Psychology Needs Realism, Not Instrumentalism

In this article, the author presents his comments on "Realism, Instrumentalism, and Scientific Symbiosis: Psychological Theory as a Search for Truth and the Discovery of Solutions" by John T. Cacioppo, Gun R. Semin and Gary G. Berntson. In the original article, the authors recommended the combined use of the philosophies of scientific realism and scientific instrumentalism as a productive metatheoretical perspective on psychological science. The author believes that this is unsound advice and briefly argue s that, in an appropriate form, realism alone can serve as a sufficient philosophy for psychology. First, the author outlines an attractive version of realism and suggests that this version, or something like it, needs to be considered when evaluating the worth of realist metatheory. He then reaffirms the orthodox view that realist and instrumentalist interpretations of scientific theories are incompatible.