Abstract

The value-fact or subject-object split recently defended by H. H. Kendler as necessary for a scientific psychology to establish facts, was rejected by Gestalt psychology as reducing the person to object status. The Gestalt solution correlating principles of perceptual organization with corresponding features of the object world has however answered poorly to the vast cultural differences found in values. Communal/dialectical psychology in agreement with a postmodern worldview, treats facts as intrinsically value-laden social constructions mediated by a society's particular social relations . Examples of fact ambiguity are illustrated, and S⇔0 is recommended as ontologically preferable for psychology as social science and for turn-of-the-millenium psycho-ecology. 2012 APA, all rights reserved)