Sigmund Koch as critical humanist

Just as Sigmund Koch was a good scientist without succumbing to scientism, he was a good humanist without succumbing to the popular distortions trading on the name of humanism. When humanistic psychology was seduced by the touchy-feely encounter group movement, Koch derided its technology of authenticity as shamelessly meretricious. Later, when postmodern humanists of deconstruction and textual analysis began to be heard in psychology, Koch wryly expressed his preference for the old-fashioned kind of humanism. Koch's interests and his conception of the domain of psychology thus transcended scientific and humanistic labels and boundaries. To be good science, human psychological studies have to start with and be guided by openness to all aspects of being human. No less in the present and future than during his lifetime, the implications of Koch's vision of psychological inquiry warrant discerning and disciplined attention.     

The artist speaks. Sigmund Koch on aesthetics and creative work

Sigmund Koch is widely recognized as a prime mover of the radical transformation of psychology from a discipline dominated by behaviorism and related views to a multivalenced set of inquiries into human mentality and functioning. It is less widely remarked that Koch saw aesthetic endeavors as standing at the center of human life and thus warranting psychologists' closest attention. Koch's interest in aesthetics and art making is evident in his writings from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s on different states of mind, the notion of value properties, and the theory of definition. Koch's study of creative work in the latter decades of his life with artists of high accomplishment was guided by a set of methodological signposts for the study of creative work, contains formulations relevant to contemporary psychoaesthetics, and generates significant questions for further inquiry.     

试论康德心理学思想及其对当代的影响

康德著作中蕴含着丰富的心理学思想,其在继承沃尔夫理性心理学与经验心理学二分的基础上,通过批评理性心理学,消解了我思的主体地位,为解决二元论问题做出了重要努力;通过批评经验心理学,指明了心理学在成长为一门科学过程中必须面对的诸多问题。新康德主义在继承并改造康德思想的过程中,发展出一系列影响深远的心理学理论;认知心理学的重要代表人物皮亚杰基于对康德思想独具特色的把握,提出了发生认识论;而当代认知科学的图式理论,则完全是建基于对康德经验图式理论框架的全面继承上。     

Evolutionary psychology: the emperor's new paradigm

For some evolutionary psychology is merely a field of inquiry, but for others it is a robust paradigm involving specific theories about the nature and evolution of the human mind. Proponents of this paradigm claim to have made several important discoveries regarding the evolved architecture of the mind. Highly publicized discoveries include a cheater-detection module, a psychological sex difference in jealousy, and motivational mechanisms underlying parental love and its lapses, which purportedly result in child maltreatment. In this article, I argue that the empirical evidence for these "discoveries" is inconclusive, at best. I suggest that, as the reigning paradigm in evolutionary psychology has produced questionable results, the evolutionary study of human psychology is still in need of a guiding paradigm.     

David Hartley's Newtonian neuropsychology

David Hartley's association psychology has been immensely influential. His vibrationist neurophysiology has, in contrast, been largely overlooked and forgotten. Hartley's vibration theory is examined. On the one hand it is shown how closely it is related to Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical physics and on the other how well it complements the association theory. The vibration theory, indeed, strongly influenced Hartley's associationist psychology and hence is of more than merely antiquarian interest. Although Hartley's understanding of the central nervous system has long been superseded, his general ideas prefigure some aspects of contemporary neurophysiology and philosophy of mind and thus provide a further reason for rescuing his vibrationism from oblivion.     

ARE THEORIES OF PERCEPTION NECESSARY? A REVIEW OF GIBSON'S THE ECOLOGICAL APPROACH TO VISUAL PERCEPTION

Representational theories of perception postulate an isolated and autonomous "subject" set apart from its real environment, and then go on to invoke processes of mental representation, construction, or hypothesizing to explain how perception can nevertheless take place. Although James Gibson's most conspicuous contribution has been to challenge representational theory, his ultimate concern was the cognitivism which now prevails in psychology. He was convinced that the so-called cognitive revolution merely perpetuates, and even promotes, many of psychology's oldest mistakes. This review article considers Gibson's final statement of his "ecological" alternative to cognitivism (Gibson, 1979). It is intended not as a complete account of Gibson's alternative, however, but primarily as an appreciation of his critical contribution. Gibson's sustained attempt to counter representational theory served not only to reveal the variety of arguments used in support of this theory, but also to expose the questionable metaphysical assumptions upon which they rest. In concentrating upon Gibson's criticisms of representational theory, therefore, this paper aims to emphasize the point of his alternative scheme and to explain some of the important concerns shared by Gibson's ecological approach and operant psychology.     

Dire straits: the divisive legacy of the 1898 Cambridge anthropological expedition.

Bartlett's claim that the Cambridge anthropological expedition of 1898 to the Torres Strait "put a social and ethnological stamp upon Cambridge psychology" does not bear close examination. Rivers pursued his interests in both anthropology and psychology but came to regard them as largely independent pursuits. Myers, through the influence of Rivers, came to identify himself primarily as a psychologist. McDougall was very quickly marginalized. There were two occasions when the promise of the Torres Strait began to be fulfilled: first, the reunion of Rivers, Myers, McDougall, and Seligman, all medically trained, at Maghull Hospital to help in the treatment of shell-shocked soldiers; second, Bartlett's attempt, early in his career, to establish a sociocultural psychology. However, the remarkable "academy" at Maghull was disbanded at the end of the war, and Bartlett, in his attempt to promote the "upstart subject" of psychology at Cambridge, increasingly came to distance his department from social and ethnological concerns. There is a neglected legacy of the Torres Strait expedition, the curious belief that the methods of experimental psychology, and indeed psychophysics, could (somehow) be foundational to the human sciences. This legacy has served both to suggest that psychology must have something to do with anthropology, while perpetually deferring any actual integration between the two disciplines.     

A new role for psychologists--hospital ethics committees

Over the past decade psychology has begun to appreciate that it represents more than "merely mental health care" and has become increasingly involved in the generic health care arena. The participation of psychologists in Hospital Ethics Committees (HECs) is presented as a professional activity for which psychologists are particularly well suited. The clinical mission of HECs, the historical importance of ethical considerations to psychology, and the field's specific training and psycho-social expertise suggest valuable contributions that psychologists can make in this particular area. Further, as psychology actively increases its participation in HECs, other professional disciplines outside of the mental health field will systematically have the opportunity to become more familiar with psychology and its clinical and research expertise.     

How Pierre Janet used pathological psychology to save the philosophical self

According to traditional French historiography, French scientific psychology was born when it differentiated itself from philosophy. This split between the two disciplines is attributed to Taine and Ribot, who, consequently, are considered to be the "founding fathers" of French psychology. In this paper we shall examine the case of Pierre Janet, who, at the turn of the century, was recognized worldwide as the most important French psychologist. It is generally said that he was the follower of Ribot and of Charcot. However, he was also Paul Janet's nephew. Paul Janet was a very well known and influential philosopher of the so-called French "spiritualistic" school, for which psychology was central to philosophy. In 1889, Pierre Janet published his doctoral dissertation, L'Automatisme psychologique, which was immediately considered to be a classic in psychology. We shall argue that this book is as much indebted to the old spiritualistic psychology, which claimed the substantial unity of the self, as to the new psychology at the time, which questioned it. With Pierre Janet, the split between psychology and philosophy in France was reconsidered. It would be more accurate to speak in terms of a compromise between philosophy and the "new" physiological and pathological psychology.     

POUR UN PROGRAMME INTERNATIONAL DE RECHERCHES PSYCHOLOGIQUES

For an international program of psychological studies. — We live at a time of a rapid accumulation of psychological data as contrasted with disproportionately slow development of psychology as a scientific system. Progress in the practical utilization of psychological research findings appears equally inadequate in the face of the quantitative explosion of the research. Having established a multitude of concrete facts, we are unable to agree on any but a few general statements. Each area of psychology has developed a host of “miniature theories”, but there is little, if any, agreement among them. The deplorable theoretical state makes it equally difficult to establish a valid hierarchy of research problems that might enable us to discriminate between fundamental and secondary issues. The relative isolation of the “miniature theories” has led to an atomization of research into “miniature projects”, or else into mutually irrelevant topics. In effect, the research potential of psychology is being largely dissipated. The history of psychology has recorded many attempts to develop great theoretical systems, of which three proved most successful. These were : the associationist psychology of either the S-S type, based on the idea of mental connections, or the S-R type; the Gestalt psychology based on the idea of structure; and psychoanalysis, based on the idea of dynamic tendencies. Each has greatly contributed to the development of psychological studies without being able, however, to account for all by then established facts. The net effect has been a general disenchantment with theory. Nevertheless, the fundamental ideas underlying these systems have come to be generally acknowledged. Attempts to develop new entities from various pieces of these systems have produced numerous theoretical constructs of an eclectic character, which only increased the atomization of psychology. The growing atomization of psychology has been a source of concern for many scholars. At the xviith Congress of Psychology in Washington, this situation was extensively discussed by G. Allport. In continuation of his ideas, it may be suggested that there seems to be real prospects of defeating the atomization of psychology, and of integrating it into a coherent system, provided psychology is approached as a science of man. This would require us to abandon the heritage of Hume's philosophy, which has caused us to view psychology as a science of phenomena, processes, reactions or behaviors, while disregarding the fact that these are merely manifestations of man's goal-oriented and organized activity, resulting from his continuous effort to adjust his relationships with the environment. Such a reorientation would enable us to establish a definite hierarchy of problems, with the main emphasis resting on the structure of man's activity and the mechanisms by which this activity is orientated and organized. As a result, the gap between psychological theory and practical application would be narrowed down, a circumstance of great significance for the social prestige of psychology as a science. An organized effort is needed to overcome the present atomization in psychology. A particularly great responsibility rests on the International Union of Psychological Science. The present author suggests the following objectives for the IUPS in this respect : further efforts should be made to improve the methods of scientific information; a co-operation should be sought with other international institutions responsible for research on man; specially interesting appears to be the UNESCO initiative to investigate the basic development trends in the sciences of man; an international program of scientific research work in psychology should be drawn up.     

Case History, Case Story: An Enquiry Into the Hermeneutics of C. G. Jung

The case histories written by C. G. Jung, from his 1902 Doctoral Dissertation to his 1950 case of Miss X, are evaluated as pieces of evidence in support of his theories. Evidence is shown to rely for its validity on an 'evidential context' which has altered over time. Jung's case histories change over the course of his writings and become more like stories. The reason for this difference is his move from an interpretative schema based on the natural sciences when a psychiatrist, through that of psychoanalysis, to one based on the human sciences, and in particular to one based on hermeneutics - the study of interpretation and meaning - when he developed his theory of analytical psychology. Jung moves from a form of hermeneutics based on what constitutes a 'valid' interpretation to one that concentrates on meaning and understanding. In writing his later case histories like stories, Jung is using them as merely part of the wider cultural context of evidence required by analytical psychology rather than as privileged pieces of evidence in themselves.     

Genetic epistemology,history of science and genetic psychology

Genetic epistemology analyzes the growth of knowledge both in the individual person (genetic psychology) and in the socio-historical realm (the history of science). But what the relationship is between the history of science and genetic psychology remains unclear. The biogenetic law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is inadequate as a characterization of the relation. A critical examination of Piaget's Introduction à l'Épistémologie Généntique indicates these are several examples of what I call stage laws common to both areas. Furthermore, there is at least one example of a paradoxical inverse relation between the two — geometry. Both similarities and differences between the two domains require an explanation, a developmental explanation. Although such an explanation seems to be psychological in nature, it is not merely empirical but also normative (since psychology is both factual and normative according to Piaget). Hence genetic epistemology need not be reduced to psychology (narrowly conceived), but rather should be seen as being both empirical and normative and thus similar to certain types of contemporary philosophy of science.I wish to thank Guy Cellerier, Ken Freeman, Pierre Moessinger, and Pat McKee who provided stimulating conversation on several of the issues discussed in this paper.     

Laboratory experimentation and social field experimentation: An ambiguous distinction

Critical and epistemological reflections on the use of experimental methods in social psychology are often made to distinguish between two types of settings where these methods are used: The laboratory and the social field. But it is by no means certain that such a division has, from the start and at its own level, real significance: for one thing, because in social psychology, laboratory work is probably never merely laboratory work; and for another, because an analysis of what happens in practice would show that much experimental research work carried out in the social field merely transfers into that setting tools, concepts and a theoretical intention derived from the laboratory. If that is so, it follows that it is not at its own level that the laboratory-social field distinction has a heuristic and epistemological significance, nor is that the real location of the breaking-point between the methodologies. Perhaps the real ‘dividing’ line is one which separates experimental work which, whether in the laboratory or in the social field, concentrates on social interactions which are miniaturized or able to be so, from work which, in the social field, aims to concentrcte on processes which cannot be simulated or miniaturized without becoming distorted and seeks to reach social systems which are relatively complete and essentially intact.     

潘菽心理学思想的后经验主义蕴含

今年是中国心理学泰斗,理论心理学奠基人潘菽先生诞辰110周年。纪念潘菽先生,意味着继承和发扬潘菽先生的心理学思想。从后经验主义理论心理学的视角来看,潘菽先生的心理学思想仍然具有当代性和启发性,特别是在强调理论对经验研究的优先地位、强调理论对经验现实的建构作用、强调理论的实践品性、强调理论的历史性向度,以及强调理论研究的中国心理学归宿等方面,显示出卓越的远见。     

The science of language and the evolution of mind: Max Müller's quarrel with Darwinism

For Darwinism to succeed as a general theory of the development of life, it had to account for at least the rudiments of all human characteristics. Thus Darwin and his colleague G. J. Romanes had to make "mental evolution" the basis for scientific psychology. F. Max Müller, Oxford's professor of comparative philology, drew on Kant's work, Romantic Naturphilosophie, and his views on the history of language and the relation of language to thought to maintain that language showed a difference not in degree but in kind between man and the lower primates. In his debate with Romanes, he argued that the study of language, not Darwinist natural history, should be the basis for a science of human psychology. However, the two authors had such different definitions of the key terms in their discussion that their differences were not only unresolved but irresolvable.     

Utopianism in psychology: the case of Wilhelm Reich

This article examines utopian elements in Wilhelm Reich's writings in his American phase (1939-1957) in order to illustrate utopian sources of dynamic psychology. Although there are scholars who have used the term "psychological utopia" and applied it to individual thinkers (Reich, Marcuse, Fromm) and to specific psychological disciplines (psychoanalysis, behaviorism, cognitive psychology), the term itself has remained elusive and vague. Furthermore, there have been few attempts to systematically examine utopian elements in twentieth-century psychology in general and the basic assumptions of psychological utopianism in particular. While pointing out that Reich's orgonomic theories have no scientific merit, this article argues for the relevancy of his ideas for understanding the nature of utopianism in dynamic psychology.     

Dewey Between the Lines: George Kelly and the Pragmatist Tradition

In his own somewhat sly and sardonic way, George Kelly always insisted that personal construct theory could not be assimilated into any other kind of psychology. We believe this was not an example of Kelly being difficult or protecting his turf, but that he resisted such efforts at categorization because he formulated personal construct psychology from an entirely different set of assumptions than those which have traditionally guided the construction of psychological theories. We begin by looking at the unusual life path Kelly took in order to enter the field of psychology and what it reveals about the independent turn of mind he brought to creating his own theory of personality. We then examine what we believe is the single most important influence on Kelly's thinking—the tradition of American pragmatism, in general, and the philosophy and psychology of John Dewey, in particular. We argue that Kelly embraced the pragmatic epistemological assumptions that guided Dewey's work, and that he used these assumptions to develop the only pragmatic theory of personality and psychotherapy. It is, in fact, the influence of Dewey and the pragmatists that makes personal construct psychology so different from and, at times, more difficult to understand than other, more traditional, “realist” theories, but it is also this pragmatic orientation that makes Kelly's theory such an important contribution.     

Politics and naturalism in the 20th century psychology of Alfred Binet

Alfred Binet is internationally recognized as the "father" of the first intelligence test as well as the most faithful French representative of laboratory experimentalism. A historical analysis of his work is therefore necessary to get to a thorough comprehension of 20th century psychology. The present article, starting from Binet's intellectual path and from the suggestions of the previous historical literature, aims at providing fresh insights into Binet's work by trying to capture the intersections between Binet, his naturalistic culture and the political context in which he worked in the early 20th century, when he actively tried to apply experimental psychology to the pedagogical area. In fact, it is possible to underline, with reference to those years, an evident turn towards applications in Binet's psychological production. The article reconstructs the political and institutional background of Binet's research and shows how the naturalism and experimentalism he promoted were complementary to the solidarist conceptions that were particularly prevalent among those who supported his work during the Third Republic.     

Pavlov's methodological behaviorism as a pre-Socratic contribution of the melding of the differential and experimental psychology

The differential/experimental distinction that Cronbach specified is important because any adequate account of psychological phenomena requires the recognition of the validity of both approaches, and a meaningful melding of the two. This paper suggests that Pavlov's work in psychology, based on earlier traditions of inquiry that can be traced back to the pre-Socratics, provides a potential way of achieving this melding, although such features as systematic rather than anecdotal methods of observation need to be added. Pavlov's methodological behaviorist approach is contrasted with metaphysical behaviorism (as exemplified explicitly in Watson and Skinner, and implicitly in the computer-metaphorical, information-processing explanations employed by current "cognitive" psychology). A common feature of the metaphysical approach is that individual-differences variables like sex are essentially ignored, or relegated to ideological categories such as the treatment of sex as merely a "social construction." Examples of research both before and after the "cognitive revolution" are presented where experimental and differential methods are melded, and individual differences are treated as phenomena worthy of investigation rather than as nuisance factors that merely add to experimental error.