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The Psychology of Scientific Inquiry

  • Book
  • © 2019

Overview

Authors:
  1. Aaro Toomela

    1. Institute of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

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  • Fresh look at causality as it applies in social sciences
  • Links of philosophy and psychology
  • Explores scientific inquiry through the lens of psychology

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Psychology (BRIEFSPSYCHOL)

Part of the book sub series: SpringerBriefs in Theoretical Advances in Psychology (BRIEFSTHEORET)

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. The Problem Psychology: A Science Yet to Become a Science

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 1-11

  3. Science is Based on Certain Assumptions

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 13-31

  4. Doubts, Assumptions, and Social Sciences and Psychology Today

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 33-50

  5. Causality, Understanding, and Explanation: Philosophical Roots

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 51-66

  6. Causality, Understanding, and Explanation: Fundamentally Limited Views

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 67-80

  7. Causality, Understanding, and Explanation: Back to the Roots

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 81-90

  8. Theory of Causality and Modern Mainstream Psychology

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 91-105

  9. What Next? Back to the Future

    • Aaro Toomela
    Pages 107-118

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 119-132
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Keywords

About this book

This brief sets out on a course to distinguish three main kinds of thought that underlie scientific thinking.

Current science has not agreed on an understanding of what exactly the aim of science actually is, how to understand scientific knowledge, and how such knowledge can be achieved. Furthermore, no science today also explicitly admits the fact that knowledge can be constructed in different ways and therefore every scientist should be able to recognize the form of thought that under-girds their understanding of scientific theory. In response to this, this texts seeks to answer the questions: What is science? What is (scientific) explanation? What is causality and why it matters? 

Science is a way to find new knowledge. The way we think about the world constrains the aspects of it we can understand. Scientists, the author suggests, should engage in a metacognitive perspective on scientific theory that reflects not only what exists in the world, but also the way the scientist thinks about the world.



Authors and Affiliations

  • Institute of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

    Aaro Toomela

About the author

​Aaro Toomela is a Professor of Cultural and Neuropsychology at the Tallinn University, Estonia. His research interests cover all the main fields of psychology—cognitive, developmental, cultural, social, personality, biological, evolutionary, and applied—as well as philosophy, history and methodology of psychology. He has authored scientific papers in all these fields.

 

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