Contemporary philosophy of science analyzes psychology as a science with special features
because this discipline includes some specific philosophical problems - descriptive and
normative structural and dynamic. Some of these are particularly relevant both theoretically
(casual explanation) and practically (the configuration of the psychological subject and its
relations with psychiatry). Two central aspects in this book are the role of causality
especially conceived as intervention or manipulation and the characterization of the
psychological subject. This requires a clarification of scientific explanations in terms of
causality in psychology because characterizations of causality are quite different in
epistemological and ontological terms. One of the most influential views is James Woodward's
approach to causality as intervention which entails an analysis of its characteristics new
elements and limits. This means taking into account the structural and dynamic aspects included
in causal cognition and psychological explanations. Psychology seen as special science also
requires us to consider the scientific status of psychology and the psychological subject
which leads to limits of naturalism in psychology.
