The replication crisis: How might philosophy and theory of psychology be of use?
Psychology is experiencing what many deem a "crisis," often called a "replication crisis." In response and with impressive speed, technical changes are being introduced to remedy perceived problems in data analysis, researcher bias, and publication practices. Yet throughout these large scale renovations of scientific practice, scarce attention is given to philosophical and theoretical commitments as potential factors in the crisis problems. Analysis of involved psychologists' understandings of scientific crisis, replication, and epistemology indicates the need for philosophical examinations. Likewise warranting close analyses are the associated assumptions about objectivity, credibility, and ontology (the nature of psychological phenomena) Such lacuna in the crisis interrogations constitute opportunities for researchers with expertise in the philosophy and theory of psychology to contribute to the science's immediate problems and collaborate more closely with experimental psychologists.
Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology