Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical psychology as a branch of natural science. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and (...) to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. These investigators typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. (shrink)

The importance of Adam Ferguson as part of the Scottish Enlightenment has been well established, with concentration on his social and political thought. George Turnbull has not been as well studied, but the valuable recent anthology by M. A. Stewart and Paul Wood has incited new interest. This paper selects a narrow aspect of their thought, their views on the social role of knowledge, which show common as well as complementary aspects. As educators who published their enhanced class notes, their (...) concern for providing positive motivations for their students is evident from their writings. Moral philosophy courses in general attempted to prepare graduates to assume responsible roles in society. Turnbull emphasizes the inspirational value of order and beauty in nature, while Ferguson's particular interest is in the value of learning efforts and knowledge development as part of the cumulative progress of civilization. We believe that a joint review of their thought can provide a rich source of possibly inspirational and motivational themes that could be helpful for professionals and educators in any culture. These topics are discussed here in the broader context of the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

Jacob Viner introduced the term ‘sub-rational’ to characterize the faculties – human instinct, sentiment and intuition – that fall between animal instinct and full-blown reason. The Scots considered sympathy both an affective and a physiological link between mind and body, and by natural history, they traced the most foundational societal institutions – language and law, money and property – to a sub-rational origin. Their ‘social evolutionism’ anticipated Darwin's ‘dangerous idea’ that humans differ from the lower animals only in degree, not (...) in kind. Darwin had the ability to ‘trade places in the imagination’, as Adam Smith would say, with plants and animals, and ‘think’ as they do. The trend today is to ‘positivize,’ ‘behaviorize’ and otherwise reduce the sub-rational to the purely biological. My suggestion is that we trade places in the imagination with the Scottish moral scientists and Darwin, and try thinking as they did. (shrink)

Although a number of commentators have remarked upon the simi larities between aspects of George Herbert Mead's social psychology and Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, there has been no sys tematic attempt to document the connection. This article attempts to do precisely that. First, the legitimacy of the connection is established by showing the likelihood that Mead knew this particular work by Smith, and by bringing together the various treatments of the matter made by commentators. Since Mead himself does (...) not reference Smith's theory, however, the continuity can be demonstrated only on the level of ideas. Second, then, the movement of Mead's thought is recon structed through the terms 'individual' and 'social epistemology'. An account based upon the former posits self-consciousness as the pre condition for knowledge about others, while the latter makes the development of self dependent on a concept of community. Mead's div ision of the self into the 'I' and the 'me' is central in forcing the shift from the one to the other. Smith's account of moral action, it is then argued, rests upon the same logic. His ideas of 'changing roles in the fancy', the 'impartial spectator', and division of the self, parallel Mead's 'taking the role of the other' and discussion of the self. The 'ideal' spec tator corresponds to Mead's 'generalized other'. The article concludes by drawing a parallel between Mead and Smith on the universal facts of human nature and the moral community. (shrink)