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

by Edward S. Reed

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.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, History

302 pages, Hardcover

First published May 29, 1997

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable to me how little read this suggestive book appears to be. Reed died shortly before it was published, so it did not receive the appreciation subsequent scholarship by Reed might have conferred upon it. I quote from its sensible conclusion: "Once the science of psychology arrogates the right to reject out of hand the content of a person's experience -- because it is too inchoate, mystical, or whatever -- it can no longer pronounce on the meaning of the experience."

But our current psychology, beholden to applied research (pharmaceuticals), academic study of the brain, clinical study of behavior, and the repudiation of the unconscious, commits all sorts of these arrogations, each a reductive science. Reed's history of 19th Century psychology is an effort to recuperate the richness of that period's "serious intellectual journalism." Reed uses no foot/end notes -- he explains these traditions that culminate in his hero, the American physiologist, William James. One suggestive question, of course, is whether Jamesian humanism hasn't always been an Erkenntnistheorie, or science of science. That's how it appears on Reed's account.

[Aileen Yee]

About the emergence of psychology in literature, how in the past people were persecuted if they spoke or acted out against the church; and so, people expressed their beliefs (along with their frustrations) in the form of art, including literature.

[David Auerbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and evidently very well-informed history of "psychology" in the modern world. Lots of obscure names I'd never even heard of, sort of the "Secret History of Psychology."