'All You Need is Holt'-Is the Socio-cultural Phenomenon a Problem for a Neorealist Ecological Psychology?

摘要

The aim of this paper is to discuss Charles's (2011) attempt to turn E. B. Holt's theoretical approach into the only possible bridge to connect Gibsonian ecological psychology with social psychology. Criticism of Charles's claims is carried out at four different conceptual levels: historiographical, logico-epistemological, methodological, and theoretical. From this critical perspective, Charles's resort to Holt's ideas is viewed as an effort to legitimate Charles's own line of work. Moreover, far from being this the only possible approach to the subject, many other rich alternatives to the application of Gibsonian principles to the explanation of socio-cultural phenomena already exist. In fact, it is questionable whether Holt's behavioral neorealism allows dealing with many of the most complex socio-cultural issues, particularly those related to purposive behavior and intersubjective contexts. In order to address these questions from a Holtian point of view, Charles is forced to make a number of argumentative leaps and epistemological transgressions. In the last analysis, his insistence on keeping to the Holtian stance leads him to lose sight of the Gibsonian framework and to modify the very nature of his object of study, the social phenomenon-which, along the lines of classic neorealist behaviorism, becomes reduced to a simple consideration of behavioral purposiveness.