A History of Psychology in Western Civilization
Cambridge University Press, 7/3/2014
EAN 9781107007291, ISBN10: 1107007291
Hardcover, 559 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.2 cm
Language: English
This book is a re-introduction to psychology. It focuses on great scholarly thinkers, beginning with Plato, Marcus Aurelius and St Augustine, who gave the field its foundational ideas long before better known 'founders', such as Galton, Fechner, Wundt and Watson, appeared on the scene. Psychology can only achieve its full breadth and potential when we fully appreciate its scholarly legacy. Bruce Alexander and Curtis Shelton also argue that the fundamental contradictions built into psychology's history have never been resolved, and that a truly pragmatic approach, as defined by William James, can produce a 'layered' psychology that will enable psychologists to face the fearsome challenges of the twenty-first century. A History of Psychology in Western Civilization claims that contemporary psychology has overemphasized the methods of physical science and that psychology will need a broader scientific orientation alongside a scholarly focus in order to fully engage the future.
1. Introduction
two histories of Western psychology
2. Rationalism
Plato and the 'just' person
3. Stoicism
Marcus Aurelius and the sufficient self
4. Christianity
St Augustine and the incomplete soul
5. Materialism
Thomas Hobbes and the human machine
6. Empiricism
John Locke, David Hume, and experience as reality
7. Evolution
Charles Darwin and Homo sapiens as a work in progress
8. Medicine
Sigmund Freud and the world of neurotics
9. Re-imagining psychology.