Constellation, Uncertainty, and Incompleteness: Towards a Human(e) Science

Gabriel Rupp
University of Central Oklahoma

This paper argues there are significant "postmodern" responses to Enlightenment science's three primary characteristics of simplicity, generalizability, and verifiability. Specifically, Walter Benjamin's response to simplicity is constellation; Werner Heisenberg's response to generalizability is uncertainty, and Kurt Godel's response to verifiability is incompleteness. In each instance, three factors characterize the response: a determination of the epistemological inadequacy of the specific scientific characteristic, a reintroduction of the human into the equation for reality, and an expansion, not displacement, of the epistemological frame. By reframing each characteristic and its response as a type of Bohrian conceptual complement, this paper maintains both a humane science and science of the human is possible, a science that simultaneously invites a more exhaustive description of the human as well as provides a context for developing an ethical "techne of the self." Further, such a proposed human(e) science provides new directions for research in psychology, as well as suggests a therapeutic stance characterized by holistic understanding and client-based agency.

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