104 Agnes Petocz
as-computer model and its assumption of internal mental representations without having to
worry about how those representations get their meanings.
Psychology's Combination of Scientific Practicalism and
Metatheoretical Confusion
The second reason for psychology's neglect of semiotics is closely related to the first.
Psychology's self-identity as a science was thought to depend on its extricating itself from
philosophy. In that process, anything at all to do with philosophy was rejected, including,
ironically, that part of philosophy which has always been central to science, namely,
conceptual analysis (Machado & Silva, 2007). Mainstream psychology came to be driven by
a pervasive scientific practicalism - an instrumentalist view of science as directed towards
practical ends, extending to the concern with "what works" in terms of bringing social
recognition and economic success to the discipline. In particular, the practical fruits of
psychological testing and measurement reinforced psychology's anti-theoretical impatience to
"get on with the job", and fostered a deep mistrust towards anyone who is "all talk and no
action", whose research is purely theoretical. Indeed, many mainstream psychologists today
would consider the term theoretical research to be an oxymoron; surely, research is, by
definition, empirical. Moreover, so-called theoretical research is time-wasting, obstructionist,
and prevents enthusiastic scientists and practitioners from moving the discipline forward. Not
surprisingly, then, books and journals devoted to theoretical and philosophical psychology are
not read by mainstream psychologists, and so the discussion of conceptual and philosophical
issues relevant to psychological practices goes unheeded. Even experimental research
methods are treated within the mainstream as a set of statistical recipes and mechanical
procedures, the blind implementation of which ipso facto guarantees the scientific credentials
of the researchers and the scientific value of any results.
A discipline which does not actively engage in examining its own theoretical and
metatheoretical foundations is likely to hold a mixed and conflicting set of assumptions. The
price of psychology's scientific practicalism has been metatheoretical confusion, which,
unfortunately, does not stay conveniently in some metatheoretical realm, cut off from
scientific practices. Hence, Wittgenstein attributed the "confusion and barrenness" of
psychology to its mixture of "experimental methods and conceptual confusion" (1953/1958,
p. 232, emphasis in original), and Allport, one of the founders of the popular trait approach to
personality, complained that "Galloping empiricism, which is our present occupational
disease, dashes forth like a headless horseman" (1966, p. 3), such that "We find ourselves
confused by our intemperate empiricism, which often yields unnameable factors, arbitrary
codes, unintelligible interaction effects, and sheer flatulence from our computers" (p. 8).
Although most mainstream psychologists would identify themselves as scientific realists,
their metatheoretical confusion extends to misconceptions about the nature both of realism
and of science (cf. Bickhard, 1992), including what is permissible within, and even warranted
by, a scientific approach. The result is practical inconsistency regarding both science and
realism. On the one hand, despite constant appeals to science and the model of the scientist-
practitioner, practicalism means that genuinely scientific concerns and practices are often
displaced or subverted by social, political and financial interests, (cf. Petocz, 2004). On the
other hand, explicit commitment to realism is accompanied and gainsaid by a positivist