Re: re Grand Unified Theory
Jack Adams-Webber (jadams@spartan.ac.brocku.ca)
Wed, 26 Oct 94 07:49:33 -0400
>Don Munro recaps my message of last night, which itself quoted other
>correspondents:
>
>>>A few days ago, one colleague wrote:
>>>> I'm an independent researcher in the psychological disciplines.
>>>> My main research interest is a Grand Unified Theory of psychology;
>>>> fitting the vast number of known psychological facts into the
>>>> structure of a single conceptual network, rather than the dozens of
>>>> independent theories presently needed to explain them all.
>>>
>>>Then another replied:
>>>> I am also working on developing such a theory dealing with personality
>>>> issues rather than all of psychology.
>>>
>>>Tonight, a third wrote:
>>>> Further to the above, I have similar aims, mainly in relation to motivation
>>>> theroy, but personality would be seen as on the fringe of that anyway.
>>>
>>>I can't resist!
>>>What we _really_ need is a Grand Unified Theory of r(G)s.
>>>
>>>Devi Jankowicz
>
>and says:
>
>>Reply from No. 3 above: I'll start working on it straight away if you tell
>>me what an r(G) is!
>>
>>Don Munro, P.
>
>Okay Don, et al. colleagues!
>
>A r(G), pronounced "little are-Gee", was, if I remember the symbols
>correctly, the "fractional anticipatory goal response" of the last serious
>behaviourist GUT: the Hull-Spence model.
>
>You see, I thought the correspondence quoted above was intended as a joke
>and I simply wanted to add to it. Crikey! The correspondence started with
>the intent of developing a Grand Universal Theory; the next item said, in
>effect, well, no, not really a Grand Universal Theory, just a Grandish
>Bitty Theory dealing with personality; and your own said well, no, lets
>have a Grand Theoriette of motivation with Personality Bits bolted on
>instead.
>
>Doesn't anyone else see this as funny, in the context of personal construct
>psychology?
>I was offering the smallest thing I could think of (the speeding up which
>Clark Hull posited should occur when a rat is nearly at the end of its
>maze) in attempt to reduce the previous 3 mailings ad absurdium.
>
>Very well, jokes are never funny when they need to be explained. Sorry! But
>doesn't anyone else see the multiple absurdities involved when Kellians-
>constructivists, dammit! start replicating the fragmentalist-universalist
>debates of the 50s and 60s in a search for the "one positivist truth" when
>we have a perfectly serviceable general (not Grand!) theory- George
>Kelly's- on which to hang our elaborations, amplifications, and indeed
>revisions?
>
>The "pcp" in the address of this mailbase does stand for "Personal
>Construct Psychology", doesn't it?
>
>Devi Jankowicz
Hi Devi,
Are you not the very bod who also posed the interesting question: "What
ever happened to George Kelly?" (Jankowicz, 1987; American
Psychologist)[see also Graham Foulds (circa 1975), British Journal of
Medical Psychology: "Has anyone here seen Kelly?"].
Cheers,
Jack
Jack Adams-Webber Tel: 905 (688) 5544 [x 3714]
Department of Psychology Fax: 905 (688) 6922
Brock University E-mail: jadams@spartan.ac.brocku.ca
St. Catharines, Ontario
CANADA L2S 3A1