From Soul to Mind: The Emergence of Psychology, from Erasmus Darwin to William James - Hardcover

Edward S. Reed

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300069677 ISBN 13: 9780300069679

Publisher: Yale University Press, 1997

Synopsis

An account of psychology's formative years, relating the failures and successes of attempts by 19th-century thinkers and practitioners to make psychology into a science. Looks at the social, religious, and literary context of early developments in the field, discussing the effects of historical changes including rising nationalism and industrialization, and profiles the contributions of well-known and less-known scientific, literary, and philosophical figures. For students and general readers. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

About the Author

Edward S. Reed, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology at Franklin & Marshall College. His research on ecological psychology has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Institute on Disabilities and Rehabilitation, and a
Guggenheim fellowship.

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0300069677
• ISBN 13: 9780300069679
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 302