Professor Uljana Feest of the Institute of Philosophy, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. will present the HPS Alumni Lecture Wednesday, March 18, 2026, at the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium and Cloister 4:00-5:30 PM.
Talk Title: Operationism and the Epistemically Blurry Nature of the Objects of Psychological Research
My talk will introduce and explain some key ideas of my 2025 book, Operationism in Psychology. An Epistemology of Exploration (University of Chicago Press). I will begin with the idea that objects of psychological research are “epistemically blurry” and that operational definitions serve as research tools for the taxonomic delineation and description of such objects. Explicating the notion of epistemic blurriness as it applies to psychological objects, I will argue that psychological concepts are pitched at the level of whole organisms where this (a) is a condition of operationally defining research objects in terms of observable behaviors and (b) highlights that the blurriness extends to the very criteria that are employed in empirical delineations of research objects. Drawing on my account of operationism, I will argue that psychology has the resources to tackle the methodological challenges arising from this.