- Paperback: 301 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; New edition edition (Oct 11 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0300075812
- ISBN-13: 978-0300075816
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.4 x 0.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 381 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,187,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Library Journal
Here Reed (psychology, Franklin and Marshall Coll.) follows up his recent Encountering the World: Toward an Ecological Psychology (Oxford Univ., 1996) and The Necessity of Experience: A Philosophy of the Postmodern World (LJ 11/1/96), in which he had suggested "how modern psychology might overcome its legacy of narrowness." With this trailblazing history, he looks at how the field first developed its restrictive, scientific view. E.T.A Hoffman and the Shelleys figure in his discussion as examplars of how "thought police" kept the more challenging psychological ideas under wraps. After presenting a brilliant kaleidoscope of 18th- and 19th-century writings, Reed concludes that philosophy broke away from psychology, not the reverse, and that psychology is the poorer for it. J.S. Mill, Schopenhauer, Charles Darwin, G.H. Lewes, Douglas Spalding, William James, and many others come to life in a dramatic retelling of the complicated story of our imperfect self-understanding. Reed uncovers and makes accessible an intellectual treasure-trove that will change the way we think about the last 250 years. Essential for most libraries.?E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Reed (Psychology/Franklin and Marshall Coll.) traces the gradual, contentious evolution of the discipline of psychology in the 19th century. The origins of psychoanalysis are quite clear: It emerged at the end of the last century largely as the result of the efforts of one man, Sigmund Freud. But the larger discipline of psychology was shaped by a number of remarkable figures. In the early decades of the 19th century, Reed notes, psychology was viewed as a part of metaphysics: It was a science of the soul. It was Erasmus Darwin (Charles's grandfather) who repositioned psychology in the sciences, driven in part by his materialist view that (as Reed paraphrases it) ``all mental states derive from the motion of particles in the brain.'' During the course of the century psychology and philosophy slowly became disentangled, with psychology gradually acquiring the status of an academic discipline. By century's end, psychology's intellectual reach (and influence) had broadened considerably, for it now included an experimental dimension developed predominantly by German thinkers, touching on such matters as the nature of will and of perception, and a fascination with a concept until then largely limited to the literary romantics: the unconscious. Reed's demanding work relates the story of the competing theories and debates with a fair amount of detail, drawing on such emerging fields as modern metaphysics and epistemology, neurology, physiology, and perceptual theory to make his points. He presupposes that his reader has at least a basic knowledge of modern philosophy, and sometimes more; his sentences can be dense and packed with theory. Clearly, this is a work targeted at academics rather than at lay readers. The former will find it intellectually challenging and perhaps a bit exhausting--there is a fast parade of thinkers and concepts, which occasionally receive too cursory an exploration- -though ultimately informative and rewarding. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding history of psychology, Jan 10 2002
By Ejames LIEBERMAN - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: From Soul to Mind: The Emergence of Psychology, from Erasmus Darwin to William James (Paperback)
I had the good fortune to review this for _Library Journal_ and was dismayed to learn of the author's untimely death before I could send a letter of compliments. He tells us how the less scientific "soul" concept got transformed by scientific interests. But he goes by way of Mary Shelly's _Frankenstein_ (1815), which bootlegged a radical psychology that could not have been taught or allowed in church at the time. Frankenstein's creature was dispatched into a hostile world, abused, etc. and paid "humanity" back with monstrous acts. Mary S. was a teenager when she wrote it, and most popular retellings obscure the point that Reed brings forward.Readers who like this may also want to read Otto Rank's _Psychology and the Soul_ (1930/1998).
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simply excellent, Feb 23 2000
By mgiesenk@artsci.wustl.edu - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: From Soul to Mind: The Emergence of Psychology, from Erasmus Darwin to William James (Paperback)
This book is written as an essay, with no footnotes. A bibliographical essay in the appendix serves for documentation. The style is extremely lucid, in spite of the complexity of the intellectual history recounted here. Immensely instructive, original in the connections established and information unearthed, entertaining, marvellous. Can be read as a handbook or as a consecutive narrative (that will hold your attention)
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