Because psychologists as well as historians have degrees in philosophy (viz PhD),
the _simple_ answer is that they are the generalists and we the specialists.
Aristotle's views on causation, for instance, include material, efficient, formal
and final causes. Scientists work on efficient and material causes. They are
freerer to speculate about the larger picture that includes, but is not limited to,
science. Like most simple answers it's probably an oversimplication.
On a related note, the more I think about the "we are a science" claim, the more I
am struck by the _differences_ between the sciences. As one example, we (social
sciences) handle error via randomization across conditions, whereas physicists
handle it by simply removing it (the way behaviorists advocate). As another
example, astronomers don't do _real_ experiments as we teach in Research Methods,
but rather combine careful observation with deduction from general principles of
physics. We overlap quite a bit with behavioral biological and medicine because we
all deal with living organisms who show "carryover effects" to our manipulations.
As a physicist (doing something with rocks, if memory serves) once said to me - you
randomly assign to groups and I don't because people have memory but rocks do not!
At the general philosophical level, we all use empirical data, show skeptical and
have a preference for general, simple laws. But beyond that the idea of _the_
scientific method may be a misnomer.
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John W. Kulig [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig
Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468
Plymouth NH USA 03264 fax: (603) 535-2412
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"What a man often sees he does not wonder at, although he knows
not why it happens; if something occurs which he has not seen before,
he thinks it is a marvel" - Cicero.
