Marxism, Psychology and Social Science Analysis

Taking Sève Seriously

Julian Roche

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429942440
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Marxism, Psychology and Social Science Analysis applies Marxist theory, psychology, and the work of Lucien Sève to specific research in the social sciences. It shows in practical terms what guidance can be offered for social scientific researchers wanting to incorporate Sève's view of personality into their work. Providing case studies drawn from different social sciences that give the book significant breadth of scope, Roche reviews the impact of "Taking Sève Seriously" across the study of international relations theory, economics, law, and moral philosophy.

The book begins by placing the work of Lucien Sève in context and considers the development of psychology in relation to Marxism, before going on to summarise the work of Sève in relation to the psychology of personality. It considers the opportunities for refreshed research in social relations based on developments by Sève, before examining Marxist biography and the implications of Sève's views. The book also includes chapters on the social discount rate, on constructivism in international relations, on the concept of promising in moral philosophy and the Marxist conception of individual responsibility. It addresses not only how research should be carried out differently, but whether utilising the theoretical framework of other writers, even non-Marxists, can deliver a similar outcome.

With its use of five distinct case studies to analyse the work of Lucien Sève, this unique book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology, philosophy and social sciences.

Chapter 1
The problem

Why write this book?

Psychology has been variously and certainly not uniformly defined (Henriques, 2004), with some authors even denying that it can be defined at all (Reber, 2009), but dictionaries and many practitioners see it as the science of mind and behaviour. In writing this book I hoped to discover whether Marxism specifically contributes to any part of this science, and, if so, to identify any distinct contribution made by Marxist theoretician Lucien Sève. An individual theoretician (Lucien Sève, in this case) must have distinctive theoretical positions (which may change over time) that can be described, examined and presented as a theoretical framework derived from a corpus of work in which ideas can be distinguished from – or identified as in accord with – those of other Marxists theorising about the theoretical and practical terrain of psychology. I borrow a term from contemporary – though not Marxist – political discourse to call these together the clear blue water hypothesis, and I aim to test these in the theoretical part of the book.

The empirical chapters concern the consequences of this theoretical framework on the terrain of the social sciences. I do not mean the impact of Marxism in general on the social sciences, which has been analysed before and which I term the general consequences hypothesis. The main aspects of Marxism that have been held to be of significance for social science are, first, that of dialectical materialism, which has been defined as ‘a metaphysical position held by many Marxists. It asserts that matter is primary or fundamental, and states general laws governing the motion and development of all matter’ (Flew, 1979: 94) and, second, historical materialism, which is ‘the Marxist theory of history, dealing with the more particular laws governing the development of human society and thought’ (Flew, 1979: 94). In the social sciences, ‘taking Marx seriously’ has therefore meant chiefly an insistence on the historical character of all phenomena, as well as on the fact that historical change proceeds in certain complex but defined ways (e.g. the quantity/quality inter-relation, the importance of ‘internal contradiction’ etc.) (Hobsbawn, 1957: 29). The influence of Marxism on economics and sociology has been identified – for example, in Marx’s own time it was observed that ‘the Marxist teaching on basis and superstructure gripped with immense force’ (Tröltsch, 1925: 122) by linking ideological phenomena such as Protestantism with the forces and relations of production.

The general consequences hypothesis has its detractors. The suggestion has been strongly made that there are not such measurable consequences in social science from adopting a Marxist perspective, or applying Marxist principles, at least from Marxism as handled by Soviet philosophers. Hence for example the assertion that

Spirkin repeatedly emphasises ‘the great methodological importance’ of ‘diamat’ … but he never seems to tell us how the Marxist method can be useful. It is always only a matter of why but never how, and the usefulness of the Marxist method is never explained. The whole thing is a chocolate box of appetising assertions that turn out to be display dummies.

(Baronovitch, 1981: 357)

This book is not about the general consequences hypothesis, or interpretations and developments of his work in areas such as psychology and ethics by authors such as Spirkin and many others. Nor is it on the impact of psychology in its entirety on social science. Much more narrowly, the second hypothesis is that utilising the work of Lucien Sève uniquely, which I have termed ‘Taking Sève Seriously’ has identifiable consequences – at least for academic research: that taking Sève seriously will result in academic research being in some ways at least conducted differently. I call this the specific consequences hypothesis, and I aim to identify and test this in the empirical part of the book.

This hypothesis is in turn divided into three forms. The strong version is that Sève’s own presentation of the relationship between Marxism and psychology makes a different difference – the weak version is that it does not, but that it shares the consequences with other Marxist psychologists. Third, in the concluding chapter of the book the possibilities of theoretical over determination are examined – that there are other non-Marxist routes to the same, or similar, consequences, as taking Sève seriously.

There must be some theoretical terrain created by the intersection of Marxism with psychology, so to be able to write the empirical chapters of this book there must be a discernible result of this terrain. First, distinguishing what psychologists who identify as Marxists, or at least who recognise the influence of Marxism on their work, think and do from the theory and practice of all other psychology – critical psychology in particular as it is arguably close in intent and approach. Second, identifying a contribution specifically attributable to the juncture and mutual contribution of Marxism and psychology itself (as presented by Sève).

Interventions by psychology into the social sciences

A question to review immediately is whether psychology in general has been introduced to the terrain of contemporary politics, or to philosophy. This is principally the domain of what has come to be termed political psychology, and as I aim to demonstrate in the empirical chapters of this book, detailed case studies are virtually non-existent. Sève himself asked why did psychology not ‘intervene’ in the political debates over e.g. absolute impoverishment in capitalist regimes or Gaullist educational politics (Sève, 1978). Psychology of a diametrically opposite orientation did intervene in a negative way in politics during the pre-World War II era, and it is most interesting to examine how and why the science of eugenics reached a climax during that period with the work of e.g. Eysenck (1952), and of course standing behind him the entire subjugation of practical psychology in Germany to the Nazi cause (Gonen, 2000). This was a perfect example of precisely the course of scientific idealism that Sève feared for psychology (Sève, 1978) and which in the contemporary focus on ‘innate ability’ (Howe et al., 1998) and ‘evolutionary psychology’ has never really left the stage. Wright claims:

The new Darwinian social scientists are fighting a doctrine that has dominated their fields for much of this century: the idea that biology doesn’t much matter – that the uniquely malleable human mind, together with the unique force of culture, has severed our behaviour from its evolutionary roots; that there is no inherent human nature driving human events, but that, rather, our essential nature is to be driven.

(Wright, 1996: 5)

The reality is that now it is the Darwinian scientists who seem to occupy a leading role within psychology as practiced in contemporary capitalist societies (see e.g. Wright, 1996; Rose & Rose, 2000; Pinker, 2002; Gangestad and Tybur, 2016).

The Marxist riposte, in debate that can unfortunately all too easily become sterile, is that this kind of idealist position itself is historically and socially determined. It is certainly hard to avoid the conclusion that a notion of immutable human nature and associated concepts of individual innate abilities – what Sève called ‘Les Dons’ [natural aptitudes] (Sève, 1964) – is highly useful to capitalism (Geras, 1983).

As for the consequences of a Marxist theoretical framework for psychology, Sève himself strongly argued that there would be consequences in a range of areas; in his view the absence of a scientific theory of personality (specifically) was an obstacle to the scientific elaboration of such huge questions as the relations between historical necessity and individual freedom, and those between psychology and epistemology, ethics and aesthetics (Sève, 1978: 20). Success has been considered important: ‘the future of Marxism depends on its engagement with the psychology of everyday life, and the future of psychology depends upon its insertion into and comprehension of social life’ (Hayes, 1996: 155). Yet it should not be presumed in advance that the application of taking Sève seriously would be even possible, let alone significant, in every area of the social sciences, including those where Sève himself has not himself engaged (Sève, 2015a: 7). This leaves open the question of whether a Marxist theoretical framework for psychology, ‘Taking Sève Seriously’ in particular, has some qualities that disbar it from application to social science research in particular areas, or different suitability, at least, in different areas. But answering this I defer until the relevant chapters, as each subject area may be differently appropriate for an ‘intervention’, in Sève’s term (Sève, 1978).

This first chapter has explained the task, and will now present the organisation of succeeding chapters and the case study methodology that will be employed. The task of the second chapter is the literature review, which will serve to provide an overview of the contribution made by Marxism to psychology and then identify the extent to which this may be differentiated from a Marxist approach to social science generally. The third chapter is devoted to an explanation of the individual contribution of Sève’s work to the development of psychology and therefore the elucidation of the theoretical framework: to what ‘Taking Sève Seriously’ means. Testing the consequences of taking Sève seriously in turn constitutes the second, empirical part of the book, followed by five substantive case study chapters and a conclusion.

Methodology

First, is it correct to suggest that a comprehensive analysis of the implications of taking Sève seriously for social science research is beyond the scope of a single book? It seems straightforward enough to answer yes to this question. Any such analysis at the length of a single book would be superficial and run the risk of merely repeating the ‘preliminary’ work of Sève himself (Sève, 1966, 1978). My ambitious aim is to go beyond this preliminary work to achieve some progress in the actual work of applying a theoretical framework for psychology drawn from Marxism, in this case to the social sciences. A narrower focus is therefore required.

Second, in view of the impossibility of a comprehensive study, is a case study approach appropriate to achieve such an aim? There is no evidence of a unique use or procedure for a case study approach in a book ‘in the Marxist tradition’ or ‘written from a Marxist standpoint’ that raises especial concerns. Outside the Marxist tradition, however, there is plenty of guidance that it does not seem unreasonable to follow. This question divides into three: first, what is a ‘case study approach’? This approach is what has been described as a ‘tradition’ of social science research with certain defined characteristics, for ‘case study research involves the study of a case within a real-life, contemporary context or setting’ (Yin, 2009) or ‘a qualitative approach in which the investigator explores a real-life, contemporary bounded system (a case) or multiple bounded systems (cases) over time, through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information’ (Creswell, 2012: 97), although it has been noted that a case is ‘a unit of activity embedded in the real world which … merges in with its context so that precise boundaries are difficult to draw’ (Gilham, 2000: 1). Whether the case study approach is a ‘methodology’ has been debated (Stake, 1995, 2005, 2006; Creswell, 2012), but certainly, case study research has been evident in many disciplines over many decades of social science research (Creswell, 2012: 97). Although the focus of case study research has clearly been in social science, rather than philosophy, recent published work in philosophy has included examples of the case study approach in analytic philosophy (Gutting, 2009) and the philosophy of art (Matravers, 2014). Much of the literature on just war, to take a completely different example, consists of several case studies (e.g. Byers, 2006; Chesterman, 2001; Wheeler, 2000).

What makes the case studies of this book different, however, is that they will be, at least in significant part, meta-case studies, research into how if social scientists, philosophers and jurists were taking Sève seriously research would be done differently, rather than case study research themselves. In a sense, therefore, each meta-case study is a self-contained academic ethnography.

All the case studies relate to what might affect research and activism within a contemporary capitalist society. Some mention, however, should be made in each case of the way in which change in the subject, and the consequences of taking Sève seriously, might alter under conditions of socialism and even communism.

Third, the choice of case studies. It has been suggested that qualitative research should encompass no more than four or five case studies (Creswell, 2012: 100). This book uses five – hopefully a sufficient number to range across different subject matter, but not too many to prevent a detailed analysis. But how should the case studies be selected? I have used three criteria. First, there must be a significant and accessible academic literature on the subject. Second, the subject must be sufficiently ‘bounded’ to allow its study as a single book chapter. Third, there must be a ‘point of entry’ for psychology into the subject, a way in which, at least on first inspection, the study of the subject may be altered by the introduction of a Marxist concept of personality, in Sève’s conception of it.

Many areas of academic research met these criteria, so unlike many research problems, the choice of case studies for this book was vast. The eventual choice of case studies became guided by three further principles. First, that they should be drawn from different social science disciplines. Second, the choice of case study was driven inevitably by the need to discover and then analyse research areas where the role of the individual was likely to be significant, if not paramount, and where that role could be analysed from the standpoint of psychological theory, especially Sève’s work. Third, for ‘Taking Sève Seriously’ to meet the challenge of the specific consequences hypothesis, it should have an impact in social science research. The five case studies chosen meet these criteria.

The first, on subjective time preference (STP), is an important area of concern for public finance professionals, environmental scientists and a wide range of other economists and psychologists concerned with crucial questions of the way in which individuals value costs and benefits to themselves over time. The way governments make decisions about investment projects is influenced both directly and indirectly by this research, which has a clear psychological element that has been recognised by a range of scholars. Moreover, a debate exists over the extent to which different forms of economic organisation influence time preference, making the issue doubly relevant as a case study.

The second, on IR theory, was initially selected for unashamed personal reasons, the role of individuals in Marxist IR theory having been a personal interest for decades (Roche, 1984). It is an appropriate area to research because of the recent ‘psychological turn’ in IR theory (Shannon and Kowert, 2012) and the continued lively debate in academia and elsewhere on the significance of ‘Great Men’ in history, a subject that early Marxists exhibited a close interest (e.g. Plekhanov, 1898), and on which biographers in the Marxist tradition such as Deutscher (1963: 241–252) and commentators such as Callinicos (2009b) have dwelt.

The third, the theory of promising developed by H. A. Prichard, is intended to provide a sense of balance, as taking Sève seriously ought to be relevant for a wide range of different disciplines, including moral philosophy. There is added interest from the fact that theories of promising from the intuitionist school of thought are rarely put to any psychological test, let alone a Marxist one.

The fourth case study addresses an issue that Sève himself turned to only once very early in his career (Sève, 1962), that of the relationship between Marxism and personal responsibility. The obvious responsibilities a Marxist must have are to work towards the replacement of capitalist society by socialism; but might there not be other responsibilities, more limited in scope but applicable throughout the duration of capitalist society, and even beyond? What does personal responsibility look like, if one were taking Sève seriously?

Finally, the fifth draws out how taking Sève seriously would affect the writing of biography, a subject in which Sève has had a particular interest, about which he wrote himself (e.g. Sève, 2008, 2015b) and in which there are examples of actual biographies written by Marxists on which to draw (e.g. Deutscher, 1954, 1959, 1963, 1970).

Conclusion

This book analyses the work of Lucien Sève to determine whether ‘clear blue water’ can be found between his work and that of other writers on psychology, especially those in the traditions of Marxism and critical psychology. It then uses the case study approach to answer the question of whether, in five specific areas of social science research, the intervention of psychology, specifically the work of Sève, entails specific consequences, and if so, what they might be.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 The problem
• 2 Marxism, psychology and human personality
• 3 Lucien Sève and the theory of personality
• 4 Taking Sève seriously in subjective time preference (STP)
• 5 Taking Sève seriously and constructivist IR theory: removing the fear, filling the void
• 6 Marxism, Sève and H. A. Prichard’s theory of promising
• 7 Marxism, personality and responsibility
• 8 How should a Marxist biography look?
• 9 Conclusion
• Appendix: correspondence with Lucien Sève
• Bibliography
• Index