Modern science and nomothetic approach in contemporary Psychology

Abstract

The ‘idiographic’ and ‘nomothetic’ categories emerged with the Neo-Kantianism of the Baden School at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. Its use, classifying the disciplines of empirical sciences, generated debates throughout the last century, particularly regarding the status of Psychology. In these, the ‘nomothetics’ category became equivalent to ‘empirical science.’ This study analyzes some central philosophical relationships, especially epistemic ones, between the original definition of ‘nomothetics’ and contemporary definitions of ‘modern science.’ We conclude that modern science is compatible, but not equivalent, to the original conception of ‘nomothetic’. This compatibility only occurs at the epistemic level, the only possible strict meaning for using such a category in contemporary psychology.