Overview

​The motivation for this volume is simple. For a variety of reasons, clinical psychologists have long shown considerable interest in the philosophy of science.  When logical positivism gained currency in the 1930s, psychologists were among the most avid readers of what these philosophers had to say about science. Part of the critique of Skinner’s radical behaviorism and thus behavior therapy was that it relied on, and thus was logically dependent on, the truth of logical positivism—a claim decisively refuted both historically and logically by L.D. Smith (1986) in his important Behaviorism and Logical Positivism: A Reassessment of the Alliance.  ​

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Reviews

"From the reviews:  ""William O’Donohue, accordingly, deserves our praise in making a serious effort to cross disciplines—but especially disciplines as messy as psychology and philosophy...For O’Donohue, there are insights to be gained from each of the writers that he considers, as well as from postmodernism, and there is currently no consensus among philosophers on what might replace logical positivism. He concludes, accordingly, that one must be open to a “pluralism of perspectives” (p. 3). This conclusion is safe if it means that we need to assess the criticisms of the prevailing approaches and seek to frame them into a coherent philosophy of science. Given that psychology is a mansion with many rooms, O’Donohue avers that it may not be possible to construct a coherent philosophy of science that illuminates psychology. But some, at least, of the insights—even of postmodernism, fundamentally a philosophy of antiscience—are present in writers in very strong philosophy of science traditions."" Peter T. Manus October 9, 2013, Vol. 58, Release 41, Article 5 PsycCRITIQUES"

From the reviews: William O'Donohue, accordingly, deserves our praise in making a serious effort to cross disciplines-but especially disciplines as messy as psychology and philosophy...For O'Donohue, there are insights to be gained from each of the writers that he considers, as well as from postmodernism, and there is currently no consensus among philosophers on what might replace logical positivism. He concludes, accordingly, that one must be open to a pluralism of perspectives (p. 3). This conclusion is safe if it means that we need to assess the criticisms of the prevailing approaches and seek to frame them into a coherent philosophy of science. Given that psychology is a mansion with many rooms, O'Donohue avers that it may not be possible to construct a coherent philosophy of science that illuminates psychology. But some, at least, of the insights-even of postmodernism, fundamentally a philosophy of antiscience-are present in writers in very strong philosophy of science traditions. Peter T. Manus October 9, 2013, Vol. 58, Release 41, Article 5 PsycCRITIQUES

From the reviews: William O'Donohue, accordingly, deserves our praise in making a serious effort to cross disciplines-but especially disciplines as messy as psychology and philosophy...For O'Donohue, there are insights to be gained from each of the writers that he considers, as well as from postmodernism, and there is currently no consensus among philosophers on what might replace logical positivism. He concludes, accordingly, that one must be open to a pluralism of perspectives (p. 3). This conclusion is safe if it means that we need to assess the criticisms of the prevailing approaches and seek to frame them into a coherent philosophy of science. Given that psychology is a mansion with many rooms, O'Donohue avers that it may not be possible to construct a coherent philosophy of science that illuminates psychology. But some, at least, of the insights-even of postmodernism, fundamentally a philosophy of antiscience-are present in writers in very strong philosophy of science traditions. Peter T. ManusOctober 9, 2013, Vol. 58, Release 41, Article 5PsycCRITIQUES

Author Information

William O'Donohue earned a Bachelor's degree in psychology at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He went on to study clinical psychology at SUNY at Stony Brook earning a Master's degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 1986. He then earned a Master's degree in philosophy in 1988 from Indiana University Bloomington. He was an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Maine, Orono from 1987 to 1991. In Harrington v. Almy the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found that a penile plethysmograph test ordered to be administered by O'Donohue as a precondition of employment was a violation of a Maine police officer's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 1996, he was appointed Director of Sexual Assault Prevention and Counseling Services at University of Nevada, Reno. O'Donohue founded CareIntegra with colleagues in 1999 and serves as CEO. O'Donohue has been critical of the use of forensic evaluations administered to litigants in child custody disputes. He told the New York Times, ""Psychologists don't have the knowledge to do what they attempt to do when they do custody evaluations,"" adding that custody decisions are more about competing values than scientific findings when determining a child's best interest.

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