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Pure Psychology is an evidence-based philosophy and psychology of mind that truly embraces everything that such a science ought to be about - thought, consciousness, logic, emotions and everything else that constitutes the human mind.

If you are new to this site, please start with the Manifesto.
And then take a look at our publications, articles and other informational pages.

Our Manifesto

Pure Psychology is a science based on the idea that the understanding of the mind needs to establish itself first and foremost as a pure science and not as subservient to the needs of education, health or industry. While theories derived from pure psychology may indeed lead on to revelations and applications in educational psychology, clinical psychology and occupational psychology, such pragmatic directions cannot be the grounding for a proper science claiming to understand what the human mind and human intelligence are all about. This is the first meaning of 'pure' in the name, as in psychology for psychology's own sake and not for some other agenda. Thus, pure psychology stands in contrast to the various forms of applied psychology.

The second meaning of pure psychology is that it provides a positive theoretical stance and framework defining its entire philosophy. The human mind is a system of material relations distinct in its own right. Human intelligence is not reducible to biology, even though it clearly depends on the biological brain for its substrate. The human mind is something that qualitatively develops from birth until death in each and every one of us, and in doing so it follows laws of nature that belong to it alone. The true materialist science of the mind is 'pure' in that it is its own science, not just a part of biology, and pursues the logic of its own distinct system of material relations.

However, while rejecting quasi-religious or spiritualist views of the human psyche, and yet while grounding itself in a materialist philosophy, pure psychology does not believe the mind is reducible to 'simple' (and fatalistic) mechanical determinism. On the contrary, our common conceptions of consciousness and free will are acknowledged and accepted as scientific challenges to be properly embraced ‐ not as something to be denied, ignored or crassly dismissed as just an 'illusion'. Indeed, accepting that challenge is perhaps the greatest aim of pure psychology ‐ to explain our very own being without trivialising it.

And We Are...

Pure Psychology, as an organisation, has only recently been established, so its membership is currently small. Pure Psychology was created in 2020 by one André Hopper, based in the UK.

André Hopper is an independent researcher who has been studying the epistemology, philosophy and psychology of Piagetian works, among others, for over 38 years. While also employed as a software engineer for much of that time, his yearning for, and learning of, Piaget's works and theory have been both persistent and very fruitful.

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