Current Issues In Theoretical Psychology

Current Issues in Theoretical Psychology

Outline of Theoretical Psychology discusses basic philosophical problems in the discipline and profession of psychology. The author addresses such topics as what it means to be human in psychology; how psychological knowledge is possible and what it consists of; the role of social justice in psychology; and how aesthetic experience could help us to understand the human condition. Proposing possible solutions to a range of such issues, Thomas Teo situates theoretical questions within traditional branches of philosophical inquiry: ontology, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. This book argues that in order to improve psychology as a discipline and in practice, psychologists must reconceive the unit of psychological analysis, looking beyond individual capacity and even experience. By engaging with these basic philosophical problems, Teo demonstrates how psychology can avoid its common pitfalls and continue as a force for resistance and the good.

An essential overview of theoretical issues in psychology with pedagogical features to help students identify key terms and concepts.

I was asked and, alas, with little reflection on the magnitude of the task, thoughtlessly consented, to take on the 'simple' job of writing a preface to the collection of essays comprising this volume. That I was asked to carry out this simple task was probably due to one consideration: I was the main representative of the host institution (Clark University) for the 1991 ISTP Conference, at which the talks, foreshadowing and outlining the 'extended remarks' here printed, were originally presented, and hence, as a token of gratitude, I was vouchsafed the honor of setting the stage. It did not dawn on me, until I began piecemeal to receive and accumulate, over a period of months, the remarkably diverse and heterogeneous essays precipitated by the conference, how mind-boggling it would be to pen a preface pertinent to such an aggregate of prima/acie unrelated articles. Typically, prefaces to collections of essays from different hands are attempts by the prefator or a pride of prefators to provide an overview, a concise map, of the complex terrain which readers are invited to enter; or to direct the attention of potential readers to what the editors take to be the essential or central themes of each of the variegated articles: a practice which, not infrequently and often not unjustifiably, irritates and even enrages individual authors, who object to the complexity, profundity, and nuanced character of their thought being reduced to clicMs and editorial equivalents of sound bites.

Theoretical Issues in Psychology is published as the discipline of psychology enters its (at least) third century. The year 2001 brings with it millennial reflections, as well as the strange sense of deja vu that we derive from the Kubrick movie. As to the former, a glance at the contents list of this volume will demonstrate both the maturity and the vigour of theoretical debate within psychology. There is a level of sophistication here that should be the cause of quiet celebration. Recent ideas about discursive practice and subjectivity, chaos theory and autopoiesis, are effortlessly entrained with classical issues. Canonical texts are looked at with fresh eyes. Unresolved social and political questions are doggedly persisted with, and new perspectives on the human experience are pioneered. We are not afraid of long words, even if French in origin, but nor are we afraid to recognise that we are physical beings who touch other beings, who hold, desire, and remember - and who talk, talk, talk. For surely it is theoretically-sensitive work in psychology - whether "critical" or not - that best represents what the discipline has to offer the wider community.