Operationism, Metaphysics, and the Philosophy of Ordinary Language

Abstract

It is argued that: (a) operationism shares with metaphysics four important features; (b) operationism reflects an underlying attitude toward language which may have undesirable consequences on the novice investigator; (c) the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification does not represent a sharp dichotomy, either logically or psychologically, and therefore cannot be used to secure operationism against criticism; (d) the triviality of many psychological findings stems in part from an oversimplified view of the role of language in psychology; (e) there is considerable knowledge concerning behavioral constancies embedded in the vernacular. Finally, a brief overview of the philosophy of ordinary language is presented and its relevance for psychology is discussed.