History of Psychology (3470.03)
Christopher D. Green
York University, Toronto, Ontario
Winter, 1995

http://www.yorku.ca/faculty/academic/christo/

General description: An introduction to psychological thought from the time of the Ancient world to the 20th century. Topics covered will include Ancient Greek discussion of the psyche, Roman and Medieval European speculation on the anima, the Enlightenment "discovery" of the mind, and the 19th century development of "scientific" psychology, as well as early 20th century developments.

Evaluation:
Midterm test 20%
Written assignments 40% (chapter summaries)
Final exam 40%

Texts:

Robinson, D.N. (1986). An intellectual history of psychology. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Fancher, R. (1990). Pioneers of psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Other readings:

THE ANCIENT WORLD

General

Ehrenberg, V. (1968). From Solon to Socrates: Greek history and civilization during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. London: Methuen & Co. [Excellent standard introduction to Classical Greece.]

Frost, F. J. (1987). Greek society (3rd ed.). Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath & Co. [More up­to­date than Ehrenberg, better maps and plates, though not as much material.]

Kitto, H. D. F. (1951). The Greeks. Hammondsworth, Eng.: Penguin. [Shorter and older than Ehrenberg, and not as good, but well­known and respected.]

Religion, Philosophy, Science, & Psychology

Annas, J. E. (1992). Hellenistic philosophy of mind. Berkeley:, CA: University of California Press. [Excellent account of the Stoic and Epicurean views of the mind.]

Barnes, J. (1982). The presocratic philosophers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Originally published 1979) [Excellent intro to the Pre­Socratics. Includes much of the source material, mixed in with Barnes' interpretation. Tends to assimilate them too much to contemporary forms of philosophical thought, however.]

Barnes, J. (1987). Early Greek philosophy. London: Penguin. [Shorter than the 1982 book. Same sort of material.]

Bremmer, J. (1983). The early Greek concept of the soul. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [A critique of Dodds, in part. Good introductory book as well.]

Cornford, F. M. (1968). Before and after Socrates. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published 1932) [Very short intro to Classical Greek philosophy. Okay as a starter, but not deep enough to serve as a scholarly reference.]

Cornford, F. M. (1991). From religion to philosophy: A study in the origins of Western speculation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1912) [Classic that revolutionized our view of the Greeks.]

Dodds, E. R. (1951). The Greeks and the irrational. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. [Perhaps the most influential work in classics this half­century. Breaks the common myth that the Greek were supremely rational about everything.]

Dodds, E. R. (1970). Pagan and Christian in an age of anxiety: Some aspects of religious experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine. New York: Norton. (Originally published 1965)

Durrant, M. (Ed.) (1993). Aristotle's De anima in focus. London: Routledge. [Collection of classic articles on De anima.]

Everson, S. (Ed.) (1991). Companions to ancient thought 2: Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Collection of recent papers on Heraclitean, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Hellenistic views of the psyche.]

Guthrie, W. K. C. (1975). The Greek philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle. New York: Harper & Row. (Originally published 1950) [Classic short intro. Fuller than Cornford, 1968, but still pretty lightweight.]

Hyland, D. A. (1973). The origins of philosophy: Its rise in myth and the pre­Socratics. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. [In the tradition of Cornford, 1912, by a student of Rosen's (I think).]

Jaynes, J. (1976). The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. [Proposes the radical theory that the Greeks of the Iliad did not have consciousness, but acted on the basis of hallucinations of gods' voices. Interesting, but very controversial. Tread with caution!]

Lindberg, D. C. (1992). The beginnings of Western science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Astoundingly readable and comprehensive introduction to Ancient and Medieval science.]

McKirihan, R. D. (1994). Philosophy before Socrates. Indianapolis: Hackett. [Excellent introduction to the Pre­Socratics. Complete source material at the beginning of each chapter. More sensitive interpretations than Barnes'.]

Neugebauer, O. (1962). The exact sciences in antiquity (2nd ed.). New York: Harper. (Originally published 1957)

Robinson, D. N. (1989). Aristotle's psychology. New York: Columbia University Press. [Very good, but very opinionated. Dan Robinson at his scholarly best.]

Robinson, J. M. (1968). An introduction to early Greek Philosophy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. [Very good introduction to pre­Socratics.]

Robinson, T. M. (1995). Plato's psychology (2nd ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Originally published 1970). [Scholarly account of the changes in Plato's philosophy of mind over the course of his life.]

Rosen, S. (1988). The quarrel between philosophy and poetry: Studies in ancient thought. London: Routledge. [Rosen thinks that poetry should have won the war in Ancient Greek times, and that it's making its comeback now. Interesting, but philosophically dense.]

Sambursky, S. (1959). The physics of the Stoics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Sambursky, S. (1962). The physical world of late antiquity. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Sambursky, S. (1987). The physical world of the Greeks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Originally published 1956)

Simon, B. (1978). Mind and madness in ancient Greece: The classical roots of modern psychiatry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Covers Homer, the Tragedians, Plato, Aristotle, and medical views of minds and madness. Beware the psychoanalytic speculations of this psychiatrist­classicist.]

Snell, B. (1982). The discover of the mind in Greek philosophy and literature. New York: Dover. (Original work published 1953) [Another classic. Still a good read after all these years.]

Sorabji, R. (1988). Matter, space, and motion: Theories in antiquity and their sequel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. [Very scholarly look at particularly the Aristotelian view, and its influence.]

MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE

General

Bloch, M. (1961). Feudal society (2 vols., L. A. Manyon, Trans.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. (Originally published in the 1940s) [The standard reference. Only now is it being seriously challenged.]

Cantor, N. F. (1974). The meaning of the middle ages: A sociological and cultural history. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. [Well­respected introduction to the topic.]

Cantor, N. F. (1991). Inventing the middle ages: The lives, works, and ideas of the great medievalists of the twentieth century. New York: William Morrow & Co. [Very controversial look at modern Medieval scholars, and their motives.]

Cohn, N. (1993). Europe's inner demons: The demonization of Christians in Medieval Christendom (2nd ed.). London: Pimlico. [Outstanding history of the origins of the witchhunts. Puts the lie to many popular myths.]

Davis, R. H. C. (1988). A history of medieval Europe: From Constantine to St. Louis (2nd ed.). London: Longman

Oakley, F. (1988). The medieval experience. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original published 1974)

Peters, E. (1989). Inquisition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [An attempt to debunk many myths about the Inquisition that have developed in the centuries since.]

Strayer, J. (1959). The middle ages. New York: Appleton­Century­Crofts.

Southern, R. W. (1959). The making of the middle ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [Very well­known. Perhaps the standard text, though a little out­of­date now.]

Ziegler, P. (1969). The black death. London: Penguin. [The standard reference, though now a little out of date.]

Religion, Philosophy, & Psychology

Bosley, R. & Tweedale, M. (Eds.) (1992). Aristotle and his medieval interpreters. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. [Collection of recent articles from Canadian Journal of Philosophy.]

Gilson, E. (1938). Reason and revelation in the middle ages. New York: Scribner's. [Excellent, short, balanced look at the debate between the advocates of faith, and those of reason. Good for a start, but not very deep.]

Haskins, C. H. (1957). The rise of the universities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1923) [Very short, but often amusing, look at Medieval universities. Look to Lindberg for more recent material.]

Jones, W. T. (1969). The medieval mind (2nd ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Kemp, S. (1990). Medieval Psychology. New York: Greenwood. [Written by a psychologist for psychologists. Always readable. A little thin in places.]

Kemp, S. & Fletcher, G. J. O. (1993). The medieval theory of the inner senses. American Journal of Psychology, 106, 559­576.

Kenny, A. (1993). Aquinas on mind. London: Routledge. [Scholarly defense of Thomas' philosophy of mind.]

Knowles, D. (1962). The evolution of medieval thought. New York: Vintage Books.

Kretzman, N. (1992). Aquinas's philosophy of mind. Philosophical Topics, 20, 77­101. [Good article, by the expert. Reprinted (I think) in Cambridge companion to Aquinas.]

Marenbon, J. (1987). Later medieval philosophy (1150­1350). London: Routledge.

Marenbon, J. (1988). Early medieval philosophy (480­1150): An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

Maurer, A. A. (1982). Medieval philosophy (Rev. ed.). Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. [Excellent, comprehensive introduction. Chapters on each of the great thinkers, divided into sections on theology, metaphysics, psychology, etc. A little dry.]

Morris, C. (1987). The discovery of the individual: 1050­1200. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Originally published 1972) [Argues that idea of the autonomous individual we cherish today can be traced to developments in art and culture in the 12th century.]

Qadir, C. A. (1988). Philosophy and science in the Islamic world. London: Routledge.

Riley­Smith, J. (1987). The crusades: A short history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [The standard history.]

Roney, L. (1990). Chaucer's Knight's tale and theories of Scholastic psychology. Tampa, FL: University of South Florida Press. [Argues that Chaucer was satirizing a debate then raging between Franciscans and Dominicans about the primacy of the intellect or will. But beware. See Gallacher's review in Speculum, July, 1993, p. 877 for some relatively serious difficulties.]

Southern, R. W. (1970). Western society and the church in the Middle Ages. London: Penguin. [Excellent introduction to the role of the church in Medieval society.]

Thomas, K. (1991). Religion and the decline of magic. London: Penguin. (Originally published 1971) [Really about the "Renaissance": the reasons for the loss of magic from the European mindset during the 16th and 17th centuries.]

Wagner, D. L. (Ed.) (1983). The seven liberal arts in the middle ages. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press. [Examination of the structure of advanced Medieval education.]

Yates, F. A. (1992). The art of memory. London: Pimlico. (Originally published 1966) [How memory was conceived of and taught as a skills in the Middle Ages.]

Science & Technology

Crombie, A. C. (1961). Augustine to Galileo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Classic text. Argues that Medieval science was very sophisticated, contrary to popular opinion.]

Gimpel, J. (1992). The medieval machine: The industrial revolution of the middles ages (2nd ed.). London: Pimlico. (Originally published 1976, 1988) [Argues that the "first" industrial revolution took place in the 12th and 13th centuries, led by the church, using mainly water­power.]

Grant, E. (1971). Physical science in the middle ages. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Gies, F. & Gies, J. (1994). Cathedral, forge, and waterwheel: Technology and invention in the Middle Ages. New York: HarperCollins.

Koyre, A. (1957). From the closed world to the infinite universe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. [Classic test on the history of astronomy and cosmology.]

Kuhn, T. S. (1957). The Copernican revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Argues that almost everything you thought you knew about Copernicus' rejection of religion and advocacy of science is wrong. Shatters a lot of myths.]

Lindberg, D. C. (Ed.) (1978). Science in the middle ages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Collection of articles on the topic.]

Lindberg, D. C. (1992). The beginnings of Western science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [See comment in Ancient Science section.]

White, L. (1962). Medieval technology and social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [The text that first got everyone thinking about Medieval technology.]

ENLIGHTENMENT

Wilson, F. (1991). Mill and Comte on the method of introspection. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 27, 107­129.

Lapointe, F. H. (1972). Who originated the term 'psychology'? Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 328­335.

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

Textbooks on the history of psychology

Boring, E. G. (1929). A history of experimental psychology. New York: Appleton­Century. [The original classic by Titchener's most influential student. There is also an updated second edition from 1950 with several new chapters.]

Fancher, R. E. (1990). Pioneers of psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. (Originally published 1979) [Excellent survey of modern psychology.]

Flanagan, O. J. (1984). The science of mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Perhaps the best philosophically­informed history of psychology, from a cognitive­scientific perspective. Includes chapters on Piaget, AI, and sociobiology.]

Heidbredder, E. (1933). Seven psychologies. New York: Century­Appleton­Crofts. [Accounts of structuralism, James, functionalism, behaviorism, dynamic psychology, Gestalt psychology, and psychoanalysis. Less biased toward structuralism than Boring (1st ed.), and less biased toward behaviorism than Boring (2nd ed.).]

Hilgard, E. R. (1987). Psychology in America: A historical survey. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. [Almost 1000 pages on all aspects of psychology as it has been studied in the U.S.A., by a man who was there through most of it.]

Leahey, T. H. (1987). A history of psychology: Main currents in psychological thought. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice­Hall. [Very good contemporary text. More modern orientation than Robinson (1986).]

Murphy, G. (1949). Historical introduction to modern psychology. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. [Excellent alternative to Boring. More accurate, less polemical. Less personal than Boring, however. 3rd edition (w/ J. K. Kovach) published 1972.]

Murray, D. J. (1988). A history of Western psychology (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Peters, R. S. (Ed.). (1953). Brett's history of psychology. New York: Macmillan. [Abridgement of G. S. Brett's (1912­1926) 3­volume Canadian classic.]

Robinson, D. N. (1979). Systems of modern psychology: A critical sketch. New York: Columbia University Press. [Robinson's earlier, shorter book. Organized by orientation (e.g., physiological, behavioristic, humanistic, etc.) rather than chronologically.]

Robinson, D. N. (1995). An intellectual history of psychology (3rd ed.). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. [Better coverage of pre­19th century psychology any other text on the market.]

Stevenson, L. (1987). Seven theories of human nature: Christianity, Freud, Lorenz, Marx, Sartre, Skinner, Plato (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. [A philosopher's brief (150 pp.) overview.]

Watson, R. I. (1971). The great psychologists. Philadelphia: Lippincott. [The overview of the field from the founder of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.]

Books on special topics in the history of psychology

Alexander F. G. & Selesnick, S. T. (1968). The history of psychiatry. New York: Mentor Books. (Originally published 1966) [The classic text. Very whiggish. Worth comparing with Foucault's very different approach to some of the same material.]

Baars, B. J. (1986). The cognitive revolution in psychology. New York: Guilford. [Excellent introductory chapter on the shift from behaviorism to cognitivism in America, followed by interviews with the 17 of the major players.]
Bakan, D. (1958). Sigmund Freud and the Jewish mystical tradition. Boston, MA: Beacon.

Barrett, W. (1986). The death of the soul: From Descartes to the computer. New York: Doubleday. [Existentialist account of the progressive tendency of modern thinkers' to strip the essential human features out of accounts of humanity.]

Castel, R. (1988). The regulation of madness: The origins of incarceration in France (W. D. Halls, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Original work published 1976) [Often thought of as a sequel to Foucault, 1961/1988.]

Danziger, K. (1990). Constructing the subject: Historical origins of psychological research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Already a classic on the social origins of research methods in psychology.]

Fancher, R. E. (1973). Psychoanalytic thought: The development of Freud's thought. New York: Norton. [A major history of psychoanalysis.]

Fancher, R. E. (1985). The intelligence men: Makers of the IQ controversy. New York: Norton. [A major history of the development of the IQ test.]

Foucault, M. (1988). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason (R. Howard, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books. (Originally published 1961) [Foucault's later account of the influence of society and politics on the decision to confine the mad in asylums.]

Gay, P. (1988). Freud: A life for our time. New York: Norton. [Coming to be regarded as the "standard" biography.]

Gould, S. J. (1981). The mismeasure of man. New York: Norton. [Blistering critique of the intelligence testing movement, from Broca to the present.]

Grunbaum, A. (1984). The foundations of psychoanalysis: A philosophical critique. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [One of the great critiques of Freudian psychology.]

Hall, C. S. (1954). A primer of Freudian psychology. New York: Mentor Books. [Excellent brief, neutral introduction to Freud's theory.]

Hall, C. S. & Nordby, V. J. (1973). A primer of Jungian psychology. New York: Mentor Books. [Excellent, brief, neutral introduction to Jung's theory.]

Haugeland, J. (1985). Artificial intelligence: The very idea. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Excellent history of the field that has come to dominate contemporary cognitive science (especially Chap. 1).]

Krantz, D. L. (Ed.). (1969). Schools of psychology: A symposium. New York: Appleton­Century­Crofts. [Statements by Boring, Heidbredder, Hernstein, Khler, Shakow, and Murphy on the value of the battles that raged earlier in the century among psychology's main schools of thought.]

O'Donnell, J. M. (1985). The origins of behaviorism: American psychology, 1870­1920. New York: New York University Press. [Account of the socio­political influences that led American psychologists to reject Wundt in favor of behaviorism.]

Sajama, S. & Kamppinen, M (1987). A historical introduction to phenomenlogy. London: Croom Helm. [Just what it says: short (122 pp.) and to the point.]

Smith, L. D. (1986). Behaviorism and logical positivism: A reassessment of the alliance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Claims that behaviorists--viz., Tolman, Hull, and Skinner--were only superficially influenced by the logical positivists.]

Sulloway, F. (1979). Freud, biologist of the mind: Beyond the psychoanalytic tradition. New York: Basic.

Titchener, E. B. (1972). Systematic psychology: Prolegomena. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. (Original work published 1923). [Titchner's take on the great Wundt­Brentano debate by one of Wundt's most loyal students.]

Valenstein, E. S. (1986). Great and desperate cures: The rise and decline of psychosurgery and other radical treatments for mental illness. New York: Basic Books. [It's all in the subtitle.]

Wann, T. W. (Ed.). (1964). Behaviorism and phenomenology: Contrasting bases for modern psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Articles by Koch, MacLeod, Malcom, Rogers, Scriven, and Skinner on the conflicting interpretations of the two perspectives.]

Historiography of Psychology

Ash, M. G. (1983). The self­presentation of a discipline: History of psychology in the United States between pedagogy and scholarship. In L. Graham, W. Lepenies, & P. Weingart (Eds.), Functions and uses of disciplinary histories (Vol. 7 of Sociology of the sciences, pp. 143­189). Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing.

Smith, R. (1988). Does the history of psychology have a subject? History of the human sciences, 1, 147­177.

Collections of Historical Source Material

Ellis, W. D. (Ed.). (1938). A source book of Gestalt psychology. Norwich, Eng.: Jarrold & Sons. [Excellent collection of English translations of 34 early and classic Gestalt articles.]

Hernstein, R. J. & Boring, E. G. (Eds.). (1965). A source book in the history of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [116 articles and excerpts on all aspects of psychology. Mostly 19th and early 20th centuries. Some 17th and 18th century work.]

Kiell, N. (1988). Freud without hindsight: Reviews of his work, 1893­1939. Madison, CT: International Universities Press. [Just what Freud's contemporaries really thought of him.]

Koch, S. & Leary, D. E. (Eds.). (1985). A century of psychology as a science. New York: McGraw­Hill. [42 essays on psychology by a wide array of scholars, not all psychologists. Includes Mary Henle's article on what Gestalt psychology really is, and why everyone seems to get it wrong, as well as three excellent articles on psychology and science by Koch himself.]

















































IMPORTANT RESOURCES IN THE STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Compiled by Christopher D. Green, York University, Toronto


General Resources

Edwards, P. (1967). The encyclopedia of philosophy (8 vols.). New York: Macmillan & Free Press. Short articles on thousands of philosophical figures, schools, and concepts.

Murchison, C. A. (1929­1932). The psychological register (3 vols.). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. Basic information on hundreds of important psychologists (dates, education, appointments, important publications).

Murchison, C. A., Boring, E. G., & Lindzey, G. (Eds.) (1930­1952). History of psychology in autobiography (4 vols.). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. Short articles by dozens of important psychologists about their own lives and careers.

Watson, R. I. (1974­1976). Eminent contributors to psychology (2 vols.). New York: Springer. List of 500 of the people who have been most influential historically on psychology, along with references to their most important works (vol. 1) and references to the most important secondary citations of them (vol. 2).

Zusne, L. (1975). Names in the history of psychology. New York: Wiley. Basic information on hundreds of important psychologists (dates, education, appointments, important publications).

Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Short articles on thousands of Medieval figures, schools, and concepts.

Dictionary of American Biography (soon to be supplanted by the American National Biography).

Dictionary of Scientific Biography.


Specialized Resources

Boring, M.B., & Boring, E.G. (1948). Masters and pupils among the American psychologists. American Journal of Psychology, 61, 527­534.

Geuter, U. (1992). The professionalization of psychology in Nazi Germany (R. J. Holmes, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lubek, I. et al. (1995). Faculty genealogies in five Canadian universities: Historiographical and pedagogical concerns. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 31, 52­72.