According to the standard, textbook, histories of the discipline psychology overcame the objections of Kant in establishing psychology as a discipline. Kant argued that an empirical science of psychology was impossible for two reasons. The first that psychological phenomena were not open to quantification, and so the only quantity that psychologists would be able to measure was time (either the time psychological phenomena persisted, or the time gaps between psychological phenomena). The second that psychological phenomena were subjective and would not be open to objective measurement.
Now there was a lot more going on than this, and there is a nice overview here with suggestions for further reading. I think one could plausibly argue that psychology has not been successful in meeting the objections of Kant, and one can see the impact of trying to overcome the objections in the way the discipline has changed across time. Those are not the arguments I am going to make.
The argument I am going to make is based on the work of Kurt Danziger, especially the sort of work he does here, and which is also associated with the work of Ian Hacking.
Danziger makes two points, one of which is common to all disciplines, the other of which is only common to a subset of disciplines.
The first point is, that areas of knowledge begin with a vocabulary that comes from the language of the host society, and which contains assumptions, some of which may remain unexamined for some time because they seem natural. In all disciplines the vocabulary of the area of knowledge changes across time, a specialist vocabulary comes into existence, and this specialist vocabulary may feed back to the language of the host societies. In natural sciences, to some extent, as evidence is gathered the nature of concepts and their associated vocabularies may change because of that process. However, the changing vocabulary does not affect the objects being studied; although they may change our understanding of those objects and regardless of language as knowledge increases peoples may gain technologies that can affect the objects of study.
In disciplines like psychology (other examples would include aspects of psychiatry, sociology and economics) things are different, because the description of the object of study can change the object of study.
Danziger in his 1997 book Naming the Mind makes the case for how this has happened for the concepts of intelligence, motivation and personality, attitudes, behaviour and learning; and variables. His more recent book, Marking the Mind makes a similar case for memory.
So what does this mean. I am going to use my usual teaching examples.
Natural Science
Across time our understanding of dinosaurs has changed. During the nineteenth century our understanding of dinosaurs, based on fossil evidence, was often of great lumbering creatures which inevitably became extinct. In the early twenty first century our understanding of dinosaurs is of a complex variety of animals, each superbly suited to their own ecological niche, some of which became extinct through extreme events, some of which through selection pressures evolved into different species, like, for example, chickens.
Neither of these understandings of dinosaurs affected how dinosaurs understood themselves.
Now of course the objection to this example is that dinosaurs (although not their descendants) are no longer with us, so a second example, I normally use Ether theory or Germ theory depending on how I feel.
Across time our understanding of infection and diseases has changed.
Prior to the nineteenth century the predominant theory of disease transmission was miasma theory:
The miasmatic position was that diseases were the product of environmental factors such as contaminated water, foul air, and poor hygienic conditions. Such infection was not passed between individuals but would affect individuals within the locale that gave rise to such vapors. It was identifiable by its foul smell. (wiki)While there was earlier work leading up to it, in the nineteenth century germ theory developed, with evidence suggesting that for some infectious diseases microorganisms are the cause.
As germ theory developed and came to be accepted, how we reacted to the possibility of infection through germs changed our behaviour, and we developed technologies to ameliorate the possibility of infections.
However diseases did not change because our understanding of them changed, from being contained in Miasmas to being contained in microorganisms.
Disciplines like Psychology
Bystander inaction. People are less likely to act to help someone if they see themselves as one of many witnessing whatever it is that needs help.
There are two general exceptions to this, people who believe they have the professional skills to help, and people who have been thoroughly taught about the bystander inaction effect.
The study of psychology alters the psychology of people. Psychological research alters how people think about themselves and affects their behaviour.
It is not just psychology where this happens, there are other disciplines with similar looping effects. Belief that a certain level of government debt is harmful has led to austerity, which has because it is such a ridiculous mistake, led to government debt growing. Economic theory affects economies.
For a more fun example watch Hysteria.
Does it matter?
Yes and no. There is no point in trying to 'prove' psychology is a science by doing research that gets more and more obtuse.
There is a point in trying to make our measurement tools and theories the best we can so we can best explain what is going on now, without worrying about the universality of findings.
Letting go of a narrow obsession with a limited notion of what psychology should be like because it is a science is I think a good thing. And ironically it might lead to us being better at collecting data, testing hypotheses and building theories.
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