Are human sciences like psychology scientific?

Answer

Dear Isabel,

This question is an old philosophical question, and among other things gave rise to the emergence of behaviorism in psychology. Behaviorists did not want to know about mental states (assessments, expectations, thoughts) in explaining human behavior, but only looked at situation as the cause of behavior.

This violent reaction is justified in so far as it concerns the psychologist who studies his own mental states and would derive general theories from them. But that doesn’t happen (or doesn’t happen anymore) in modern psychology. The psychologist (subject) studies the behavior of his fellow man (object) according to standardized methods, and the findings are in principle repeatable. In that sense, the philosophical problem you are raising is kept within bounds in modern behavioral sciences.