Synthesized answer
Natural science psychology, as presented in these passages, defines its scope by the data it assumes and the limitations it imposes on its own inquiry [1]. It assumes the existence of "thoughts and feelings," alongside "a physical world in time and space" with which these mental states coexist and which they know [1]. The science's empirical task is to ascertain the correlation between various sorts of thought or feeling and definite conditions of the brain [1].
The passages emphasize that natural science psychology "can go no farther" than establishing these empirical correlations [1, 4]. If psychology attempts to explain phenomena as products of deeper entities or delves into the fundamental nature of these assumed data, it steps into the realm of metaphysics [1, 4]. While a degree of vagueness can be beneficial for fertility in a developing science, natural science psychology is distinct from metaphysics in its approach [2, 3, 4].
Synthesized from the book passages below. Chat with the book on Feynman for follow-up.
From the book
seful substitute for the entire chapter. I have kept close to the point of view of natural science throughout the book. Every natural science assumes certain data uncritically, and declines to challenge the elements between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from which its own deductions are carried on. Psychology, the science of finite individual minds, assumes as its data (1) _thoughts and feelings_, and (2) _a physical world_ in time and space with which they coexist and which (3) _they know_. Of course these data themselves are discussable; but the discussion of them (as of other…
machine-like yet purposive acts as these be included in Psychology? The boundary-line of the mental is certainly vague. It is better not to be pedantic, but to let the science be as vague as its subject, and include such phenomena as these if by so doing we can throw any light on the main business in hand. It will ere long be seen, I trust, that we can; and that we gain much more by a broad than by a narrow conception of our subject. At a certain stage in the development of every science a degree of vagueness is what best consists with fertility.
ct. At a certain stage in the development of every science a degree of vagueness is what best consists with fertility. On the whole, few recent formulas have done more real service of a rough sort in psychology than the Spencerian one that the essence of mental life and of bodily life are one, namely, 'the adjustment of inner to outer relations.' Such a formula is vagueness incarnate; but because it takes into account the fact that minds inhabit environments which act on them and on which they in turn react; because, in short, it takes mind in the midst of all its concrete relations,…
in, can go no farther--can go no farther, that is, as a natural science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical. All attempts to _explain_ our phenomenally given thoughts as products of deeper-lying entities (whether the latter be named 'Soul,' 'Transcendental Ego,' 'Ideas,' or 'Elementary Units of Consciousness') are metaphysical. This book consequently rejects both the associationist and the spiritualist theories; and in this strictly positivistic point of view consists the only feature of it for which I feel tempted to claim originality. Of course this point of view is…
e advice, or choose a book to read, differently from what would have been the case had they never impressed his retina. Our psychology must therefore take account not only of the conditions antecedent to mental states, but of their resultant consequences as well. * * * * * But actions originally prompted by conscious intelligence may grow so automatic by dint of habit as to be apparently unconsciously performed. Standing, walking, buttoning and unbuttoning, piano-playing, talking, even saying one's prayers, may be done when the mind is absorbed in other…