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With 'the scientific method', Descartes laid the foundations of modern rationalist science. This book scrutinises its implementation in different sciences and shows its limitations by guiding readers through the history of key concepts developed for explorations of matter, energy, life, psyche, culture, language and society over the last 400 years. Central are concepts for studying relations and meta-relations between entities to uncover their structures, functioning and development. The book presents a transdisciplinary meta-paradigm for holistic research on individuals and their multi-reality 'worlds' considering phenomena from all domains of life. Its multi-framework structure integrates the perspectives of ontology, logic, epistemology, methodology and disciplinary meta-theories that together form an all-encompassing system of interrelated and more complex, non-linear and transformative ways of thinking and empirical practice. These are necessary to overcome Cartesian binary thinking, to establish unified systems of knowledge, and to reconnect the different sciences with one another and with philosophy.
List of contents
Part I Universe, science and method. - Chapter 1. Method-Centrism in Psychology: A Recipe for Continued Crises.- Chapter 2. Descartes Rational Thought and the Non-Living World: Order, Simplicity and Certainty in Newtonian Mechanics and Chemistry but Disorder, Contradictions and Complexity in Thermodynamics, Quantum Physics and Astrophysics.- Chapter 3. Evolution of Living Organisms: Self-Organisation, Creative Emergence, Behaviour and Continuous Dynamic Development Require Concepts of Complex Causal Relations, Teleology, Degeneracy and Pluripotency.- Chapter 4. Psychical Systems: Abstract Organisation, Uncoupled from the Physico-Chemical laws, Enables the Emergence of Higher-Order Coordination and Intentional, Future-Oriented Agents with an Own Individuality.- Chapter 5. Socio-Cultural and Semiotic Worlds: Complex Sign-Mediated Organisation of Individuals in Society Enables Exchange Beyond the Here and Now, Rapid Innovation and Scientific Inquiry.- Chapter 6. Psychology s Rigid Ideal of The Scientific Method : Outdated and Unfit for its Complex Study Phenomena but Institutionalised in its Established Research Practices.
About the author
Jana Uher, PhD, is Associate Professor of Transdisciplinary Research, working at the School of Human Sciences, University of Greenwich. She was Senior Research Fellow and Marie Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Jana was the Founder and Director of the Research Group ‘Comparative Differential and Personality Psychology’ at the Free University Berlin. She has been working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVAN) in Leipzig and the Humboldt-University of Berlin. She was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council (ISTC-CNR) in Rome and conducted research projects in the Netherlands, among them at Utrecht University. In her transdisciplinary research, she develops comprehensive philosophy-of-science frameworks for research on individuals that build on, integrate and transcend established paradigms from different sciences (e.g., psychology, physical, medical, social, cultural and life sciences) in order to generate unified knowledge of individuals and their multi-reality ‘worlds’. Jana published widely, especially on methodology, the philosophy and theory of methods, and is an expert in measurement and quantification across the sciences. She draws on her empirical experience with a broad portfolio of research methods, including lab-based cognitive experiments, behavioural tests, group observations, in-depth interviews involving first-person videos, standardised and open-ended surveys, audio-visual and computerised methods for detailed behavioural analyses, statistical and psychometric analyses as well as textual and interpretive analyses. Her empirical research involves humans of different socio-cultural backgrounds as well as 10 non-human primate species, especially the great apes and various monkey species. Jana also worked in Human Resources Management in the British headquarters of an international steel-working company as well as in Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) research, especially on software usability (e.g., with Daimler Chrysler). She serves as Associate Editor of various journals, amongst them the Frontiers in Psychology journals Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and Quantitative Psychology and Measurement, as well as Quality & Quantity; International Journal of Methodology. Jana's research has received several awards and prizes for its originality and intellectual rigor, for addressing fundamental research problems, and for promoting and enabling collaborative research across sciences.
