Abstract

This study concerns the influence which utopian literature and thought have had on the epistemology of modern psychology. If we assume that human intentionality, as a projection of constitutive formal and informal structures, gives shape, order and coherence to human life, the relation of intention and human action is an important topic for psychology, as it is for any human science. But social science itself is subject to human intentionality. This intentionality, shaped by historical practices, is explored for its ideological content. ;I argue that psychological theories are utopian discourses. This legacy of utopian thinking is traced historically and theoretically. Utopianism is characterized as a discourse with totalizing qualities; viz., the definition of the human as a finite set of malleable structures which can be changed according to a prior definition of the "good," the "efficient," or fully "rational" person. Topics examined are the early connection between science and utopian thought, the manifestation of utopian thinking in twentieth century dystopian literature; the distinctions between the concept of utopia and such related concepts as dystopia, atopia and ideology; the relationship between utopia and psychological theory; the influence of the legacy of utopian thought on psychodiagnosis and psychotherapy. ;These relations are examined within a theory of literature as a manifestation of the psychology of everyday life, and the study interprets themes in the major dystopian novels of the twentieth century as themes in human consciousness. Those novels are: We, Brave New World, 1984, Player Piano, A Clockwork Orange, The Handmaid's Tale. ;The study concludes that we need to know more about utopianism as an ideology in human science, especially if it is manipulative or inhumane