About Psychology

Description

Demonstrating how psychologists use theory, philosophy, and history to illuminate the subjects they study, this book explores both the obstacles and benefits of integrating these perspectives into contemporary Western psychology. It offers a timely survey of current ideas at the crossroads of these disciplines and represents new ideas about how psychology can respond to changes on what it means to be human and on how to further this knowledge. The convergence of history, theory, and philosophy is examined from three perspectives: the reconsideration of the importance of context in psychology; the argument that psychology is embedded in morality, values, and politics; and the consideration of the practice of such convergence, looking at how history, theory, and philosophy function in psychology. This book presents contemporary thinking by noted scholars who have made significant contributions to a re-visioning of psychology.

Acknowledgments

1. Convergence and Conjunction at the Crossroads
Darryl B. Hill and Michael J. Kral

2. Where History, Theory, and Philosophy Meet: The Biography of Psychological Objects
Kurt Danziger

3. The Moral Dimension of Psychological Practice, Theory, and Subject Matter
Charles W. Tolman

4. Psychotherapists As Crypto-Missionaries: An Exemplar on the Crossroads of History, Theory, and Philosophy
Brent D. Slife, Amy Fisher Smith, and Colin M. Burchfield

5. A Theory of Personhood for Psychology
Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman

6. Self-Esteem and the Demoralized Self: A Geneaology of Self Research and Measurement
Scott Greer

7. Cultural Turns in Psychology
Karen M. Seeley

8. Feminists Rethink Gender
Meredith M. Kimball

9. Retrieving the Past for the Future: Boundary Maintenance in Historical and Theoretical Psychology
Henderikus J. Stam

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• System

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780791486979
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY

SUNY series,

ALTERNATIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY

Michael A. Wallach  Editor

A B O U T P S Y C H O L O G Y

Essays at the Crossroads of History,Theory, and Philosophy

DARRYL B. HILL

MICHAEL J. KRAL

Editors

S TATE  U NIVERSITY OF  N EW Y ORK  P RESS Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas

Published by State University of New York Press Albany

© 2003 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Jennifer Giovani-Giovani

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

About psychology : essays at the crossroads of history, theory, and philosophy / Darryl B. Hill and Michael J. Kral, editors. p. cm. — (SUNY series, alternatives in psychology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5703-6 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5704-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Psychology—Philosophy. I. Hill, Darryl B., 1963– II. Kral, Michael J., 1956– III. Series.

BF38.A28 2003 150 '.1—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2002075879

Acknowledgments

Contents

Chapter One Convergence and Conjunction at the Crossroads Darryl B. Hill and Michael J. Kral Chapter Two Where History,Theory, and Philosophy Meet:The Biography of Psychological Objects Kurt Danziger Chapter Three The Moral Dimension of Psychological Practice,Theory, and Subject Matter Charles W. Tolman Chapter Four Psychotherapists As Crypto-Missionaries: An Exemplar on the Crossroads of History,Theory, and Philosophy Brent D. Slife, Amy Fisher Smith, and Colin M. Burchfield Chapter Five A Theory of Personhood for Psychology Jack Martin and Jeff Sugarman Chapter Six Self-Esteem and the Demoralized Self: A Geneaology of Self Research and Measurement Scott Greer Chapter Seven Cultural Turns in Psychology Karen M. Seeley

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About Psychology

Chapter Eight Feminists Rethink Gender Meredith M. Kimball Chapter Nine Retrieving the Past for the Future: Boundary Maintenance in Historical and Theoretical Psychology Henderikus J. Stam

Contributors Index

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About Psychology

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Acknowledgments

It is because their definitions are less than clear and increasingly overlapping that bringing history, philosophy, and psychology to a common ground becomes timely and important.Their differences become even less apparent when in critical dialogue.The inspiration for this book came from our experience as past editors of theHistory and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin, the journal/newsletter of the Section on History and Philosophy of Psy- chology of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA).We produced a special issue of theBulletinin 1996 on the convergence of history and philosophy in psychology, in part to explore the rationale behind the name of that publication.We have now invited a larger group of authors to join these reflections on convergence.We are grateful to our colleagues in the History and Philosophy Section of the CPA for creating and continuing the forum for the exchange of ideas about psychology at annual meetings and in theBulletin.The discipline of psychology has been undergoing a self- examination, looking at its relationship to other disciplines and to the cur- rents of theory flowing through the social and human sciences, over the past several decades. It is vital to continue to place this thinking in print.We are privileged to locate this volume in State University of New York Press’s Alternatives in Psychology series, and we thank Senior Editor Jane Bunker for guidance. Michael Kral would like to acknowledge the Department of Anthro- pology at Yale University for providing him with the opportunity as a research affiliate to complete this book in an environmentsin qua nonfor the pursuit of knowledge. Kral was also supported by the Bicentennial Professorship Fund of the Canadian Studies Committee,Yale Center for International and Area Studies. Darryl Hill would like to thank his colleagues and students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Concordia University. We both gratefully acknowledge our student and faculty colleagues at the Department of Psychology, University of Windsor.

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Chapter One

Convergence and Conjunction at the Crossroads

Darryl B. Hill and Michael J. Kral

THE SOCIAL AND HUMAN SCIENCES are undergoing a conceptual transformation.While some of this change is taking place in the method and focus of research, at this time most of it is located in the realm of ideas concerning the theory, history, and philosophy of the human condition. There has been a shifting over the last century, and especially during the latter half of the 20th century, from a classical science approach to a more hermeneutic mode of thinking about the study and understanding of people. Rabinow and Sullivan (1979) describe this interpretive turn in the social sciences as refocusing attention onto “the concrete varieties of cultural meaning, in their particularity and complex texture,” where cultural mean- ing is “intersubjective and irreducibly fundamental to understanding” (p. 5). Modeling themselves after the hard sciences, the social sciences have reached a limit to understanding. By looking across disciplines and into other epis- temologies, a rethinking has swept the social sciences. “Re-thinking is the order of the day” (p. xvii), according to Goodman and Fisher (1995), who point out that the overarching problem is one of knowledge: its meaning, values, methods of inquiry, and applications.

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