Operationism in Psychology

“In welcome contrast to the current obsession over prediction and automation, Feest’s book dissects the power and labor of exploration in science—the vital strategies that facilitate the investigation of novel research objects under conditions of uncertainty and ignorance. Through a provocative reframing of the history and philosophy of operationism, Feest provides a field-defining study of investigative practices in cognitive psychology and a timely, erudite defense of its methodological credibility.” -- Sabina Leonelli, author of “Data-Centric Biology: A Philosophical Study” “Feest’s excellent book investigates the methodological tenet of operationism as advanced by psychologists starting in the 1930s and traces its history up to the application of operational analysis and converging operations in recent research, where she takes implicit memory and working memory as her primary cases. Her analysis undermines the usual distinction between context of discovery and context of justification and shows that operationism in psychology was not a theory of meaning in which content is entirely fixed by experimental operations but a tool for guiding research. The book is brimming with insights and is a must-read for scientific methodologists in general and for all historians and philosophers of science.” -- Gary Hatfield, author of “Perception and Cognition: Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology”