Psychology

Subverting theoretical dualisms: Discourse and mentalism

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article interrogates dualistic theoretical polarization as an unproductive metatheoretical approach to knowledge production, addresses associated issues of cultural politics, and submits that theoretical tensions are, instead, productive grounds for transformative reformulations and for contingent, selective synthesis. In particular, the article takes issue with the polarization of discourse-theoretic and “cognitive” approaches to psychological phenomena, and it explores a reconstructed notion of the mental grounded in a discursive view of the subject that honors the inseparability of the psychological and the social. A reconceived “mental space” is posited, seen as continuous with the social yet consisting of a distinct functional space, as the anchor for (discursively produced) thought processes in a given moment. These ideas are briefly illustrated with respect to ongoing feminist research on reasoning and discussed with reference to a systemic model of the social that comprises macro-social, local, and personal processes of social constitution. © 2009, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Theory & Psychology

Publication Date

2009

Volume

19

Issue

6

First Page

795

Last Page

815

ISSN

0959-3543

DOI

10.1177/0959354309346081

Keywords

cognition, dialectic, discourse, dualisms, mentalism

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS