Using a Topological Model in Psychology: Developing Sense and Choice Categories

Abstract

A duality of sense categories and choice categories is introduced to map two distinct but co-operating ways in which we as humans are relating actively to the world. We are sensing similarities and differences in our world of objects and persons, but we are also as bodies moving around in this world encountering, selecting, and attaching to objects beyond our sensory interactions and in this way also relating to the individual objects' history. This duality is necessary if we shall understand man as relating to the historical depth of our natural and cultural world, and to understand our cognitions and affections. Our personal affections and attachments, as well as our shared cultural values are centered around objects and persons chosen as reference points and landmarks in our lives, uniting and separating, not to be understood only in terms of sensory selections. The ambition is to bridge the gap between psychology as part of Naturwissenschaft and of Geisteswissenschaft, and at the same time establish a common frame for understanding cognition and affection, and our practical and cultural life (Mammen and Mironenko 2015). The duality of sense and choice categories can be described formally using concepts from modern mathematics, primarily topology, surmounting the reductions rooted in the mechanistic concepts from Renaissance science and mathematics. The formal description is based on 11 short and simple axioms held in ordinary language and visualized with instructive figures. The axioms are bridging psychology and mathematics and not only enriching psychology but also opening for a new interpretation of parts of the foundation of mathematics and logic.

Keywords: Affection and attachment; Aristotle; German Philosophy; Mathematics, Formal Logic, Theory of Sets, Topology, Decidability, Axiomatic method, Axiom of Choice; Naturwissenschaft vs. Geisteswissenschaft; Sense categories and choice categories; Standards and reference points.