Psychology and Fallibilism

About the Book

People assume that scientific knowledge is the top dog in the epistemological kennel. But contrary to its exalted reputation, scientific knowledge is, like all knowledge, fallible. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the people in it are incomplete and in constant need of correction.

The fallibility of knowledge is explored in the following topics in the science of psychology—

~ The distortions of memory that can occur in eyewitness testimony

~ The debacle of the “memory wars” of the 1980s and ‘90s

~ The creation of false confessions and how police interrogations
serve as a model how recovered memories are formed in
psychotherapy

~ The value of criticism and refutation in maintaining the
integrity of research

~ The inaccurate conception that making mistakes is awful and that
mistakes should be kept hidden

~ The possibility of being in two places at the same time allows us
to foretell the future and turns us into creative artists or mental
patients

As a bonus, the final chapter presents an overview of Harry Stack Sullivan’s Interpersonal Theory.

About the Author

Dennis Ford is the author of twenty-one books, including seven novels and three books of lectures on psychology. He lives on the New Jersey Shore, where he walks the beaches and thinks about everything.