Abstract

The call to re-envision theoretical psychology comes after more than a half century of theorists’ efforts to re-envision psychological science. Especially prominent is persistent critique of mainstream psychology’s deployment of the ontological and epistemic templates of the natural sciences, in theorists’ multifaceted mission to replace that metatheoretical grounding with one deemed properly suited to a thoroughgoing psychological science of lived experience. Despite anticipated objection, I call for consideration of boundary-pushing trends and challenges in the natural sciences, especially in theory and philosophy of physics, with an eye toward inspiring theoretical psychologists and mainstream psychologists anew. I also draw attention to the use of relevant findings of mainstream psychological scientists by philosophers of psychology who ask traditional philosophical questions nonetheless. This use mirrors the use of relevant findings of biological scientists by philosophers of biology within the burgeoning field of biophilosophy, in which I find an apt analogue to what I herein call “psycphilosophy.” By adopting a more mutual, relational attitude toward disciplines that have heretofore been dismissed, theoretical psychologists may attain a better position from which to make more constructive and productive contact with mainstream psychological scientists—contact that may facilitate the impact on the mainstream that has to date eluded theorists.