The Conditions of Possibility of Critical Psychology.

I argue for an approach to critical psychology that is strongly foundationalist and radically anti-fundamentalist. By laying foundations for psychology in the historical and social conditions of its subject matter, the paper works against the psychological fundamentalism that has become a remarkable feature of postmodern societies. The general framework for my approach is that of modernity understood as a project of self-foundation. Within the modernity project, critique was developed in two forms: as reconstruction (of conditions) and as criticism (of constraints). The foundational approach to critical psychology combines both forms of critique. Reconstructing the conditions of possibility of its subject matter in social and therefore necessarily hermeneutic terms, it avoids the fundamentalist temptations of psychologism. At the same time, it lays foundations for its critical attitude to society. The possibility and necessity of critique of both psychological conceptualizations and social order are founded in the very idea of critical psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]