Defining Metaphysics, Ontology, and Epistemology
Metaphysics refers to the concepts and categories that one is using to map the world. We can divide metaphysics into three categories. Pure metaphysics refers to concepts and categories that have no particular or specifiable relationship to the empirical world. For example, if one posits the existence of God or of angels or anything that cannot be specified empirically, those are pure metaphysical concepts. When focused on scientific ontology, pure metaphysics is of little utility. Because many scientists equate metaphysics with pure metaphysics, metaphysics tend to be ignored in the natural sciences. However, this is a mistake, one that becomes apparent when we consider the other two meanings of metaphysics.
As characterized by Strawson, descriptive metaphysics refers to getting clear about the definitions of one’s concepts and categories and their relationship. So, if you are introducing concepts like matter and mind, the descriptive metaphysical task is to be clear about what you are referencing. Finally, metaphysical systems refer to the system of interlocking concepts that provide a network or web of understanding. Koons and Pickavance (2014). In their introduction to the topic, they state that metaphysics is about:
the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. How do things fit together in the world? Plato describes this task of philosophy as “carving nature at the joints,” comparing metaphysics to a skillful and knowledgeable act of dissection. Here are four relations that seem to be among the fundamental relations of this worldly structure: the relation between things and their properties, between wholes and parts, between causes and effects, and things related to each other in space and in time.
Koons and Pickavance are describing metaphysical systems (see also Cahoone’s analysis in The Orders of Nature).
The Tree of Knowledge System is a new descriptive metaphysical system that functions to map reality and our scientific knowledge of it. As a descriptive metaphysical system, it defines terms like Matter, Life, Mind, and Culture, and it defines them in relationship to one another. People sometimes ask me why I sometimes capitalize certain terms. The reason is that, when I am capitalizing them, they are specific concepts that are networked together into a specific metaphysical system. So, when capitalized, Mind refers to the third “plane of existence” on the ToK System. A plane of existence is a complex adaptive plane of behavioral complexity. The ToK System provides the “vision logic” for clarifying exactly what this means because it places concepts in geometric relationship to each other.
The ToK System also explicitly characterizes what is meant by “modern science”. Indeed, it affords us a new theory of modern scientific knowledge because it provides us an ontological map of both scientific knowledge and the ontic reality science functions to map. To understand what this means, we need to continue defining our terms, and clarify the difference between epistemology and ontology.
Epistemology refers to how we obtain information and justify something as knowledge. In contrast, ontology refers to claims about what is real. This way of defining ontology requires us to make an additional separation between reality and our beliefs about it. We can define the ontic reality as that which is real, independent of our beliefs about it, where as our ontology is our theories or beliefs about that reality. This move is akin to the move that the philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar makes when he differentiates transitive scientific beliefs from the intransitive reality they map.
A Theory of Scientific Knowledge about the Ontic Reality
The UTOK frames scientific knowledge in a way that intersects with Plato’s theory of knowledge as justified true belief. However, rather than thinking about Plato’s formulation as a frame for epistemology, the UTOK maps justified true belief in terms of metaphysics and scientific ontology. That is, it frames the scientific enterprise in terms of generating claims and models about reality that are justified via the scientific method.
Plato’s justified true belief (JTB) formulation is normally framed in terms of epistemology. That is, it is normally structured so as to answer the question: What constitutes authentic knowledge? JTB gives the answer that authentic knowledge is when one has beliefs that correspond to true states of reality and that one is justified in those beliefs. This was a powerful frame for epistemology and it was the dominant frame for centuries. However, in the middle of the 20th Century, Edmund Gettier deconstructed the JTB formulation and showed why it failed as a fully adequate conception of epistemology.
Via the combination of Justification Systems Theory and the ToK System, the UTOK affords us a new way to consider Plato’s conception of justified true belief. Namely, through the UTOK, we can now consider JTB as a frame for the ontology of beliefs about reality, and especially as an ontology of scientific beliefs/theories about reality. Please bare with me, as it is less complicated than it sounds.
Let’s start by noting that justified true belief consists of three different concepts. There is “true” which represents the objective state of affairs, independent of the beliefs themselves. This corresponds to what we defined as the “ontic reality”. Then there is the belief the person has about the state of affairs. We can call this the propositional truth claim. Then there is the reasoning and legitimizing processes that make the claim “justified”. This now can be used as an ontology. That is, we can say it maps the knower knowing about the known. In this formulation, the known is the reality and then the knower develops propositional systems of justification that correspond (or not) to the reality.
An exciting insight is that this ontology is found in the logic of the overall UTOK framework. Indeed, via JUST and the vision logic of the ToK System, the UTOK posits that modern science should be thought of as a specific kind of justification system that emerges out of the Culture-Person plane of existence approximately 400 to 500 years ago. Moreover, and consistent with the ontological interpretation of Plato’s theory of knowledge formulation, the UTOK posits that modern science is specific kind of a justification system that operates via a particular epistemology that yields a particular set of ontological claims about the ontic reality.
In terms of its epistemology, modern is anchored to an exterior empirical quantifiable epistemology. That is, it is grounded in the third person perspective that connects to reality via logic, quantification, and empirical analyses. We can think here about the scientific method as consisting of systematic observation, measurement and experimentation that attempts to arrive at the best general explanation between competing models. Indeed, the epistemological features of science represent the primary way people define what science it. For example, in The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, the physicist Sean Carroll describes the core of science as being found in its:
methodological empiricism — the idea that knowledge is derived from our experience of the world, rather than by thought alone. Science is a technique, not a set of conclusions. The technique consists of imagining as different ways the world could be (theories, models, ways of talking) as we possibly can, and then observing the world as carefully as possible.
However, as the title of Carroll’s book suggests, science is not just about empirical methods. It also has products. The products are the taxonomies, models, and theories of the ontic reality that science gives us. Indeed, defining science solely by its epistemological methods is like defining architecture in terms of hammers and blueprints. Rather than the method, ultimately it is the products of science that make it valuable. In other words, although the methods are crucial, ultimately the gold is found in the scientific ontology that emerges from them.
The reason folks emphasize epistemology is because there is no grand picture of scientific ontology. That is, our scientific ontology only applies to specific domains, and it breaks down when we try to get a zoomed-out view of the whole. If it did not break down, then there would be a unified picture of reality given by science. If this were the case, then everyone would define science in terms of its ontology. That is, the core of science would not defined by what journalists claim the “experts say” or by the “latest empirical research,” but instead science would be defined by the shared, enduring ontology for scientifically describing and explaining the way the world works.
There are, of course, large domains of science that are, in fact, framed by ontology. To give just one example, we can consider the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics. It is an ontology in that it makes claims about key aspects of reality. The standard model was built in the 20th Century by the epistemological methods of science. However, the substance of the model is ontological. It maps the foundational fields, forces, and particles that make up the material universe.
The UTOK is grounded on the ontology of the standard model. That is, our ontic reality is seen as emerging out of the quantum realm and it frames the “higher” layers as being consilience with the lower layers of analysis. In the UTOK Garden depiction, this grounding is represented by the “STEPPing Stone,” which is the stone in the lower left of the depiction.
The STEPP acronym stands for the Standard Theory of Elementary Particle Physics. It is hard to see, but etched on the stone is a depiction of the standard model (see here for other depictions). The STEPPing Stone represents the “first floor” of scientific ontology. This is framed by the levels and dimensions of behavioral complexity mapped by the Periodic Table of Behavior.
To summarize the argument thus far: Science is currently thought of as an epistemological method that can be applied to the various aspects of the world to yield a specific kind of “objective” knowledge. However, science is generally not conceived of as a worldview. The reason is that we do not have is a picture of scientific ontology as a whole. This would be a “big picture” that tied all the scientific theories of reality into one overarching conception.
The Current Naturalistic Ontological Picture
If we are generous in granting a coherent picture of what scientific knowledge has generated thus far, there is an argument for a coherent ontology between the physical and biological sciences that map the material and living dimensions of existence. The physical sciences includes disciplines like particle physics, cosmology, chemistry, and the earth sciences. The biological sciences include subdisciplines like microbiology, cytology, molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience.
An argument can be made that these natural sciences are “paradigmatic”. That means that there is an existing, shared set of understandings that are consensually agreed upon. In the language used here, the paradigms represent a set of shared ontological frames that give a transcendent picture of the ontic reality. For example, the standard theory of elementary particle physics, general relativity, the Big Bang, classical mechanics, and the atomic theory of matter are all coherently interlocked to form a general picture of the material world and its cosmic evolutionary history. The UTOK offers the following representation of this ontological picture.
The biological sciences are also paradigmatic in the broad sense of the term. Biologists agree that biology is the science of life and that living things exhibit behavior patterns that have many different properties that are not seen in the inanimate dimension. In addition, cell theory, evolution by natural selection, and genetics provide a basic paradigmatic ontology for understanding life. The UTOK offers the following representation of this ontological picture.
It is important to note that neither the physical nor the biological sciences are complete. That is, their transitive ontological picture of the real or intransitive ontic world will likely continue to evolve and change. We know, for example, quantum mechanics and general relativity are not unified, and that dark matter and dark energy represent big mysteries. Indeed, a recent discovery this week of regarding the odd behavior of the bottom/beauty quark open up exciting possibilities for evolving the Standard Model. Likewise, there are many substantial holes in the modern evolutionary synthesis and still big, unanswered questions about how life started.
Despite many edges of uncertainty, there nevertheless is a relatively coherent natural scientific ontology for the material and living dimensions of the natural world. That is, we can be confident that there are central aspects of this picture that will endure across time. This diagram captures how Matter and Life represent the ontic reality and the physical and biological sciences can be framed as scientific systems of justification — that is, ontological claims arrived at by the epistemological methods of science — that provide us “good explanations” for reality (to use a David Deutsch’s term).
This summary represents an optimistic and generous view of the coherence of our natural scientific ontology up until this point. That is, even the most generous framing of our natural scientific coherence ends with biology.
The Ontological Confusion that Is Psychological Science
Psychology is not part of the current picture, and in its current state, it most definitely should not be. The reason is the central conceptual problem that launched me into my life’s work. In some of the lectures I give on the state of knowledge in psychology, I will open with the crass line that: “Nobody knows what the f#ck psychology is.” What I mean is that the mainstream science of psychology is completely lacking in its ontological coherence.
To see this, examine how psychology is defined in mainstream academic textbooks. To give just one of an endless number of examples, consider how Spielman defines psychology in her introductory text, Psychology:
The word psychology was coined at a time when the concepts of soul and mind were not as clearly distinguished (Green, 2001). The root ‘ology’ denotes scientific study of, and psychology refers to the scientific study of the mind. Since science studies only observable phenomena and the mind is not directly observable, we expand this definition to the scientific study of mind and behavior. [bold added]
Spielman’s short definition of modern (American?) empirical psychology is spot on in that it crisply captures how the discipline is framed. And it shows just how confused mainstream psychology is at its core. Specifically, Spielman’s description shows that “behavior” is split off from “mind” by virtue of being epistemologically accessible to methods of science. We can take a moment and let the logic of this claim sink in. There is a thing called “mind” that we psychologists are interested in as scientists. However, that thing is not observable. In contrast, there are things called “behavior” that are observable that — somehow — relate to the mind (but, presumably, not the soul).
The ontological confusion of this formulation is nothing short of laughable. To give just one reason why, consider the following question: How do you make observations? I would say that when I observe the world, I am doing that via an inner phenomenological experience — which I would say is definitely a part of my mind. Indeed, it seems reasonable to me to say that the only thing I personally ever observe is my mind. Indeed, I do not know how I could observe something without my mind. And yet, according to Spielman, the mind is not observable. [Note: What she means is that “the mind” is not observable in the language game of natural science, because it adopts an exterior epistemological frame of reference, but this caveat raises all sorts of additional confusions.]
There are many other ways to show that the mainstream way of defining psychology is confused and nonsensical. Nonetheless, this is the edifice upon which scientific psychological knowledge resides. And it is the reason why the bridge to naturalistic scientific coherence collapses in the leveling up move from biology to psychology.
It is no secret that psychology lacks a coherent ontology or unified theory. Indeed, many take it as a well-known fact that psychology could never be unified. Mainstream psychology textbooks almost universally consist of collections of midlevel paradigms, like evolutionary psychology, behaviorism, cognitivism, psychodynamic, humanistic and sociocultural perspectives. Following along with our earlier depictions, we can offer this representation of the current state of the field.
A New Solution to the Ontological Problem of Psychology
The question, then, is: Is it possible to develop an ontology of psychology that is consistent with existing natural science ontology? The UTOK says yes. The book, A New Unified Theory of Psychology, explains how. Here is the vision logic of that argument.
This diagram shows that the Tree of Knowledge System, the first key idea in UTOK, provides a new overall schematic to frame psychology’s subject matter. Behavioral Investment Theory bridges Skinner’s behaviorism with biological science and cognitive science to frame the “Life-to-Mind” joint point. And Justification Systems Theory bridges Freudian theory with academic personality and social psychology and the insights from the social sciences to generate the “Mind-to-Culture” joint point. The book also includes the fourth key idea in the UTOK metapsychology, which is the Influence Matrix. The argument is that these four ideas result in a coherent metatheoretical picture of the whole that effectively ties together cognitivism, behaviorism, and the humanistic and psychodynamic traditions and then vertically places them on the physical, biological, psychological, and social scientific axis of understanding.
But here is the thing. In working to achieve this outcome for the science of psychology, the UTOK ends up achieving something even larger. Specifically, the way it ends up providing a coherent ontology for psychological science ends up generating a theory of scientific knowledge writ large. This is one of the key reasons why the unified theory of psychology grows into the Unified Theory of Knowledge.
A New Ontological Picture of the Ontic Reality and Our Scientific Knowledge of It
Here is the full Tree of Knowledge System in its standard form. On the left side is the ontic reality. On the right is the scientific systems of justification. That is, the scientific onto-epistemological theories and taxonomies as they ought to be arranged.
Here is what is says: It posits that the universe starts as a “pure energy information” singularity. If we align this assertion with the work of the physicist David Bohm, we can call this ultimate or foundational layer of energy-and-information the “implicate order”. As a theory of scientific knowledge, the ToK System maps the observable universe (i.e., Bohm’s explicate order). It maps material existence onto the implicate order via quantum field theory, general relativity, and the Big Bang. Quantum field theory frames how the universe is, at its foundational roots, a conserved energy-information field.
Particles and forces and the rest of the Matter dimension emerge from fluctuations in the quantum field. The UTOK Garden represents this via by the STEPPing stone. Life emerges as a new plane of existence on planet earth just under four billion years ago. For approximately three billion years, the Tree of Life evolves, and transitions from single celled creatures like bacteria into multi-celled creatures like trees.
The UTOK the introduces the concept Mind into the vocabulary of modern naturalistic science. Mind, with a capital M, is the complex adaptive sensory-motor patterns of activity and communication that animals with brains and complex active bodies engage in. This explodes onto the scene during the Cambrian Explosion, approximately 550,000,000 years ago. According to UTOK, the basic science of psychology should be defined as the science of mental behavior, the set of which is represented by Mind, which is the third plane of existence. This is how to define psychology ontologically. Animal consciousness ontologically exists at (within) the mental plane of existence. Our best current maps suggest that we can the steps from animal consciousness into human consciousness in five basic steps.
The Culture-Person plane of existence emerges between 150,000 and 50,000 thousand years ago. Implicit intersubjective mental coordination gave rise to symbolic systems of communication and then modern propositional language, which created the problem of justification and resulted in the human mind’s big bang. Justification Systems Theory, the second key idea in UTOK, provides the missing puzzle piece to fill in this link.
Modern science is a system of justification that emerges out of the Culture Person plane of existence about 500 years ago. Specifically, it is defined by four key features. It is modernist (versus pre-modern traditional), empirical (in the third person sense), natural (a substance monist view that eschews supernatural metaphysics), and characterized by the societal institution of science, which includes the programs, educational and training systems, peer review and so forth.
The ToK System provides a way to see science both as a socially constructed system of justification and it also allows us to see that the methods of science afford a transcendent realist view. That is scientific knowledge is not just socially constructed. But its empirical epistemology allows us to transcend human Cultural context and subject phenomenological perspective and generate a what Roy Bhaskar called transcendent realist view of reality.
All this sets the stage for a fundamentally new way to think about science and reality. The modern approach to science was generated during the Enlightenment. However, the Enlightenment failed to produce a coherent framework that generated the proper relations between matter and mind and science and social knowledge. This is called the Enlightenment Gap. The UTOK is about resolving the Enlightenment Gap. If it is correct, we can now frame science in terms of a coherent naturalistic ontology, one that includes a clear ontology for psychology. The result is that it gives an ontological formulation of Plato’s theory of knowledge. Specifically, it says that modern scientific ontology grounded in scientific epistemology can provide us a transcendent realist view of our world and our place in it. The result could be a whole new phase of the Enlightenment.
