The growing emphasis on “positionality” in academic research—where authors disclose personal characteristics thought to influence their work—has sparked significant debate. In this article, we critically examine the concept of positionality, tracing its assumptions, implications, philosophical roots, and potential pitfalls, particularly in psychology. We conclude that positionality statements lack theoretical support, may reinforce biases, and risk fragmenting scientific discourse. Instead, we advocate rigorous, transparent methodologies and critical evaluation of research, independent of authors’ identities. Discussing solutions, we suggest that if positionalities are unavoidable in research, they must be considered as part of the knowledge claims, considered as auxiliary elements to be tested like other auxiliary (or measurement) hypotheses. Also, we briefly discuss anonymity or pseudonymity as alternative solutions for other sources of positionality biases. Our aim is to contribute to open and critical science and improve upholding ideals of critical science.
In this paper, we examine two early and underexplored texts: Fanon’s 1951 thesis and Lacan’s 1946 presentation ‘On Psychical Causality.’ Their theoretical understanding of madness and freedom in these texts has important clinical consequences and resonates in the clinical testimonies of people experiencing psychosis today. To contextualize their ideas, we consider both authors’ understanding of alienation in psychosis. Rather than taking sides, we explore the tensions within and between their work, as well as their overlaps to develop a more nuanced and responsive framework beyond a simple progressive/conservative binary for thinking about psychosis.
Code Psychology extends Marcello Barbieri's Code Biology paradigm to psychological phenomena, proposing that mental processes operate through organic codes-arbitrary rule-based mappings between neural signals (signs) and subjective experiences (meanings) mediated by adaptors. This theoretical framework addresses persistent epistemological challenges in psychology, including mind-body dualism, the debate between reductionism and holism, and the tension between universal and subjective experiences. I propose to integrate Code Biology's triadic structure with contemporary neuroscience, particularly the free energy principle, affective neuroscience, and biogenetic structuralism's neurognostic structures. The framework reconceptualizes psychological disorders as disruptions in metacode organization, exemplified through autism spectrum disorder, where distinct neural adaptor configurations create systematic cognitive variations rather than deficits. Drawing on thermodynamic principles, we propose that the psyche minimizes variational free energy through codepoiesis-the ongoing generation and conservation of codes that assemble adaptive meanings. This synthesis unifies insights from Marcello Barbieri, Carl Jung, Ross Ashby, Karl Friston, and Jaak Panksepp, revealing the mind as a predictive system that bounds uncertainty via action-oriented inference. Code Psychology offers testable hypotheses for empirical validation through neuroimaging, genomic modeling, and high-dimensional cytometry, providing a mechanistic yet holistic account of mental phenomena that bridges the metaphoric and material at the interface of code, energy, and matter.
Research investigating the practices that reinforce women's lower status and power is growing rapidly. Yet, examinations of these practices are scattered across diverse literatures under different conceptual labels, with little intellectual cross-fertilization. We integrate these literatures under a hierarchy reinforcement model of misogyny, which defines misogyny as the social, physical, and economic penalties imposed on women that reinforce hierarchical gender relations. This conceptualization of misogyny has significant benefits for psychology: it unifies interrelated phenomena that have traditionally been studied in siloes; differentiates misogyny from related psychological phenomena; focuses attention on both interpersonal and institutional penalties towards women; and recognizes misogyny within its socio-historical context. By integrating psychological, sociological, and organizational research, we develop a theoretical framework that outlines the key causes of misogyny. Critically, we argue that misogyny is particularly likely to be enacted after threats to the gender status quo. This can help to explain the pernicious nature of gender inequality, as misogynistic penalties become most pronounced when gender hierarchies face disruption. Understanding the many forms of misogyny as interlinked also emphasizes the need for gender equality interventions to be multipronged, as tentative initiatives with a singular focus are at risk of merely displacing misogyny into other arenas.
In this paper, we explore the possibility of radical behaviorism to respond to the challenges posed by Merleau-Ponty to scientific psychology. According to this philosopher, modern dichotomous thinking places every psychological project in a stalemate: it adopts either mentalism, distancing itself from science, or physiologism, distancing itself from psychology. For Merleau-Ponty, the notion of behavior could be a way to avoid this impasse as long as behavior was taken as a phenomenon in its own right. However, the first behaviorist proposals did not follow this path. But what about radical behaviorism? To answer this question, we begin with different understandings of the notion of behavior found both in B. F. Skinner's works and in the behavior-analytic literature. Considering the diversity of positions, we adopt the Merleau-Ponty stance that sees ambiguity as a constitutive characteristic of the behavioral phenomenon. From there, we present an understanding of behavior based on a relational ontology that could respond to the challenges posed by Merleau-Ponty. This proposal updates the philosophical potential of radical behaviorism, allowing it to dialogue with other traditions that have historically attempted to overcome the alternatives of mentalism and physiological reductionism.
