A Critical Introduction to Psychology

Towards a Pluriversal Psychology 3

a theory/fact (or knowledge). Notwithstanding, truth is much larger than
human knowledge, which is why philosophy remains important for
psychology because it raises questions about this larger-than-human-
knowledge truth. While philosophical approaches to truth are not empirical
per se, they are still inherently methodological.
This second methodological approach in philosophy/psychology (i.e.,
rationalism), which is also epistemological, ontological, and axiological,
speaks to the other meaning of the word ‘theory’ (associated with the
continental philosophy tradition): a belief about truth that is tested or
falsified experientially, rhetorically, and/or logically. The prevalent
understanding of empiricism, among mainstream (Euro-American)
psychologists, is certainly a misnomer because it has less to do with direct
embodied experience (as in phenomenology or contemplative practices)
and more to do with indirect disembodied abstraction that claims to be
doing the exact opposite thing. To put it differently, rationalism as a
critical method is not positivist (i.e., focusing only on what is there), but
negativist and dialectical.
This book is A Critical Introduction to Psychology, and not an
introduction to critical psychology (e.g., Fox, Prilleltensky, & Austin
2009), and it is inspired by the negative dialectics of rationalism as a
critical method. As such, it is the first scholarly book to critique
introductory textbooks on mainstream (Euro-American) psychology from a
critical psychological perspective with a special emphasis on Global
Southern alternatives (e.g., feminist, post-/de-colonial, and liberation
psychologies).
The Global South is both a politico-economic and a geographical
designation, which refers to “transmodern” (Dussel 2012), or non-aligned,
cultures in the continents of South America, Africa, and Asia that are
exterior to (but not outside) Euro-American (post)modernity. Furthermore,
the Global South also refers to “extimate” (Miller 1988) others—that is,
“decolonial” (Mignolo 2007) subcultures—interior to Euro-America, such
as Pueblo tribes in northern New Mexico, where I am based. In fact, I am
honored to teach at Northern New Mexico College: “a Hispanic- and
Native American-serving comprehensive institution.” In terms of cultural