A Short History Of British Psychology 1840 1940

Originally published in 1964, the story of the development of psychology in Great Britain had never been told. In the 1840s, when John Stuart Mill wrote about ‘Psychology’ in his treatise on Logic, the word was hardly known to the British public. Today the subject is taught in nearly every university, and psychologists are professionally employed by many public bodies. The British contribution to the dramatic rise of psychology was an exceptionally important one, and had been shamefully neglected not only by the public but by British psychologists themselves. The tendency at the time to regard the subject through American spectacles distorted the role of British pioneers. Significant British contributions had been almost completely forgotten – those of Carpenter, Lewes, Spalding and Lubbock for example – and the work of men such as Hughlings Jackson and Romanes had been greatly undervalued. Not the least important feature of the book is its reassessment of the work of many individuals. In relating the rise of psychology and its application to concomitant developments in medicine, physiology, biology, sociology, anthropology and statistics and to changes in the prevailing philosophic climate, the author shows psychology to be an integral part of the scientific, intellectual and social history of the past century.

Empiricism, one of Raymond William's keywords, circulates in much contemporary thought and criticism solely as a term of censure, a synonym for spurious objectivity or positivism. Yet rarely, if ever, has it had this philosophical implication. Dr Johnson, it should be recalled, kicked the stone precisely to expose empiricism's baroque falsifications of common sense. In an effort to restore historical depth to the term, this book examines epistemology in the narrative prose of five writers, John Ruskin, Alexander Bain, G. H. Lewes, Herbert Spencer, and George Eliot, developing the view that the flourishing of nineteenth-century scientific culture occurred at a time when empiricism itself was critically dismantling any such naive representationalism. --

'Playing with Fire' is a biography of psychologist Hans J. Eysenck's career. It looks to describe the contradictions in Eysenck's public and professional image and explain how one fed the other. It documents his boyhood in Berlin and the origins of his key ideas about personality, learning and the biogenetics of behaviour.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings together some of her best work over the last thirty years. A specially written introduction gives an overview of her career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. The first section on ‘Philosophy’ covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology, introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. The second section, ‘From Philosophy to History’, includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout and James Sully, among others. The third section on ‘History’ covers Valentine’s more recent historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional and biographical – and includes accounts of both Bedford College and University College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists. The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to anyone with interests in these areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in conceptual and historical issues.

Dynamic Psychology in Modernist British Fiction argues that literary critics have tended to distort the impact of pre-Freudian psychological discourses, including psychical research, on Modern British Fiction. Psychoanalysis has received undue attention over a more typical British eclecticism, embraced by now-forgotten figures including Frederic Myers and William McDougall. This project focuses on the Edwardian novelists most fully engaged by dynamic psychology, May Sinclair, and J.D. Beresford, but also reconsiders Arnold Bennett and D.H. Lawrence. The book concludes by demonstrating Woolf's subtle assimilation of pre-Freudian discourse.

This fourth edition of Putting Psychology in Its Place builds on the previous three in introducing the history of Psychology and placing the discipline within its historical and social contexts. Written by esteemed Psychologists Graham Richards and Paul Stenner, this crucial text aims both to answer and raise questions about the role of Psychology in modern society by critically examining issues such as how Psychology developed and why psychoanalysis had such an impact. It discusses enduring underlying conceptual problems and examines how the discipline has changed to deal with contemporary social issues such as religion, race and gender. The fourth edition features revised and updated chapters, though the core structure remains unchanged. The final chapter has been restructured and jointly re-written. This text was written to remain compatible with the British Psychological Society requirements for undergraduate courses and is imaginatively written and accessible to all. Putting Psychology in Its Place is an invaluable introductory text for undergraduate students of the history of Psychology and will also appeal to postgraduates, academics and anyone interested in Psychology or the history of science.

Explaining crime by reference to abnormalities of the brain is just one example of how the human and social sciences have influenced the approach to social problems in Western societies since 1880. Focusing on applications such as penal policy, therapy, and marketing, this volume examines how these sciences have become embedded in society.

Originally published between 1928 and 1987, the volumes in this set provide an interesting look back at how psychology has developed as a discipline and some of the problems it has encountered along the way. It includes volumes focusing on the history of specific fields such as developmental and experimental psychology, as well as examining the roots of psychological theory as a whole and how it has informed many of the fields of psychology we know today.