Introduction

The focus of this chapter is a psychology that had its origins in the student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. When it first acquired a name, it was called “critical-emancipatory psychology,” but in time the label was shortened to “critical psychology,” though it never lost its emancipatory intent. By way of introduction, I shall first say something about its history and the conceptual and ideological issues that motivated it. As we move on, we shall see how, crucial to its emancipatory goals, it formulated the subject matter of psychology as human subjectivity. We shall then look at how psychology itself was reconstructed in order to reflect the nature of its subject matter.

There were many catalysts that precipitated the collective actions of a highly politicized postwar student generation in the Germany of the 1960s. These included restrictions by both governments and university officials on free speech. Many students and others complained of a lack of relevance of the material taught at universities. There was a general unrest stemming from the universities' authoritarian approach to the curriculum. In the end, however, the complaint that had by far the greatest impact on subsequent developments concerned the ideological nature of the subject matter being taught, particularly in philosophy and the social sciences.

Two debates were particularly crucial to the later development of Critical Psychology in Germany. The first took place in 1967 and had to do with the relevance of psychological or any other kind of scientific knowledge.

Introduction

What is meant by the term concrete conditions of life? Activity theory answers in terms of the societal nature of the individual human being. Anglo-American contextualists have recently emphasized the embeddedness of the individual in the sociocultural milieu or ecology (e.g., Lerner, 1979; Jaeger & Rosnow, 1988; Dixon, Lerner, & Hultsch, 1991). Is there a theoretical convergence here, or do significant theoretical and methodological differences remain? This is the question I wish to address here.

Activity theory on the societal nature of the individual

It is fundamental to activity theory that the relation of individuals to every aspect of the world around them is essentially societal. Conceptually, this idea can be traced to the fourth of Marx's Thesen über Feuerbach (1845/1968, pp. 339-341): “In seiner Wirklichkeit ist [das menschliche Wesen] das Ensemble der gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse.” I cite the original German statement here because the usual English translation (e.g., p. 14) can be confusing with respect to precisely the matter here at issue. The translation of gesellschaftlich as “social” does not fully capture the intended meaning. Animals often behave or are organized by their instinctive natures in such a way that can be called “social,” and this is normally expressed in German by sozial. German usage distinguishes the way in which humans organize themselves socially by the adjective gesellschaftlich.

To one degree or another a state of crisis has existed in psychology from the beginning of its existence as a separate scientific discipline in the second half of the nineteenth century. The result has been a fairly continuous flow of “crisis literature,” sometimes ebbing, sometimes flooding, but always there.

For reasons that are not hard to understand, the crisis has always been of such a nature as to reflect the relevance of psychological theory and/or practice. This is a consequence of the historical character of the discipline. No original formulation of the psychological object of investigation or of methodology can be expected to have been utterly correct and unproblematic. The problem remains the same today as in 1918 when R. S. Woodworth observed the “curious fact” about psychology, that “it is uncertain, or seems so, as to its proper line of study” (Woodworth, 1918: 20). It is certainly a sign of immaturity but, Woodworth maintained, is less serious than it at first appears. Such is the way sciences develop. Their history is one of ever more precisely identifying and approximating their “proper line of study,” including its appropriate methods.

Relevance comes into the picture as a criterion for recognizing that a “line of study” or its methods have ceased to move us ahead or are moving us in the wrong direction. It serves the same function as “satisfaction” in William James's theory of truth.

Books like this frequently have innocent beginnings. The editors were among those who gathered in Plymouth, U.K., from 30 August to 2 September 1985, for the founding conference of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology. Michael Hyland, the principal organizer of the conference, had thoughtfully arranged an evening of relaxation and sightseeing aboard an excursion boat that took us some distance up the River Tamar. It was just what we needed after two days of vigorous debate over matters that could arouse only those keenly interested in the “just right” conceptualization of psychological phenomena. For the most part, however, although the seriousness abated, the discussions continued. We (C. T. and W. M.) found ourselves regretting the general lack of acquaintance among our English-speaking colleagues with the work of the German Critical Psychologists.

“Someone ought to translate a collection of key articles,” one of us said.

“Yes,” the other replied, “that's a good idea.”

“It's a fairly straightforward task.”

“Yes, with a little effort we could have the thing together by next spring.”

Almost five years later we are getting the manuscript off to the publisher. It has been five years of translating text that was often extremely difficult. It was a job that was assumed “on the side,” to be squeezed into the all-too-infrequent spaces between normal teaching and administrative and research obligations. For a time our project even had to compete with the urgencies associated with the preparation of an Habilitationsschrift.