Ichheiser was adamant in his assertion that the social sciences are lost, particularly sociology and psychology, in as far as they do not simultaneously consider both the individual and social elements of human existence. He believed the interconnect- edness of these two elements of our lives to be so abundantly clear that to not pay attention to them both would, in effect, be an active attempt at denial and, at best, an anachronism (Ichheiser, 1936/7a). Even those things that may seem to belong solely to the world of the individual, such as personality, habits, and preferences, have most likely arisen, at least in part, out of various social processes of which individuals themselves are often not aware. Ichheiser (1936/7a) questions if any psychological phenomena might truly be attributed to the individual alone:
The notion of the individual as isolated from the social environment is a fiction. Therefore, psychology (e.g., laboratory psychology) that studies and examines the individual in isolation from the social conditions of their existence – such psychology exhibits an utter lack of connection with real life. Social psychology, which attempts to directly comprehend lived reality, should therefore treat such psychology with great suspicion. (p. 193)
There is certainly much that laypersons and even social scientists tend to classify as purely social or individual in nature, but, at heart, each of us is so intertwined with our fellow human beings that such a separation is, according to Ichheiser,
artificial. For this reason, Ichheiser believed social psychology to be critically important to the continued development of the social sciences, particularly psychology and sociology. This is perhaps one of the great tragic ironies of Ichheiser’s writings. On the one hand, he was passionately convinced that we are intimately bound together at our core and that to speak of any one of us is, by default, to speak of the collective. On the other hand, he also thought that, by the same token, our interconnectedness is what distorts our vision of ourselves and of others, as if the processes that unite and define us also keep us apart and obscured.
It is not so much that we exist both individually and collectively, despite our mutual misunderstandings, but that we do so because of them. We shall return to the matter of interpersonal perception later in the chapter.
The Nature of Social Psychology
Given the interpersonal “knot” that is humanity, Ichheiser was skeptical of all approaches that attempted to treat the various threads of our psychological lives in isolation. Ichheiser did not object to data collection or even to experimentation.
Rather, he objected to some of the fundamental assumptions that often accompany such research, such as claims to objectivity, neutrality, and the isolation of variables within such ostensibly controlled environments.
At the same time, Ichheiser was very supportive of the development of scientific theory. He was of the mind that good theories can both bring new issues to light and draw our attention to the obvious, but important, elements of our lives that we often overlook (see Ichheiser, 1943). While Kurt Lewin is generally associated in the social sciences with this statement, Ichheiser (1936/7a) wrote (a bit enigmatically regarding the source to which he is referring), “Therefore, as a famous physicist once wrote, there is nothing so practical as a good theory” (“Niema zatem, jak powiedział pewien słynny fizyk, nic praktyczniejszego – jak dobra teorja”) (p. 195).
According to Ichheiser, in order to understand how a good theory works, it is important to differentiate between theory and practice, between knowledge and life.
In this formulation, theory is inherently isolated from value statements and deals solely with cause and effect, structural relations between elements, or classification systems. Values always necessarily appear, however, when we apply a theory in practice. Theory can be incredibly powerful, but generally only in as far as other factors not accounted for in the theory do not creep in. However, once we put theories into practice, especially within the social sciences, other factors generally do creep in.
Ichheiser believed scholars and laymen to often confuse the two uses of theory, something that he argued to be particularly the case whenever we are dealing with any sort of goal. He argued that by their very nature, all goals speak to subjective values, giving the example that while the chemical components that create a medicine or a poison gas may be of the same “value” to a chemist, thinking in the abstract as a chemist, the decision to create one or the other is always the result of
values. Ichheiser himself valued the notion of abstract theories, particularly within the natural sciences, but also within the social sciences:
The “obvious” facts are indeed obvious, but they still cannot be grasped on the conceptual level as long as we do not possess specific descriptive concepts which would enable us to do so. Any realistic social and personological psychology presupposes, therefore, the creation of a system of descriptive concepts which would offer the possibility of making relevant observations in the field of “obvious” facts. The present confusion on the level of fact-gathering is but an inevitable consequence of our not having such indispensable tools.
(1943, p. 205)
As Ichheiser wrote, this tendency to overlook the common elements of our lives is, in part, what makes travel so valuable—as we thereby are not only able to confront that which is new to us, but we also gain the ability to look back with fresh eyes on that which had been so obvious as to be invisible and apparently unworthy of our attention earlier. This is nicely illustrated in the memoirs of Jan Adamus, who lived in Krakow, Poland, at the same time as Ichheiser. In the memoirs, Adamus skipped over those years of his life in which he trained as a cobbler, stating that he would “not describe his apprenticeship, as everyone in Poland knows what a boy’s life is like with a cobbler” (“życie w terminie nie opisuję bo każdy w Polsce wie jakie jest życie chłopaka u szewca”) (Adamus, unpublished memoir). This omission is unfortunate as we are no longer familiar with what life as a cobbler’s apprentice in that period was like.
At the same time, Ichheiser highlighted the fact that science is conducted by scientists and that scientists are people with goals and, thus, with values. Therefore, in his opinion, the notion of value-free science was largely an abstraction. He pointed out the high prestige with which the natural sciences are held and that, because of this, researchers tend to want to appear objective and value-free. As an example of this, he stressed how people often speak of Taylorism, early work on the
“scientific” management of workers, as though the approach existed apart from the big business interests that support it, and that Taylorism itself, in turn, supports.
Ichheiser saw the endeavor of science as incorporating both elements of the- ory—knowledge and life. He argued that science should examine cause and effect, which, in turn, have consequences for the various value positions within our theo- ries. What is more, he saw in this combination the chance to take intellectual posi- tions, which he viewed as acts of bravery, since they can demand that we take positions that may be uncomfortable from the point of view of our values and with which our values and goals may even conflict.
In moments when we assume such an intellectual position, Ichheiser (1936/7b) proposed that we not simply fall on the side of our goals or on the side of theory, but rather that we employ what he calls the method of analyzing the consequences (analiza konsekwencyj). By this, Ichheiser meant that we both recognize and acknowledge our values, as well as the given theoretical framework with which we are working. In doing so, he suggests that we follow the causal chain starting from the various possible courses of action. The abstract theory should be able to help inform us what possible causal chains may result from these various options (and the decision to use the theory in the first place), and we will then be in a better
position to determine if the given course of action does, in fact, lead to the outcomes that we desire. This is an act of intellectual bravery, as it calls for both an honest assessment of our goals and values and the suspension of judgment so as to entertain options that may initially strike us as being contrary to those goals. For example, he argues that a pacifist may be better able to actually achieve a more peaceful society via a certain degree of violence, just as an anarchist may actually achieve more individual freedom via a certain degree of societal rules. In short, Ichheiser challenges us to honestly examine what might result from the logical foundations of the positions we take. Good theory is not itself a panacea for societal ills, nor is it the end of scientific investigation. Rather, its value lies in its ability to keep us on our toes when assessing the social world, and it can allow us to follow more informed and fruitful paths.
Sharing the Insights of Social Psychology
Just as Ichheiser distinguished between abstract theory and applied theory, he also drew a distinction between two ways of speaking within the social sciences (1934a).
On the one hand, he thought that we could take an idealistic approach (idealistyczne podejście), which is built on the foundation that there are good and bad, right and wrong, ways to think and, therefore, leads to the assertion of a good/right way. In other words, this is the assertion of goals and values as abstracted from the possible consequences of their actual application. On the other hand, there is what he calls the realistic approach (realistyczne podejście), which involves the application of the method of analyzing the consequences (analiza konsekwencyj). Thus, in the realistic approach, goals and values are acknowledged alongside the possible causal chain of events identified by theory; in this approach, we examine the possible relationship between goals/values and reality, including not only possible causal chains set in motion by our possible courses of action in the abstract but also in reality.
As usual, Ichheiser provides various examples to illustrate the differences between these two approaches. In his article “Idealistic or realistic pedagogy”
(Idealistyczna czy realistyczna pedagogika) (1934a), he provides the example of our general desire for good to win out over bad and our general desire for our children to grow up in a world that is “good.” According to the idealistic approach, teachers should teach their students that good will win out over bad, given that is the desired outcome. There is a one-to-one match between the goal and the method, between the ends and the means. According to the realistic approach, we would examine the possible outcomes of the various options that lie before us in an attempt to determine which one better serves the goal when actually implemented in the real world.
Ichheiser lists various outcomes of these two approaches, citing the work of Edward Spranger and Karl Mannheim (whose work he translated into Polish in 1961).
In this particular case, he does not need to provide many arguments to illustrate the conflicts that arise between the idealistic approach and reality, as all students even- tually discover that the good does not always win (practically speaking). He does,
however, illustrate the negative outcomes that may arise as a result of this conflict—
especially when the idealism we are taught (as if it were a fact) turns out not to be the case—such as disillusionment, depression, and despair. In typical fashion, Ichheiser attempts to classify the possible outcomes, stating that such conflict can lead people to become neurotics (neurotycy) and cynics (cynicy) or to fall into res- ignation and fatalism (rezygnacja i fatalizm) (1936b, pp. 151–152). On a more basic level, idealistic assertions can also engender opposition, as people realize the discrepancy between idealism and reality.
Within this particular discussion of the idealistic and realistic approaches within education, Ichheiser (1936b) devotes some time arguing for the existence and value of a more basic intergenerational tension, which he believes is built upon each successive generation doubting the teachings of the previous generation, that is, until those teaching are confirmed by their own experience (or not). In general, Ichheiser believed this basic tension to be a good thing, as it serves as an engine for innovation. At the same time, he is careful to point out that we are idealistic by nature and that after breaking away from the previous generation, each new wave will attempt to pass along its idealized, ideological positions to the subsequent wave. Hence, Ichheiser is speaking of a tension that constitutes a perennial part of our social world. In keeping with his thinking in general, this is not a tension that is to be resolved, but rather recognized and worked with.
In this particular stream of argumentation, one can clearly make out a certain Machiavellianism (e.g., 1935a).6 He is not advocating that “the ends justify the means,” but rather he is arguing that when considering how to reach a valued goal, we should consider the various means before us that stand to affect the success of getting there. More specifically, he believed that when assessing possible outcomes in a particular domain, we should be careful not to mix various forms of analysis into our assessment. For example, in weighing the chances of political success, a clear, honest assessment of possible courses of action can be achieved only if we follow the causal chain with that form of analysis in mind. If, however, we pull in other forms of analysis, such as moral or normative considerations, we begin to muddy the waters. When these varying forms of assessment cross, we see a proliferation of the types of misunderstandings, illusions, and delusions against which Ichheiser warns us.
Within the realm of education, Ichheiser (1934a) is clearly advocating for the realistic approach over the idealistic approach, despite stating on several occasions that he is not passing judgment, but simply presenting both options to the reader.
This is, therefore, another excellent example of Ichheiser practicing what he preached. He is challenging us to use the method of analyzing the consequences of
6 In 1925, Ichheiser studied Machiavelli in Italy (Rudmin et al., 1987). In the quotation from Machiavelli’s The Prince, provided by Ichheiser (1936a), we can hear a tremendous similarity to Ichheiser’s own writings: “Nothing is as important as the appearance of virtue. For our evaluations of others are driven more by appearances than by true understanding. Our eyes are open, but few of us possess true perception. Everyone sees others as they think they are, but only a few see you as you really are, and those few do not have the courage to oppose the opinion of the masses”
(p. 558).
the positions we take, on the basis of both our values and goals and our understanding of social theory. In this particular article, it is clear that he believes such an analysis to lead to particular positions within educational choices, namely, greater support for a realistic approach.
The manner in which Idealistic or realistic pedagogy (1934a) is written also nicely illustrates the tone that he believed scientific education, in general, should set. So as not to provoke defensiveness, Ichheiser believed that scientists should be careful not to talk down to others or to otherwise abuse their authority. As a piece of practical advice, he suggests that when communicating research findings, scientists should speak in terms of the inclusive “we” (using pluralis modestiae), saying “we think” rather than “I think” (which he follows in his own writings in Polish, German, and English). In more general terms, scientists should speak in what he calls the spirit of intellectual clarity (w duchu intelektualnej rzetelności) (p. 200), which involves the kind of intellectual bravery and honesty discussed earlier. While the choices we make are always goal directed, even in light of theory, in making such choices we should strive to pull our values out into the light, just as we strive to illuminate the workings of the external world. In other words:
Bravery in the face of reality in no way means […] reconciling oneself with reality as it is […] as agreeing with that which is given to us, and thus the desire to shape and transform the conditions in which we find ourselves are part of human nature.” (1936b, p. 150)
According to Ichheiser, a lack of intellectual honesty speaks to a fear of the world as it really is and to the inability to work so as to see it takes the shape that we would like to see. The point of the social sciences is to help shed light on that reality, the reality from which we often hide, and to help us hear our own voice. In encouraging others to analyze the world by means of the method of analyzing the consequences and to speak of what they find in the spirit of intellectual clarity, Ichheiser (1936/7a) believes that teachers have a unique role to play. What is more, they are in a unique position (along with social scientists) to educate us about the various other illusions and misunderstandings that color our social world, particularly how we perceive others and how others perceive us. In fact, the teacher “should know no more pressing undertaking than fundamentally breaking down the atmosphere that leads to the teaching of falsehood” (1936b, p. 153). It is to the topic of social perception, more specifically, that we now turn.