The Evolution of Psychological Theory

First published in 1982. Is there any point to studying the historical development of psychological theory, apart from the antiquarian interest of finding out who said what, when? This book is offered in the belief that there is. It is that such a study can provide valuable background for a critical, analytical, and-in the healthy, liberating sense of the term-skeptical understanding of the psychological conceptions and presuppositions of the present. This has been the author's aim throughout, and it has determined both the selection of materials and the manner in which they are presented. Although the book is not a textbook in the conventional sense of the term (i.e., a comprehensive summary of everything a student needs to know), it was written with students in mind, and could be read with profit by students in a number of areas of psychological study.

Richard Lowry

Introduction PART L THE NEW BEGINNINGS: 1650-1800 1. The Seventeenth Century 2. Mental Mechanism 3. Physiological Mechanism 4. The New Image of Human Nature PART II. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 5. The New German Mechanism 6. Psychophysics and the New Psychology 7. The Impact of Darwin 8. William James PART III. THE THRESHOLD OF THE PRESENT 9. Psychoanalysis I: Sources 10. Psychoanalysis II: The General Theory 11. Gestalt Theory: The New Physicalism 1890-1912 12. Behaviorism I: The Advent of the Behaviorists 13. Behaviorism II: The Full Flowering 14. Epilogue: Ideals and Over-Beliefs