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Philosophical Dimensions
of Personal Construct
Psychology

Bill Warren

London and New York

First published 1998
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1998 William G.Warren

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Warren, Bill 1942–
Philosophical dimensions of personal construct psychology/
Bill Warren.
1. Personal construct theory—Philosophy. I. Title.
BF698.9.P47W37 1998 98–17308
150.19'8–dc21 CIP

ISBN 0-203-00469-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-22091-9 (Adobe eReader Format)

ISBN 0-415-16850-3 (Print Edition)
[The suspension] of the ‘subject’ and ‘self-understanding’…cannot mean
that we should liquidate the subject (the actually existing industrial societies
and the institutions of the ‘administered world’ are far more adept at this;
why compete with them on the level of theory?); rather it can only mean that
one has to explain subjectivity better and in a more adequate way…
(Frank, 1989:343–4)

One cannot understand a spoken statement without knowing both its most
general and its most personal and particular value.
(Schleiermacher, 1977:48)

What is not supposed to be my concern. First and foremost, the Good

Cause, then God’s cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of
humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my
fatherland; finally, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes.
Only my cause is never to be my concern. ‘Shame on the egoist who thinks
only of himself!’
(Stirner, 1845:3)
Contents

Preface ix
Acknowledgements x
A note on citations xi

Introduction 1

1 Locating philosophy 8
History 8
Developments 11
Domains 16
Modes 19
Concluding comment 21

2 Links and latencies 23

Direct references 23
Latencies 29
Constructive alternativism as philosophy 48
Realism and idealism 52
Concluding comment 60

3 Constructivisms 61
Social theory 61
Psychology 65
Concluding comment 72

4 Structuralism and beyond 73

Structuralism and poststructuralism 75
Modernity and postmodernity 78
Psychology and postmodernity 80
Concluding comment 85
viii Contents

5 The problem of the self 87

The notion of the self 87
Decentred and recentred subjects 92
Constructing selves 93
The self in personal construct psychology 99
Concluding comment 103

6 Philosophical psychology 105

Philosophy of science 105
Cognitive science 109
Determinism and free will 116
Philosophical issues in clinical psychology 118
A caveat 120
Concluding comment 126

7 Psychotechnology 128
Psychotechnology, applied psychology, technology 128
Personal construct psychology and applied psychology 131
Personal construct psychotherapy as praxis 135
Concluding comment 139

8 Political and social life 141

The social-political in personal construct psychology 141
The egalitarian outlook 145
Ideology 146
Religion 150
Concluding comment 154

9 Being human, making meaning 156

Hermeneutics 158
Personal construct psychology and hermeneutics 164
Psychological philosophical anthropology 166
Concluding comment 169

Conclusion 171

References 174
Index 192
Preface

I came to personal construct psychology from a background jointly in social

philosophy and a fairly traditional ‘psychology is a science’ education in
psychology. I had been led to existentialism and to anarchist thinking by my
preoccupation with the subtleties of individual interpretation in and of life.
Personal construct psychology was discovered, by accident, during my
education and training in clinical psychology. It appeared to offer a congenial
way of thinking about individual lived-experience in a most thoroughgoing
way. It appeared also to be consistent with the types of ideas generated in the
anarcho-psychological tradition of western thought with which I had become
familiar. Thus developed an interest in probing personal construct psychology
for its links to the ideas generated in this tradition and in social philosophy
generally.
There is now something of homelessness felt by those with an outlook that
is fascinated by individual variation, recalcitrance, endurance, resistance, and
the like. The intellectual climate is one in which the dominant wisdom accepts
a more collective view of human beings; thus, it would take those with such an
outlook to be naive and suffering from ideology. Still, there is something in
lived-experience that resists the insistence on giving up the sense of difference
and individual efficacy, of uniqueness and ultimate aloneness.
Thus, the present volume is an outcome of excavating the philosophical in
personal construct psychology, and a construction of it in terms of a construct
system the core constructs of which keenly focus the personal. A different
construction, both of personal construct psychology and of life, would,
obviously, understand matters differently; but the tolerance of difference and
of plurality, might be the mark of an optimally functioning person and of a
good approach in philosophy.
Acknowledgements

The preparation of this manuscript was made easier by a period of leave from
the University of Newcastle, and I am most appreciative of the opportunities
that leave afforded me. The work of others writing on themes to which this
work is addressed provided much of the ‘data’ for the present discussion, and
that work is acknowledged for the encouragement it provided. My thanks go
also to Mark Ralph at Routledge and to the copy-editor, Justin Dyer, whose
attention to the technicalities of the actual production of the work was greatly
appreciated. Finally, I thank my family for their tolerance, and for their support
during the completion of the project, which burdened them as much as it did
me at times.
A note on citations

There are now two different editions of Kelly’s original two-volume work, the
1955 W.W.Norton and Company edition, and the 1991 Routledge edition.
Where these volumes are referenced in the text, page numbers in each are cited
for convenience of those who have only one set of these volumes. Where two
dates are cited for a source, the first refers to the date of original publication
and the second to the date of the edition used. This second date is the one under
which the source is listed in the Bibliography.
Introduction

George Kelly, in formulating the work that introduced personal construct

psychology to the psychological community, felt more disposed to get on with
the job of propounding his theory than paying respect to the pioneers of the
approach he was to take. Thus has the theory of personal constructs been noted
to have paid scant regard to the work of others. The present volume is intended
as a contribution to filling this gap. Some four decades on, it is also of interest
to consider developments since the original formulation and how personal
construct psychology might respond to the challenges to thinking emerging in
the period immediately following publication and reaching their full impact
only after Kelly’s death.
Since its appearance in the mid-1950s, personal construct psychology has
attracted attention not only for its stated focus and range of convenience—
psychology, clinical psychology and personality—but for Kelly’s (1955/1991)
preparedness to address the philosophical basis, and the philosophical location,
of personal construct psychology. This was a bold move at a time when the rift
between psychology and philosophy might have been seen as widening.
However, in the event, it was a move that provided personal construct
psychology with the soundest footing and a most congenial situatedness within
a philosophical tradition that is particularly helpful for illuminating the human
condition, both individual and collective.
This work is, then, in the first instance, in the nature of a philosophical
compendium. However, as such a collection of observations and discussions of
links and connections in respect of personal construct psychology and
philosophy, it displays the philosophical richness of personal construct
psychology. Thus, there is an argument in ‘form’; that is, the range of matters
in respect of which personal construct psychology has something to say
supports a claim that personal construct is a psychology with significant
philosophical respectability. It hopefully also shows its philosophical
respectability at a time when philosophy and psychology as disciplines have
become antagonistic, and a need for a rapprochement might be suggested.
There are also included here smaller arguments, perhaps sometimes
‘suggestions’, that proved too difficult to ignore or too attractive not to pursue.
One concerns the clash between personal construct psychology and social
2 Introduction
constructionism. Here, it was impossible to resist addressing a déjà vu of older
arguments between Marxism and theorists of the anarcho-psychological
tradition; as well as to note philosophical difficulties within Marxism itself.
Another concerns the idea of personal construct psychology as a clinical
psychology, thought of as praxis. And there is a sketch of the development of
hermeneutics to lend support to the view of personal construct psychology
fitting most comfortably into the hermeneutic tradition.
Thus, the broader picture is that personal construct psychology falls in with
a substantial tradition of thought about the human condition generally, and is
broader and richer than its location as a ‘mere’ psychology might otherwise
suggest. It contributes to a level of reflection on the fundamentals of the human
condition that is, generally, the traditional domain of philosophy. In short, the
significance of that move that Husserl discussed as a move from a concern with
‘facts’ to a concern with ‘ideas’ was that it threw humankind into a unique
position that psychology has been ill able to illuminate. Personal construct
psychology offers an illumination of the path this move put us on, an
understanding of the individual which finds deeper questions and deeper
understandings of their species ‘immanent’ within individuals’ understanding
of their predicament.
One risk in preparing such a volume as the present one is that it will not be
comprehensive. This risk must remain that not every relevant contribution to
the ongoing discussion of philosophy and personal construct psychology will
have been considered. Where this is the case, the sin is one of omission not one
of commission; that is, no judgement has been made about any such omitted
contribution. Another risk in trying to draw so much material into focus is that
the work might be found to raise connections, then leave them undeveloped. If
the work does throw up ideas for others to develop, however, then well and
good. Not only would such an observation be consistent with what is attempted
here, but also it would be in the spirit of personal construct psychology itself.
That is, personal construct psychology is a theory which encourages new ways
of thinking about human psychological functioning and encourages
experimentation with ideas and behaviour. Hopefully, the identification of
relationships between personal construct psychology and different issues and
perspectives in philosophy contributes to this ongoing process of elaboration.
These last comments recognise that the present work itself, as a discussion
of philosophical issues in personal construct psychology, will be construed
differently, and at different points, and by different readers. Thus, perhaps it
might be overall understood as a philosophical ‘conversation’ with personal
construct psychology and those who construe it.
The original intention of the volume was a focus on personal construct
psychology, not on constructivism in general, nor constructivism in
psychotherapy, nor on constructionism—if constructionism is seen as usefully
differentiated from constructivism. It may well be that many of the connections
drawn out here hold just as well for other forms of constructivism and for
constructionism. However, Kelly self-consciously located his position in
 Introduction 3
relation to philosophy, and his is arguably the only constructivist theory of
personality and psychotherapy (Chiari and Nuzzo, 1996a), the only
psychology for psychotherapy (Mair, 1970a), and one of few large-scale
psychologies founded in human interaction (Butt, 1996). Thus, it is personal
construct psychology with which we are here concerned, and an outline of how
that concern is elaborated is as follows.
Chapter 1 is a quite straightforward account of philosophy in fairly
conventional terms, reviewing its history, sketching its traditional concerns,
and illustrating its modes of operation. This chapter could be omitted without
loss by readers already even modestly read in philosophy.
Chapter 2 looks to specific observations about philosophy and personal
construct psychology made from the outset by Kelly, and to latent dimensions
teased out by others since the initial formulation. We do this in some cases in
detail because often only a general acknowledgement or a brief account of a
particular thinker is made by Kelly and by commentators on personal construct
psychology. Here is also considered the possibility of locating personal
construct psychology as a realist position. This is a controversial location and
one that here draws on what is arguably the most thoroughgoing realist
position in the work of the Scottish-Australian philosopher John Anderson
(1893–1962). This might not clarify the existing debate, but it perhaps adds
another interesting dimension to a discussion of it.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 address matters that have been problematic in
philosophy itself, and suggests how these might be dealt with in, or for,
personal construct psychology. First, the social constructionist position is
considered in terms of the social theory it appears to represent, partly at least,
by reason of its own social-historical origins, and against the background of the
realist position previously outlined in Chapter 2. Some of the different
constructivisms in psychology are also noted for their fit with personal
construct psychology. Second, the debate between a so-called modern and a
postmodern way of understanding life is, bravely perhaps, considered in terms
of some of its major themes and issues, and accounts of its significance for
personal construct psychology reviewed. Third, growing directly out of these
two chapters, in Chapter 5 a problematic notion is discussed that
constructivism and postmodernity, but no less than modernity itself, have
wrestled with; that is, the idea of the individual, the self, the Ego, or the
subject.
Chapter 6 reviews some selected issues that attract the attention of those
working in the field of philosophical psychology. The position of personal
construct psychology in respect to philosophy of science, determinism and free
will, and the most advanced thinking in cognitive science is surveyed. Further,
given the focus of convenience of personal construct psychology, that is,
clinical psychology, two matters raised by the philosophy of clinical
psychology are noted: the concept of mental illness, and the problem of
classification. We finally signal a warning; that is, a reminder of the problems
philosophy has had with psychology since the separate discipline of
4 Introduction
psychology emerged and parted company with the discipline of philosophy.
This reminder appears appropriate to avoid too grandiose a claim being made
for personal construct psychology, particularly in view of its own focus and
range of convenience being specifically limited to psychology.
Chapters 7 and 8 shift the focus to matters that have not been widely
considered within personal construct psychology. First, the manner in which
personal construct psychology avoids the critical thrust brought against many
of the ‘psychotechnologies’. This is linked to considerations in Chapter 6, but
now an argument is added that personal construct psychotherapy is usefully
thought of as a praxis. Chapter 8 examines what social-political implications
might be discerned in personal construct psychology, or the implications it has
for social and political philosophy.
In Chapter 9 a range of material is drawn together to provide an account of
the development that was hermeneutics, and an identification of personal
construct psychology in terms of this tradition. In turn, a suggestion is
developed that personal construct psychology, understood in terms of this
tradition, makes a contribution to a psychological philosophical anthropology.
In this way, having been seen to have been sensitive to the three others of
Kant’s four fundamental questions of philosophy, it adds a perspective on the
fourth; that is, the question of the potential of humankind.
While the first chapter acknowledges that some readers may not be widely
read in philosophy, the work itself could easily fail to acknowledge that other
readers will not be widely read in personal construct psychology. Thus, some
effort should perhaps be made to provide a brief survey of what personal
construct psychology is about. Numerous more comprehensive surveys already
exist, such as Bannister, Fransella and Agnew (1971) and Dalton and Dunnett
(1990), while other, more focused discussions provide outlines and overviews
(for example, Part I of Button, 1985; Part I of Winter, 1992; Fransella, 1995).
However, a brief sketch seems appropriate here.
Personal construct psychology fits into ‘critical psychology’ (Sullivan,
1984), a perspective that replaces organic and mechanical metaphors of the
individual with the metaphor of the personal. This last metaphor stresses the
significance of an irreducible I-thou dialogue that both defines the person and
provides the social context of personal development.
In 1955, George Kelly (1905–1966) published the results of some thirty
years’ experience in psychology: a two-volume work titled The Psychology of
Personal Constructs. The work is notably, and consciously, slight on discussion
of other thinkers from whom he drew inspiration, a fact that prompts the present
volume. Further, it has not been a significant part of the mainstream of
psychology; more a tributary that has perhaps been dammed up. Neimeyer
(1985) considered its ‘sideline’ status and suggested that it was significantly
related to its idiographic emphasis. Further, he thought that it was ‘too difficult’;
it required a radical rethinking of what psychology was essentially about.
Personal construct psychology is more than a little difficult to ‘type’. While
Kelly consistently and adamantly denied any connection with cognitive
 Introduction 5
psychology, personal construct psychology is regularly claimed as a precursor
of and an example of, the ‘cognitive revolution’ in psychology. Kelly (1955/
1991) did, however, provide a thoroughgoing perspective for a rethinking of
what psychology was about and how it was best done. This was stated as a
fundamental postulate and eleven corollaries which can be summarised to
provide an indication of the position with which we are here to deal in terms of
its philosophical dimensions.
The fundamental postulate of personal construct theory is: a person’s
processes are psychologically channelised by the ways in which he or she
anticipates events. This is a careful statement that succinctly captures a number
of different things about our psychological functioning. Most significantly, it
emphasises that the individual does not just react in terms of past experience
but rather evaluates events or situations in terms of predictions about the
future. The individual is seen as trying to make a sense of the world ‘in
advance’, so to speak, of the next event or situation which will overtake him or
her.
This postulate is elaborated through the corollaries which deal
comprehensively with personal and, significantly as it turns out, interpersonal
life. A construction corollary suggests that a person anticipates events by
construing (placing an interpretation on) their replications, that is, the themes
or recurrent events in the flow of experience. An individual corollary makes
the perhaps obvious yet too easily overlooked point that persons differ from
each other in their construction of events. An organisational corollary
indicates that constructs are organised into different systems for different
individuals and that these systems involve hierarchic relationships. Thus there
is an idea of ‘core’ constructs which are more important to the individual, and
of ‘subordinate’ constructs that are relatively less important. A dichotomy
corollary stresses that a person’s construction system is composed of a finite
number of dichotomous constructs, that life is conceived in terms of contrasts
between good and evil, ugly and beautiful, and so on. A choice corollary
asserts that the alternative in a dichotomised construct is chosen in terms of the
extent to which the individual anticipates the greater possibility for extension
and clarification of his or her system. A range corollary emphasises that a
construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only. For
example, ‘respect versus contempt’ may apply to a range of interpersonal
relationships for one person, but be used only in relation to strangers by
another. An experience corollary notes that a person’s construction system
varies as he or she successfully construes the replications of events. A
modulation corollary stresses that variation in a construction system is limited
by the flexibility or permeability of constructs, that is, the extent to which a
construct will readily admit new elements to its range. The addition of a non-
personal element like ‘fire’ to the ‘respect versus contempt’ construct above is
an example. Thus, experience in a serious fire might see the construct widened
in the sense of ‘respecting fire’ because, say, we now appreciate its potency. A
fragmentation corollary clarifies how a person may successively employ a