Three Problems in the Interpretation of Life

Image: Pavel Filonov, self-portrait (1911)

I suppose at some time or other every person becomes interested in interpreting their own life — in finding out what has happened to them and what this means for how they should live. Psychology and history (and related disciplines) are natural places to learn about this kind of interpretation. But along with the useful techniques they provide, there are a number of problems that bedevil psychological and historical understanding. Here I want to outline three major problems that seem to me especially prevalent and pernicious, mostly from the perspective of psychology. There may be other problems when one turns to the interpretation of a life, but one is likely to come up against at least these three.

1. The Problem of Theory-Ladenness and the Psychologist’s Fallacy

Theory-ladenness refers to the idea that our theories determine (to some extent) the terms of an inquiry (the concepts we use to frame it) and the kinds of observations made during that inquiry. In other words, we tend to make the world conform to one or another theory of it, finding in the world the kinds of things some theory tells us ought to be there. This is a variety of confirmation bias. The problem is that the world presupposed by our theory (its model of reality) may or may not be a helpful guide to our actual reality.

In psychology, an important manifestation of theory-ladenness is what William James called the psychologist’s fallacy: the tendency of psychologists to “foist their own knowledge into that of the thought of which they pretend to give a true account.” As we might say it today, psychologists (or psychiatrists) tend to read into an experience what they believe ought to be there. The psychologist’s fallacy and the problem of theory-ladenness are related to the various biases that give rise to Problems 2 and 3 below.

The only solution I know of to this problem is to try to keep in mind multiple perspectives at the same time. This is why the only real philosophical label I attach to myself is perspectivalist, because I’m less interested in defending a particular theory than understanding the reality proposed by different theories. (One of my recent articles uses the metaphor of “filtration” to explore this; different theories are akin to different filters on reality.) The advantages of perspectivalism will reemerge in the discussions of Problems 2 and 3.

2. The Rashomon Effect

This refers to the fact that different people may remember a “single” event in very different, even contradictory, ways. It’s easy enough to explain: We experience things from a particular position in the world, with a certain biological makeup, and in a certain psychophysiological state — all of which are unique and therefore make each person’s experience unique. The differences in people’s memories of an event may or may not matter, but it’s useful to know that the differences exist. I experience the Rashomon effect all the time with my wife, who has a very different personality from mine. She sees things in situations that I totally miss or that I sometimes think aren’t really there. But who is the ultimate arbiter who can say which interpretation of an event is the “correct” one?

One way to manage this problem is to let experience educate memory. What I mean is to take memories to be interpretations of the past that can be refined and revised through later experiences. I take not only my own experiences of related events to count for this. I also look to the experiences of others as these become available through conversations, books, movies, news reports. There is nothing sacred about a memory. It’s simply one interpretation (of an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation …) of an event which is always amenable to alternative interpretations. In the realm of art, it’s uncontroversial that interpretations can always be made more adequate and more relevant by taking into account additional information, additional artworks, additional perspectives. There is no “final” and absolutely “true” interpretation of an artwork. To me, the same is true of a remembered event. Getting a better interpretational handle on a memory means better contextualizing it within the broad community of human experiences.

3. The Causal Fallacy and the Correlation–Causation Problem

This is another thorny problem, and one that no one, as far as I can see, handles as well as they think they do. The problem: Two things often happen one after the other, and we assume one causes the other. Our theories (see Problem 1) set us up for this. They tell us what sorts of causal connections we’re likely to find. In historiography, one kind of event (an assassination, say) is taken as the cause of a subsequent event (a war). In psychology/psychiatry, one experience (or set of experiences) may be taken to be the cause of a psychological trait or syndrome — or vice-versa. But it often happens that there is a more pervasive underlying correlation (a confounder) with greater explanatory power.

Now it happens that there are always a virtually infinite number of confounding variables. In psychology, should one look to childhood experience, early development, prenatal environment, genetic endowment, parental experience, ancestral environment …? The question of where to focus one’s attention can only have a pragmatic answer: It depends on what one is trying to accomplish. In a therapeutic context, one would focus on the factor (set of factors) that provides the best fulcrum for personal improvement. The historian’s key to the past should also unlock doors in the present or future (that is, help us respond better to current and future events).

So a particular causal account of a life has to do at least two things: It has to demonstrate that it can explain more than alternative accounts. But even more importantly, it has to imply or be conducive to particular tools or strategies for making some kind of progress — for example, living better. Finding a “root cause” for a state of life is only half — even less than half, only the very beginning — of the battle. To paraphrase my friend Jay Ogilvy’s revision of Marx, the point is not to either interpret the world or change it, but to reinterpret the world and thereby improve it. (See Jay’s essay “Theses on Michael Murphy and Esalen.”)