Paul F. Ballantyne, Ph.D.
pballan@comnet.ca

Whatever happened to "Functional" Psychology?

The long fallow issue of 'whatever happened to functional psychology' became more pressing during the early 1990s with the publication of celebratory "centennial" texts and articles (e.g., Johnson & Henley, 1990; Owens & Wagner, 1993; Donnelly, 1992; D.N. Robinson, 1993; Taylor, 1992, 1996) honoring the discipline-building influence of two seminal textbooks by William James: Principles of Psychology (2 Vols., 1890) and The Briefer Course (1892). While the role of these texts (known under the names "James and Jimmy" respectively) in providing an argument for a nonreductive natural science approach to psychology was granted by most contributors, the related methodological issue of the 'role of functionalism on shaping the professional aims and empirical methods of 20th century general psychology' remained largely unresolved. Given that we are now approaching the centennial of J.R. Angell's (1904) Psychology: An introductory study of the Structure and Function of human consciousness (i.e., the place where functionalism first met the practical necessities of carrying out empirical research), the following details will provide the basic groundwork for reconsidering this issue.

On the early potential of a "functional" psychology

In its infancy, functional psychology held great potential for dealing with psychological processes in a systematic and eventually explanatory way. Certainly, James (as early as 1904) thought so. In his review of Studies in Logical Theory (1903), --which was edited by Dewey and contained a chapter by Dewey's student Angell on "The Relation of Structural and Functional Psychology to Philosophy"-- James writes:

"Chicago has a School of Thought! -- a school of thought which, it is safe to predict, will figure in literature as the School of Chicago for twenty-five years to come. Some universities [i.e., Harvard] have plenty of thought to show, but no school; others [i.e., Cornell] plenty of school, but no thought. The University of Chicago, by its Decennial, Publications, shows real thought and a real school. Professor John Dewey, and at least ten of his disciples, have collectively put into the world a statement, homogeneous in spite of so many coöperating minds, of a view of the world, both theoretical and practical..." (James, 1904, p. 1; emphasis added).

James also pointed out two weaknesses, however, and these speak directly to the topic at hand because Angell's Psychology text was to appear that same year:

"There are two great gaps in the system, which none of the Chicago writers have done anything to fill, and until they are filled, the system, as a system, will appear defective. There is no cosmology, no positive account of the order of physical fact, as contrasted with mental fact, and no account of the fact (which I assume the writers to believe in) that different subjects share a common object-world. These lacunae can hardly be inadvertent -- we shall doubtless soon see them filled in some way by one or another member of the school" (James, 1904, pp. 4-5; emphasis added).

As it happened, James himself proceeded to fill these "lacunae." On the epistemological side, he presented both his Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking (1907) and an important rejoinder called: "The Pragmatist account of truth and it misunderstanders" (1909a, republished in 1911). In both, he expands upon an argument which was first made in his "Sentiment of Rationality" (1879) and which was then psychologized in his Principles (where he proposed that we form associations between objects of experience and not between sensations or images).

Even in the 1890 work, James recognized that from an evolutionary point of view, representationalism does not make any sense. The 1907 argument contained in his Pragmatism, however, develops this kind of evolutionary-based direct realist argument further as follows: Since the perceptual abilities of human beings have been formed by evolutionary processes they (and we) directly reflect the world; and consequently, if we are faced with a situation where two or more beliefs are conflicting with each other, it is to the practical outcome of one belief versus another that we should seek for truth. A belief is true if the outcome of that belief is satisfactory to us. In the 1909a/1911 rejoinder, designed as a corrective against subjectivist interpretations of the aforementioned "pragmatic" view of truth, James clarified this point still further arguing that: Facts are not true, they simply exist, and our beliefs are true of them. It was by these combined and successive means that James firmly, adamantly, and convincingly rejected representationalism in all its varied past forms.

On the ontological side, his A Pluralistic Universe (1909b) served to flesh-out many of his earlier implicit emergent positions and in doing so adopted various dialectical arguments somewhat lacking in his Principles; where he expressed disdain for "Hegelizers" (1890). James can be said to have theoretically converged with Dewey in this respect. Here, the static "block-universe" (of past ontological monism) is met with a Heraclitean pluralistic monist position by James (see Tolman, 1989a; Viney, 1989) which expressed the unity in diversity of not only the universe but of living organisms and human beings as well. In particular he was against any simplified either monism or pluralism argument. Referring to his own form of pragmatism James wrote: "With her criterion of the practical differences that theories make, we see that she must equally abjure absolute monism and absolute pluralism (James, A Pluralistic Universe, 1909b, p. 105).

Finally, by way of bridging the two above stated physical and mental fact affairs, we have his posthumously published Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912). Here, James (1912) emphasizes the difference between classical empirical doctrine (which is riddled with, and confined by, many idols of the theater) and his "Radical" form of empiricism; the defining feature of which is a return to a Baconian object-centered and human-centered approach to discourse and discovery. He comes up with marvelous rhetorical arguments (framed in practical commonsense language) that are rather unexcelled. He asks, for instance, when you blow out this candle on the table, whose candle do you blow out? and answers: When you blow out your candle, you blow out my candle too. Similarly, when you hold one end of a rope and I take the other, whose rope are we pulling on? It is the self same rope between us.

The cardinal principle which guided all of this later Jamesian philosophical work was the effort to put the human being back into the account (so that the resulting discourse and practice would become more concrete). But alas it was, at least for the psychological portion of the Chicago school, too late.

As I have attempted to show above, the emergentist aspects of both James and Dewey's early psychological writings were an entirely implicit and somewhat inconsistent affair. The immediate disciplinary outcome of this was that J.R. Angell's Psychology (1904, 1906, 1907, 1908) can be said to have taken up only the "superficial aspects" of those writings in this ontological regard. His later Introduction (1918, 1920), however, can be seen to have done a somewhat better job.

Similarly, James' successively stated Direct Realist views on epistemology while referenced in the perception chapters of Angell's respective texts were not adopted systematically. Angell in short, presents a mixed bag which sometimes follows James and sometimes not. Carr, however, maintained positions on the vertical (ontological) account of comparative species mentality that were at clear variance with that of Dewey and held to his own account of space perception which was thoroughly representationalist (more details on this follow below).

Successive attempts by Angell and Carr to formally characterize and popularize the 'province of functional psychology' to an American Psychological Association audience reflect the contemporaneous shifts toward both eclectic (and then behaviorist) thought in mainstream general experimental psychology. The first shift is exemplified best in Angell, while the second is most strikingly exemplified in Harvey Carr (1925, 1930) --who ended up advocating a position which was behaviorist in all but name. The language used in both accounts remains predominantly organismic rather than cultural (though in Angell 1918, 1920, it was often social too). Roughly speaking, this is what happened to functional psychology.

As for James' (1904) "safe" prediction, we must note two points. First it was a rather equivocal prediction. In the sense that the Chicago school of pragmatist philosophy was an ongoing affair, it can be said to have come true (with much help from James). Secondly, however, in the sense that James suggested that the important "gaps" would "undoubtedly" be filled in by members of the Chicago school, it must be said not (as far as psychology is concerned) to have come true. The rest of this paper, therefore, will outline the details of this gradual transition from "functional psychology" to behaviorism in the hope that a few methodological object lessons can be learned about the likely remedies still required by 21st century psychology in these regards.

Angell on Mental Evolution

Most history of psychology texts will indicate that the manifesto for functional psychology was put forward by J.R. Angell (1869-1949) in his 1906 APA presidential address (published 1907). In the address, Angell suggests that if functional psychology ever becomes "dogmatic and narrow" it will likely be replaced by "some worthier successor" (p. 91). It should be noted, therefore, that in the spirit of openness Angell intentionally adopted a restrained (or muted) tone whenever entering open debates on the "proper" nature of psychological methodology. That is, rather than saying too much, he often said too little.

In the spirit of his earlier proclamation, for example, Angell (1909) tried to steer a middle path between those who advocated various versions of mental continuity and discontinuity without openly 'throwing in his lot' with any existing (or past) alternative. Similarly, Angell (1913) even took an overtly appeasing tone when evaluating the rise of behaviorist psychology. So let's consider these two articles in some detail before reviewing Angell's general psychology textbooks.

Angell on Mental Darwinism, Psychology, and Behaviorism

Angell's (1909) article on the 'Influence of Darwin on Psychology' provided an opportunity to openly investigate the conceptual core of the functional understanding of mental evolution. For the most part, Angell seems to have been well informed about the possible historical and contemporaneous alternatives as they stood at that point. He clearly rejects the two most extreme positions but this is done on a somewhat equivocal 'state of the art' basis. Darwin's "convictions as to the continuity of mental evolution from animal to man," for instance, is rejected because it relied too heavily upon "anecdote" (pp. 159-160). 'Dissenting views,' such as St. George Mivart, who argued for a "break, separating the human and spiritual, from the merely sentient and brute," are also rejected because they "always" contain "a certain stripe of religious belief" (p. 160).

"Obviously neither of these modes of classification affords us any real insight into psychic types. If Darwin's fertile investigations are to bear fruit in this direction in psychology, we must be able to portray the entire range of mental processes belonging to the great divisions of animal life, to show where and how these dividing lines part company with those which now bind animal forms together on structural lines" (Angell, 1909, p. 168).

Owing to the fact that Angell appears to be aware of the full range of alternative methodological positions existing at that point, it may be merely the above 'state of the art' argument (i.e., about not having enough data yet) rather than any firmly held theoretical objection that leads him to ignore or downplay the importance of the G.H. Lewes scheme (which distinguished between sentience and consciousness; function and faculty; etc.).

I use the terms 'apparently' and 'maybe' here because while Angell mentions Lewes by name in Section II (on the debate over the origin of instinct), he does not mention Lewes again when assessing the various 'dissenting' arguments (i.e., against Darwin's continuity view of mental evolution) in Section III. This leads me to suspect that he was not as conversant with Lewes as he could have been.

It should be noted, however, that Angell (at this point) clearly sympathizes with the possibility of eventually obtaining both an exact account of the quantitative "range of mental processes," and of describing the qualitatively distinct "psychic types" or "stages" of mental evolution (pp. 168-169). But his account of how to do this is another matter, and Angell's insinuation that the Darwinian account of mentality might "bear fruit in this direction" is, I believe, both counterproductive and misleading. Darwin's continuity view of mentality should have been rejected by Angell as wrong. As indicated elsewhere, Darwin's account of mental evolution is (stated bluntly) inferior to his account of organic evolution (see Ballantyne, 2002, Chapter 1).

Were Angell to have read Lewes (1879), he would have seen laid out in a clear fashion not only a distinction between psychological functions (in animals) and faculties (in human beings), but also an equally viable account of 'sentience' (in the spinal cord through to the cerebral basil ganglia) and 'consciousness' (at the higher intentional cortex-organism level). That position, it should be added, was built up from relatively hard-nosed comparative physiological evidence stretching back quite a ways (see Lewes, 1874; 1877) as well as on emergent naturalist arguments and 'anecdote.' Lewes had improved on Darwin in all of these respects.

Angell, at least at this point in his career, simply suggests that the "present" psychology had "only the beginnings" of the necessary data for the solution to the general problem of mental evolution. He ends on this exact note:

"To secure these and dozens of other items of information needful for the execution of the program proposed will require long years of patient labor. Nevertheless, until this work is done, we shall remain powerless to describe the great stages of developing mind. The task is eminently worth while and is certain to be accomplished. Only when it is accomplished will it really be possible to entertain an intelligent judgment concerning the fundamental contentions of Darwinism concerning the evolution of mind" (Angell, 1909, p. 169).

Angell's (1909) restrained attitude toward past views on mental discontinuity is mirrored in his subsequent handling of the burgeoning behaviorist doctrine. In the article regarding "Behavior as a category for psychology," Angell (1913) gave "sympathetic acceptance" (p. 259) to the behaviorist's effort to incorporate objective methods into psychological practice.

This, however, was by no means a theoretical capitulation nor an endorsement of behaviorist doctrine. After all, as Angell points out, the functional psychologist (as evidenced by the child-and-the-flame example) "has persistently emphasized the entire act from sense organ to muscle" as the appropriate subject matter for psychology (p. 258). It is, says Angell, therefore "easy to welcome a category like behavior which... accents... objective action" (1913, p. 258). This, of course, is a major understatement of Dewey's (1896) position and even of James' (1890) treatment of the 'child and flame' example. Both of those figures emphasized the importance of internal dynamics of actions, but behavioral analysis looks outside the organism's act for material or efficient cause to push it into motion.

Angell is subtly suggesting, of course, that behaviorists look at only part of the proper subject matter of psychology. Both the disciplinary motive for, and limits of, Angell's cordial reception of behaviorist doctrine are at least partially clarified in the following statement which appears near the end of the 1913 article:

"I want to see just how ideas and feelings embody themselves in action and a psychology which makes objective description its main concern must inevitably further this interest... When it comes to discarding introspection I demur" (Angell, 1913, p. 268).

Having stated the limits of his sympathetic acceptance, Angell points out the practical difficulties of actually implementing the behaviorist "flanking movement" (p. 256) around conscious phenomena. Psychologists could conceivably limit the study of humans to the same methods which apply to animals, but Angell questions why such a limitation would be necessary. After all, if we wish to know more about 'unobservable' events, we can simply ask our human subjects for further information. Angell's experiment on the localization of sound (1903b), it should be mentioned, had done did just that!

The contrast in professional tact between Angell and Dewey is interesting to note. When Dewey (1896) reviewed the reflex arc concept, he assertively names it a "mutilation" of the proper (and larger) subject matter of psychology. Angell, on the other hand, merely appeals politely to the supposed commonsense of the reader. Having tiptoed around the rather fundamental theoretical issues at stake for some time, he eventually sums up by providing both wise council and cautionary comments that could only have been aimed at J.B. Watson himself:

"Until it can be shown, as it has not yet been shown, that introspection is... fundamentally incompetent... it is good judgment to use it. Refine it, check it, train it, but do not throw away a good tool until you certainly have a better in hand. And do not forget that in much which offers itself as objective method, introspection is really involved either directly or indirectly.... Let us then bid the movement toward objective methods and objective description in psychology God-speed, but let us also counsel it to forego the excesses of youth" (Angell, 1913, pp. 269-270).

Angell's Approach to General Psychology

Having noted Angell's cautious professional demeanor, it is logical to ask how this may have manifested itself in his general psychology texts. Not surprisingly, the successive editions of Angell's respective texts (1904, 1906; 1918, 1920) are peppered with opportunities to further the theoretical and empirical basis of functional psychology. But in reading these texts, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Angell does not (for the most part) succeed in doing so.

For example, when comparing the reasoning abilities of animals and men, Angell (1920) correctly indicates that the breadth of this evolutionary break could not have been predicted by looking at anatomy alone. This recognition that more than biology or comparative anatomy is involved is a step in the right direction.

"Of course one does not mean... to urge any radical discontinuity of development between the higher animals and man, because the human child gives abundant evidence in its earlier years of behavior which is substantially identical with that of the animals. But one can allege that, considering behavior as an expression of intelligence, the evolutionary break between man and the animals is far greater than would be suggested by a casual observation of their anatomical organization. To be sure, the human brain differs in important particulars from even the most highly developed animal brain. But the differences are not such as would ever have suggested the gross disparities in intelligence, which the study of behavior clearly discloses" (Angell, 1920, pp. 187-188).

Unfortunately, when it comes down to disclosing the best way to understand the nature of this mental/behavioral evolutionary break Angell simply appeals to various 'organismic adaptations,' or 'adjustments to a given social environment.' In other words, Angell's language of analysis lacks sufficient reference to the transformative role of language and culture. In his chapter on "reasoning," for instance, he portrays "language as an accessory" (p. 187) in the same way that Darwin had 60 years earlier. As with Darwin and Romanes, Angell argued that culture is supplemental (i.e., something merely added onto our biological existence).

Similarly, Angell utilizes the Watsonian evidence against the physiologically reductive James-Lange theory of emotion but does not also draw in the Lewes distinction between the 'logic of feeling' (biological significance) and the 'logic of signs' (cultural specific, linguistically labeled emotions). In this case, Angell is stuck at the transitional phase of systematic thought first exemplified by Romanes. He refers to or even recognizes qualitative breaks but can not explain them in anything other than continuous terms. Angell is only half right, therefore, in the following concluding statement at the end of his chapter on emotion:

"It cannot be said that the Darwinian explanations have at all completely solved the riddle of certain of our emotional reactions, but they will at least serve to suggest the lines along which it may perhaps be found..." (Angell, 1920, p. 211).

Recall that Romanes (1888) and Lewes (1879) before him had recognized that Darwin's particular pure continuity view of "emotional reactions" (1872) was unDarwinian. Hence they sought an alternate evolutionary "line" of inquiry (which can be labeled qualitative differences and emergent naturalism respectively). For Angell (1920) to have labeled the "lines along which" an answer might be found as "Darwinian" instead of as "Darwin's" own (as he had in 1909) may indicate his own dawning awareness of the difference between the two terms, but the allusion is still unfortunate.

The same transitional half-step status can be observed in Angell's treatment of the topic of "instinct" where his analysis takes on a distinctly eclectic flavor:

"If one wishes to uncover the distinctly genetic phases of instinct, then a classification like that of Ribot or McDougall... would be best. If one desires to throw into the foreground those considerations which pertain most distinctly to the evolution of society and its relation to the individual, then such a grouping as was last mentioned [i.e., dealing with issues of interpersonal affection, and welfare of the tribe or social unit] is likely to be most convenient. There is an added advantage in this [latter] type of classification in that it lends itself rather readily to use in connection with the modern evolutionary conceptions of mind" (Angell, 1920, p. 220).

It should be remembered that these 'modern evolutionary conceptions of mind,' as defined earlier by Angell (1909), include reference to Lewes. The above discussions of emotion and instinct are a perfect opportunity for Angell to further the systematic standing of the functionalist position by providing an explicitly transformative analysis which follows that particular modern evolutionary conception of mind. Instead, he immediately portrays "civilized society" as being thrust upon the organism's adjustment of the instincts (i.e., rather than as emerging out of them).

That is, rather than recognizing (as Lewes did) that societal relations transform the very nature of human adjustments into a qualitatively different realm ("appropriation" of "socio-logical" practices), Angell portrays the human condition in a merely Jamesian light; as a "balance between those instincts which tend to exploit the individual at the cost of society and those whose tendency is in the opposite direction" (1920, p. 221). James failed us in this regard and so does Angell.

Thus "society" (i.e., culture) is viewed by Angell as a variable which periodically imposes itself upon the more stable instinctual "intrinsic love of the mother for the child" (1920, p. 225; also see Angell, 1922). To speak figuratively (and ahistorically) for a minute, let's be clear as to which methodological practices are being overlooked and which are being precluded: 'Gone is the integrated levels approach laid out by Lewes and in marches the variable psychology which is so very characteristic of mid-to-late 20th century psychology!' This is surely the 'end of living and the beginning of survival' for functional psychology as a school.

To put it less figuratively, Angell appears to have inadvertently capitulated to (or even detract from) the Romanes view of "qualitative" mental evolution at the expense of providing a progressive system for general psychology to follow. Thus he suggests, the "instincts and reflexes are dominant in the primary stages of our life history, intelligent control comes in at an early age to modify [but not 'transform'] these inherited forms of behavior" (1920, p. 224). Angell's psychology is one of socially modified organismic functions rather than of the transformation of internally dynamic organismic functions of individuals into social functions and then distinctly cultural human faculties.

It is important to note that aside from these limitations, Angell (1920) also has his moments of glory. It should not be surprising that, given the early influence of James and Dewey on his psychological training (see Angell's autobiography, 1936), one finds these moments in the chapters on voluntary action and self. After all, James was at his own "emergent" best when discussing the teleological nature of consciousness and the unity of self. We now, however, have to turn to the account of functional psychology proposed by Angell's disciplinary successor Harvey Carr.

Harvey Carr on Mental Evolution

Due to his well-known article on functional psychology for Murchison's Psychologies of 1930, Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954) is often cited as the figure who "preserved functional psychology" during the era of behavioral research. Heidbreder (1933), for instance, suggested that functional psychology was initiated by Dewey, developed under Angell, and preserved as a definite influence by Carr (p. 209). Henle & Sullivan (1974), however, provide a convincing counter-argument that, in actuality, Carr presided over the systematic decomposition of functional psychology as a school. In accordance with this reassessment, the following subsections will touch briefly on Carr's views of mental evolution (1925, 1927, 1930) as an indication of both his intellectual intentions and systematic limitations.

Carr's Honorable Intentions

Carr's Psychology: A Study of Mental Activity (1925) certainly provided an opportunity for him to not only bring the functionalist camp into line with but also to progressively inform (improve) the systematic footing of the then flourishing empirical-experimental psychology tradition. The breadth and detail of his opening definition of psychological subject matter (as the "study of mental activity") immediately leads the reader to expect that Carr's intention is to achieve such a dual goal.

"Psychology is primarily concerned with the study of mental activity. This term is the generic name for such activities as perception, memory, imagination, reasoning, feeling, judgment, and will.... Stated in comprehensive terms... mental activity is concerned with the acquisition, fixation, retention, organization, and evaluation of experiences, and their subsequent utilization in the guidance of conduct" (Carr, 1925, p. 1).

The progressive aspect of this definition is that, along with Dewey, Carr seems to be providing a larger unit of analysis for psychology (see Ballantyne, 1996 in this regard). That is, "activity" in its various manifestations, includes both 'external and internal processes' in one large unit of analysis. Larger that is, than other possible units such as introspective elements (Titchener, Dallanbach), reaction time (Scripture), reflex (Pavlov), or behavior (Watson, and later Skinner).

In Carr, as was the case with James and Angell, the intended inclusiveness of the subject matter necessarily implied the need for a broad understanding of empirical methods. Thus, introspective observation, physiological-anatomical, experimental, and anthropological investigations are all presented as relevant and important parts of psychological practice. In consequence, he had little concern over the lack of firm demarcation lines between the sciences:

"It is thus apparent that any fact is a psychological datum whenever it can be utilized in comprehending the nature and significance of the mental operations. The same fact may be significant to several sciences such as neurology, psychology, and physiology, and such a fact will constitute a part of the data of each of these branches of knowledge. Psychology like the other sciences utilizes any fact that is significant for its purposes irrespective of how or where or by whom it was obtained... The various sources... supplement each other and psychology is concerned with the task of systematizing and harmonizing... in order to form an adequate conception of all that is involved in the operations of mind" (Carr, 1925, p. 11).

Carr also sides with the Jamesian desire to keep psychology relevant. That is, to produce psychological knowledge which makes a practical difference both within and outside the discipline:

"Psychology in turn is interested in making whatever contributions it can to all allied fields of thought and endeavor such as philosophy, sociology, education, medicine, law, business, and industry" (Carr, 1925, p. 14).

While Carr's 1925 work is clearly intended as a systematic elaboration of the functional psychology tradition, the details of his analysis of psychological functions tell a very different story. His chapter 4 "Some Principles of Organic Behavior" and chapter 14 "Volition," are indicative. They contain much that is at odds with the guiding principles of analytical wholeness, of internal dynamics, and of the goal-directedness of human actions as set forth by James (1890) and Dewey (1896).

Organismic Adjustment; motivating stimuli; and volitional "control"

In Carr's (1925) text the focus is on "adjustive activity" of organisms rather than on the "adaptive acts" we saw in Angell (1920). There is a gradual retreat from questions of mind, of consciousness, and even of mental activity toward a biologized account of 'adjustive movement' (i.e., observable behavior) with the latter being understood in largely passive terms resulting from bodily and environmental contingency.

In chapter 4, Carr opens with an organismic, self-looping "circuit" view of the child and flame example which is virtually identical to the kind of three-moment (S-O-R) approach that Dewey had set out to supplant. His account of such acts comes down to a "serial" combination of a preexisting sensory Stimulus, which motivates a resulting Response by way of a "continuous" organismic "interaction" between the two (p. 69).

"An adaptive act involves a motivating stimulus, as sensory situation, and a response that alters that situation in a way that satisfies the motivating conditions" (p. 72).

Carr's account of motivation here is especially problematic. Motivation is defined as a "relatively persistent stimulus that dominates the behavior of an individual until he reacts in such a manner that he is no longer affected by it" (p. 73). Motivation is implicitly presented as an organismic avoidance of an annoying environmental or bodily stimulus. Notice the difference from Dewey! For Dewey, the coordination for an act (i.e., its motive, its end, its function) is inside the act. But for Carr, it is not even inside the organism. Motives are just influences from outside which determine the direction which activity will take.

The underlying, implied logic of Carr's arguments for this account seems to go as follows: 'Reference to mental processes are controversial and complicated, so let's focus in on observable adjustive behavior.' Carr, of course, never comes out and says this, but that is effectively what he does.

This is best exemplified when he carries out a rather spurious (i.e., questionable) overgeneralization from the 'mental activity' of larvae --hatching out at the base of trees and crawling up to inadvertently obtain food from the leaves (i.e., without awareness of the survival value of their activity)-- to human beings. But let's be clear about this point before criticizing what Carr did with it.

Carr is correct about larvae and somewhat correct about the nest-building activities of birds. Neither of these organisms reflect the ends of their activity. Birds, it should be added simply 'do it' because (as James, 1890, put it) 'it feels right' to them (see also Leontyev, 1981, on sensory psyche). The larvae utilize adjustive photosensitive tropism to survive and, similarly, birds build nests without ever carrying out the kind of logical-ideational operations we might be tempted to impart to them. Or as Carr put it: "crawling up the tree was not motivated by an idea" (p. 80); and it "is the eggs in the nest that motivate [i.e., stimulate] the incubating act" (p. 81).

But having noted this seeming similarity between larvae and birds (cf. Leontyev, 1981 --who makes further distinctions), Carr does not then attempt to come up with an account of how human mentality is qualitatively different (i.e., when we obtain food, build houses, etc.). Instead, he adopts the reductive route of denigrating human mentality by equating it with a mere "modification" or "supplementation" of the adjustive activity of lower animals.

"The human mind is... quite prone to rationalize its own acts, i.e., to assume that they are motivated by an idea of their consequences. A person feels a draft and gets up and closes the window. Upon being questioned as to his motives, he may reply that he closed the window in order to avoid catching cold..., while as a matter of fact any such thought never entered his head until the act was completed. In other words, the attainment of beneficial results in the realm of either human or animal behavior does not necessarily indicate that the realizing acts were motivated or influenced in any manner by those results.... Unlike some of the lower organism, man is not endowed with any very complex and well organized adaptive reactions. An individual's native reaction tendencies must undergo a considerable amount of modification, reorganization, and supplementation before he can react to the world in an effective fashion" (Carr, 1925, pp. 81-82; emphasis added).

Such a concept of modified adjustment, we should note, is even too limited and constrained to account for the vast majority of adaptive acts in dogs and cats (let alone human beings). If Carr is arguing here that not all 'activity' (a rather general category as outlined above) is ideationally reflective, he is essentially correct. But he seems to be arguing a different case too: That since we can find examples of non-ideational activeness in lower organisms, we should therefore treat all higher manifestations of mentality as mere complications of such activeness.

Clearly, to impart larvae with ideational processes would be a mistake. The benefits they derive through their wriggling, squirming, crawling, and chewing existence are inadvertent. Yet to attempt to separate even such a lowly order of advantageous activeness from its utility is to analytically abstract them both from their concrete mutual relations. Functionalism itself is undermined in that attempt!

This was a central part of of Dewey's (1896) message: We do things because we know they produce some kind of result; and there would not be any result if we didn't do something. The activeness of the organism and the utilities derived from that activity are mutually related. This is true for not only human beings but also for dogs and cats too. Recall that Pavlov had already demonstrated this in his experiments on the systematic production and extinction of a dog's salivary reflex (Pavlov, 1906, 1927, 1928). Do the dogs reflect upon the fact that they salivate when they expect food to arrive? Perhaps not. But they do expect the food to arrive (and it is to that end which they attend). As Dewey put it: The part played in an act is what constitutes any aspect of that act as a stimulus or a response. Hence a bell will cease to become a stimulus if over time it is no longer indicative to the animal that food will soon arrive. It no longer affords the desired end (i.e., the food).

Having encountered this pure mental continuity account in chapter 4 of Carr's work, the reader wonders what he is going to talk about in his "Volition" chapter. What about those things we humans do intentionally and self-reflectively? Are they adequately captured in Carr's (1925) psychology? No, and that is part of the problem.

In chapter 14, Carr opens by at least recognizing an hierarchical relationship between 'automatic, involuntary, and voluntary' actions:

"If I wish to make my heart beat faster, I can readily do so by indulging in vigorous exercise, and I can likewise disturb or promote the digestive operations by engaging in strenuous work or lying down for a rest after a hearty meal" (Carr, 1925, pp. 312-313).

"All well organized and complicated activities such as talking, walking, reading and playing the piano contain many parts that function in a purely automatic fashion, and only the occasional intervention of voluntary control is requisite for their successful performance" (p. 313).

This is all well and good, but the issue at stake here is whether Carr will carry the day by providing an adequately 'functional' account of this division. We find the first indication that he will not by noting his term "volitional control" above (more on this later).

Carr's main methodological concern in this chapter, is to demarcate psychological science off from the old Cartesian view of free-will (i.e., the lack of "constraint"). Before considering Carr's treatment of the issue, we should note that James (1890), in his chapter on "Will," had felt compelled to accept the problematic notion of "free-will" --thereby bringing himself into an inconsistent discursive conflict with the otherwise naturalistic treatment of 'conscious mental life' (i.e., as an regulative, evolutionarily selected, functional agency) elsewhere in that work. James failed us here by equivocating from his otherwise commonsense account and by suggesting that "the question of free-will is insoluble on strictly psychologic grounds" (Vol. II, "Will," p. 572). But while James let "free-will" stand as a mysterious entity (i.e., despite his suggestion that it was not), Carr will biologize and mechanize it.

The main logical problem with the Cartesian free-will concept can be ascertained by asking the question: What is 'lack of constraint,' anyway? Randomness. Further, on largely commonsense (introspective) criteria, the old free-will concept is a vulnerable account of freedom and volition because our experience is not one of absolute unconstrained freedom, but one of the relative freedom to act, to choose, to join, to refrain, etc. Carr certainly recognizes this point and this is the best part of his chapter overall:

"No one maintains that the will is wholly free.... In fact this world would be a topsy-turvy land if we all were endowed with the Aladdin-like power of gratifying our every wish and whim" (p. 331).

In criticizing the Cartesian notion, Carr is attempting to reinsert naturalism back into the functionalist account of human "volition." While we are not absolutely free, nor are we (suggests Carr), thoroughly determined by environmental contingency --but only relatively so. For Carr, the regulation and control (and therefore relative freedom) of human action comes from an interaction between heredity, bodily and environmental contingencies. His analysis is not one of 'relatively free voluntary acts' per se but rather of the respective "mechanisms" of "volitional control:"

"The term 'volitional control' of activity may thus be defined as any initiating, inhibiting, directing, energizing, or selective influence that is exerted in the interest of attaining some end or of avoiding those things which we dislike" (Carr, 1925, p. 314).

The language of Carr's treatment of the free-will issue, however, can be said to have bitten down a little harder on the 'mechanistic bullet' than did even James' naturalistic account. In the lead-up to his notion of "self-determination" Carr seems to be openly opting for mechanism:

"Psychology as a science must necessarily proceed upon the assumption that all phases of mental life can be reduced to mechanistic terms, while any psychologist ceases to be a scientist insofar as he admits that any of his data are not amenable to a causal treatment" (Carr, 1925, p. 327).

Clearly, Carr's (1925) psychology is one bordering on behaviorism but still in functionalist guise. To elaborate just a little bit on this point, however, let's note that Carr at least attempts to advocate a "self-determination" (i.e., a relative freedom to act) --which is defined by him variously as: (1) "the absence of any exclusive determinism on the part of a particular group of conditions" (pp. 328); and (2) the view that "man is free just insofar as his actions are determined by conditions inherent in his own nature" (p. 329). This can, therefore, be classed as a relatively 'weak' (i.e., mild) rather than a 'hard' mechanical-environmental predeterminism.

At the very least, it was these sorts of apparent digressions from the 'functionalist fold' (i.e., his continuity view of mind and his emphasis on contingency or control) that led Henle and Sullivan (1974) to question whether Carr was equally the intellectual descendent of Dewey and Angell. They concluded that Carr had tried to buildup functionalism without breaking away sufficiently from traditional mechanical and atomistic concepts. The relation of Carr to the school launched by Dewey, they suggest, is more geographical than systematic.

I agree wholeheartedly with their analysis as does C.W. Tolman (1990) --who points out rather cogently that Carr's first year at Chicago (as a graduate student) was Dewey's last at that institution. There was little opportunity, therefore, for him to have picked up very much from Dewey directly during those formative years. It is a testament to the profound personal and intellectual influence of Watson upon Carr (see Tolman, 1999) that the span of his beloved functionalism becomes so tightly constricted and thoroughly biologized under his account.

Reasons for Carr's methodological dualism

One of the major systematic stumbling blocks of Carr's two later attempts to elaborate on functionalism (1927, 1930) was his open adoption of a "methodological dualism" toward the two domains of animal and human research. It is but a small step from his (1925) position to full-fledged behaviorism and Carr, we should note, subsequently took that step so far as the animal mind is concerned. So, we will now turn to an elaboration of this stumbling block and suggest why it occurred in the first place.

Carr's APA Presidential address on the "Interpretation of the Animal Mind" (published 1927), was intended solely as an analytical postmortem of the debate between the previous APA president (Margaret Washburn) and the behaviorist John B. Watson --regarding the soundness of drawing inferences about the mental life of animals. In historical retrospect, however, the most poignant aspect of the article is that it is so indicative of how Carr's system of psychology is devoid of any logical grounding in emergent thought.

Carr first points out that the most recent edition of Washburn's Animal Mind (1926; originally published 1908), argues that some degree of anthropomorphism is necessary in order to study the consciousness of animals. Much of Washburn's discursive language, however, was (within the context of the times) considered exceedingly anthropomorphic. Certainly Carr considered it as such. Of particular repugnance to Carr was the material under Washburn's, chapter III subheading on "The Mind of the Amoeba" (pp. 40-47):

"Now what light does the behavior of Amoeba throw upon the nature of the animal's possible consciousness? The first thought which strikes us in this connection is that the number of different sensations occurring in an Amoeba's mind, if it has one, is very much smaller than the number forming the constituent elements of our own experience" (Washburn, 1926, p. 40).

Carr argues that Washburn's equivocal language is more of a defense against potential behaviorist attacks than any real doubt about the actual existence of mind in such lower organisms. While Carr was disposed to postulating mental processes in animals he also felt that the criterion of consciousness is often set far too low. Responsiveness to stimulation, for instance, is not a valid index because inanimate objects such as a "bouncing ball" or a "violin" would also be considered as conscious "and they are not" (Carr, 1927, p. 93).

Although Carr claims not to sponsor "any particular criterion of the conscious" he does suggest that "limited inferences" as to the nature of consciousness in animals are possible as long as they are based on their "degree of similarity" to human behavior and structure (pp. 94-95). Carr's article contains no explicit attack of the behaviorist position regarding our inability to postulate the animal mind. While it is clear that Carr is averse to the generalization of the reductive conclusions which Watson drew from animal evidence to human beings, he suggests that the debate over the status of the animal mind had already been "dropped by mutual consent" (p. 88) owing to the fact that neither extreme view provided a workable path to follow.

The important point to note, here, is that Carr postulates a common argument between these two extremes. They agree on some similarity of kind between the Amoebae and man, and that a wide degree of behavioral differences may manifest themselves within the context of this similarity. This much of Carr's argument is correct. Both anthropomorphism and behaviorist reductionism hold to the pure continuity view of mental evolution (despite Watson's, 1914 claims to the contrary). In consequence to this otherwise prescient observation, however, Carr draws the following erroneous conclusion regarding the contemporaneous understanding of mental evolution:

"Our uncertainties and disagreements concerning the conscious status of animals are not reflections of any defects or differences in our logical operations, but they are rather due to defects and differences in the major premises for which we start, viz., what we think we know or do not know about man. I do not think that we have at present a sufficient amount of accurate and generally accepted knowledge of the organic condition of human consciousness to make any very convincing statements concerning many aspects of the psychic life of animals" (Carr, 1927, p. 104).

The first half of Carr's conclusion (that no "defects" exist in the "logical operations" used in the understanding of animal evidence) is, of course, at variance with the whole history of the development of the discipline. Major differences in logical operations (i.e., dynamic versus static; relational versus abstract; inclusive versus exclusionary; dialectical versus formal) are notable in every era of psychological thought (including the presocratic, enlightenment, associationist, and evolutionary eras) and as for the "major premises" with regard to 'what we know about man' are concerned, this is precisely the point. There has been a consistent pattern of progressive and practical implications arising from adopting the first of every one of the above named logical stances! James, most certainly knew this as did Dewey, but not so with Carr.

Similarly, only Carr's lack of acquaintance (in 1927 at least) with the emergent evolutionary alternative, set forth successively by C.L. Morgan (1923, 1926), could have accounted for his comfort with what he described as a methodologically "dualist" approach to animal and human research:

"Being somewhat sceptical of the validity of our major premises, and not much interested in the nature of animal consciousness, it is not at all surprising that I am somewhat of a behaviorist in the field of animal psychology, although I do not class myself as such so far as human psychology is concerned.... It is thus entirely possible for a person to be a behaviorist in animal psychology and yet to retain the subjective mode of approach to the study of the human mind without being guilty of the charge of inconsistency" (Carr, 1927, p. 104).

Clearly, in Harvey Carr (1927), the polite discursive cautiousness of Angell is transformed into a noncommittal theoretical eclecticism. Even in 1930, when Carr was explicitly trying to distinguish the functionalist position from the rising behaviorist tide, he assumes the same mental continuity view as his former University of Chicago instructor John B. Watson. In consequence, he concludes that if functionalism is to be defined solely in terms of its point of view (without any regard to what it studies), then "the various behaviorisms are functional psychologies" (1930, p. 77; emphasis added). This statement, of course, directly mirror's Watson's earlier statement that "behaviorism is the only consistent form of functional psychology" (Watson, 1914, p. 9).

Echoing his 1927 statement regarding Washburn versus Watson, Carr summed up the 1930 article by suggesting that a "truce" of "mutual respect" had already been attained between the behaviorist and functional approaches:

"For example, one can study behavior in two ways: (a) One can assert that the object of psychology is to describe behavior, and that it can be described only in terms of its constituent elements, viz., reflexes.... [or]... (b)... one can adopt the functional program of studying functional interrelations of the temporal parts of a complex act, its functional relation to organic needs, its dependence upon previous behavior, and its relation to the structural and physiological characteristics of the organism" (Carr, 1930, pp. 76-77).

With this apparently complacent attitude toward behaviorism, Carr is in clear contrast to the passionately held position of Dewey (1896) --who made a point of discrediting any analytical mutilation of the larger subject matter of psychology.

Ostensibly, Carr (like Angell), attempts to leave it up to the reader to decide which "approach" to adopt, but it must be pointed out that his particular account of the functionalist approach has become severely degraded. The functional psychologist, says Carr, is concerned with the "biological process of adjustment" and regards mental processes as a means for an individual organism to "adapt" itself to its environment "so as to satisfy its biological needs" (1930, p. 61, emphasis added). We are thus forced to conclude along with Buxton (1985), that it was under Carr's watch that the campaign for a functional psychology was "wound down" (p. 134).

Carr's slip into Operationism

To compound the problems produced by the above methodological dualism, Carr's (1930) definition of 'function,' was a further (and perhaps final) blow to the implied systematic corpus of American functionalism. For it is here that Carr equates the term 'function' with mathematical covariance (i.e., where X is a 'function' of Y).

"Psychologists, in my opinion, use the term function whenever they are dealing with a contingent relation irrespective of whether that relation is also one of act and structure, cause and effect, or means and end. A contingent relation and a functional relation are synonymous expressions" (Carr, 1930, p. 62).

Ironically this definition was intended to demonstrate the inclusiveness of functional psychology. Carr suggests, for instance that some of these "correlations" may include "teleological" analysis (which entails reference to: use, utility, adaptation, purpose, or the means-and-ends of acts). Carr's implicit agenda, however, is to link "systematic" functional psychology with the wider general experimental psychology of the day (which was becoming thoroughly operationist). This is manifested in Carr's claim that the Dynamic psychology of R.S. Woodworth, "which included the... motives of organisms," is one of the "contemporary elaborations of the functionalist approach" (1930, p. 76). With the above correlational definition of function, as the new official doctrine, the stage was set for Woodworth's full-scale embrace of eclectic empirical methods and operational definitions (see Winston, 1990; Winston & Blais, 1996). By 1943, Woodworth himself described the new empirical research tradition as a broad and unsystematic functionalism --which is present whenever the questions 'how and why' rather than simply 'what' are asked.

On the historiographic post-mortem of functional psychology

By 1964, when Mary Sheehan (the posthumous coeditor of the last edition of Woodworth's Contemporary Schools of Psychology) was able to look back on Woodworth's long career, and to insert a telling section on the exemplary colleagues who were "Carrying on the Chicago Tradition" (1964, pp. 32-36), she was really only talking about Woodworth's own eclectic, "middle of the road," general experimental psychology. No formally functionalist general psychological research program had ever been achieved in the Americas. I suggest that this is the major point of agreement between the otherwise varying historiographic accounts of Henle & Sullivan (1974); Buxton (1985); C.W. Tolman (1990, 1993); Taylor (1992, 1996); and D.N. Robinson (1993) regarding functional psychology.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the above evidence regarding the inability of Angell and Carr to formalize functional psychology into a viable psychological system, counts against what seems to be the basic premise of the volume edited by Owens & Wagner called: Progress in Psychology: The Legacy of American Functionalism (1993). The editors of that text (though not all of the contributors) assume that the implicit but progressive theoretical core of functional psychology was adopted by North American general experimental psychology. This, quite clearly, was not the case and there is still much work to be done in this regard.

Paul F. Ballantyne

Posted [April, 2004]