organon1973 Posted July 3, 2013 Report Share Posted July 3, 2013 There is an Objectivist who has lectured on psychology, who indicated in his pre-lecture summary that, while the axiom underlying the other sciences had been defined ("Existence exists"), the axiom(s) of psychology had not. I disagree with this -- but to understand why, we must first consider what psychology is. Psychology is the science that studies health and disease in the context of a consciousness that directs its own operation. What, then, is the essential characteristic of the healthy mind, which is lacked by the diseased mind, to whatever degree it is healthy or diseased, respectively? It is a commitment to Identification, to an integrating activity of mind that halts before no door and has no higher value that the clear grasp of that which is. Identification -- once more -- is the fundamental trait of the healthy mind, to the degree it is healthy, and its antithesis, evasion, is the fundamental trait of the diseased mind, to the degree it is diseased. Identification is the raison d'etre -- the for what -- of consciousness, and it is the degree to which this is consistently practiced (or not practiced) that determines the degree to which a mind is healthy or not so. To repeat: Psychology is the science that studies health and disease in the context of a consciousness that directs its own operation. And what is the other axiom Rand offered in Atlas Shrugged? "Consciousness is Identification." And it is Identification, or the lack thereof, that determines the health or illness of a mind, or consciousness, which is the subject of psychology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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