[Unlisted6446]

Well, there's a couple of things going on, right? One is whether we it's a bad idea to judge an entire mass of literature because of its epistemology and the second is whether the OP's claim that psychology has horrendous epistemology is valid.

I'd say that judging an entire mass of literature because of its epistemology makes logical sense. However, in practice, it's not possible to make a judgment as to 'what the epistemology of an entire field is'. What would that even mean? Does OP think that every psychologist has an analogous enough epistemology that anyone can claim what the field's epistemology is? I think not.

[kelseyfrog]

We can start by asking, "What are the epistemologies that exist within psychology?"

[Unlisted6446]

Well that's a thorny question, now isn't it? I mean, if it was so clear what 'epistemologies' exist in any field, then there would be little need or interest in the study of philosophy and history of science, no? If it was clear, then I think one would simply state what the epistemology of the field is.

That philosophy and history of science are so successful seems to suggest that the way of the scientist is both multifarious and difficult to pin down. I'm skeptical about using either the conscious report of the practitioner of psychology or the labels we may ascribe to their behaviors to triangulate on what their epistemology could be.

[kelseyfrog]

Surely the philosophy of science has results, no?

Aren't positivism, anti-postitivism, post-positivism, experientialism, and critical realism among others we can rubric psychology or psychological thinkers or results against?

[Unlisted6446]

Well, my understanding is that we have not yet found any clear scientific method that will be consistently 'the one' to choose at any time. There are a few criteria that generally stand out, but a general method--no. And if there's no general method, then how can there be a general epistemology?

I mean, psychology isn't actually paradigmatic yet, is it? I don't think there actually is a general method throughout the field beyond surveys and null hypothesis significance testing--but those are too broad to be particularly symbolic of psychology imo.

In that sense, I'm not sure what value the list of perspectives you provided have i.r.t to what scientists actually do in practice and what kind of practice is successful.

[kelseyfrog]

Epistemology is beyond the realm of science. All I desire is for folks to be transparent and have some consistency surrounding the epistemological basis for their agreement or disagreement with particular facts.

Instead what I see, often here, is that folks switch epistemic frameworks in order to prove or rationalize their beliefs. RCT becomes the threshold for knowledge when we're discussing psychology and sociology and trust experts or "science" or vaguely "logic" becomes the basis when talking about "hard" sciences. They typically reinforce the writers preconceived validity of the topic rather than acting as the foundations of belief, and I hope we can agree that's the opposite of how it is supposed to work.