Empiricism is a claim about the contents of the mind: its classic slogan is nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, ‘there is nothing in the mind (intellect, understanding) which is not first in the senses’. As such, it is not a claim about the fundamental nature of the world as material. I focus here on in an instance of what one might term the materialist appropriation of empiricism. One major component in the transition from a purely epistemological (...) claim about the mind and its contents, to an ontological claim about the nature of the world, is the new focus on brain-mind relations in the eighteenth century. Here I examine a Lockean trajectory as exemplified in Joseph Priestley’s 1777 Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. But Locke explicitly ruled out that his inquiry into the logic of ideas amounted to a ‘physical consideration of the mind’. What does it mean, then, for Priestley to present himself as continuing a Lockean tradition, while presenting mental processes as tightly identified with ‘an organical structure such as that of the brain’ (although he was not making a strict identity claim as we might understand it, post-Smart and Armstrong)? One issue here is that of Priestley's source of ‘empirical data’ regarding the correlation and indeed identification of mental and cerebral processes. David Hartley’s theory in his 1749 Observations on Man was, as is well known, republished in abridged form by Priestley, but he discards Hartley's 'vibratory neurophysiology' while retaining the associationist framework, although not because he disagreed with the former. Yet Hartley was at the very least, strongly agnostic about metaphysical issues (and it is difficult to study these authors while bracketing off religious considerations). One could see Locke and Hartley as articulating programs for the study of the mind which were more or less naturalistic (more strongly so in Hartley’s case) while avoiding ‘materialism’ per se; in contrast, Priestley bit the (materialist) bullet. In this paper I examine Priestley’s appropriation and reconstruction of this ‘micro-tradition’, while emphasizing its problems. (shrink)

Psychological terms, such as ‘mind’, ‘memory’, ‘emotion’ and indeed ‘psychology’ itself, have a history. This history, I argue, supports the view that basic psychological categories refer to historical and social entities, and not to ‘natural kinds’. The case is argued through a wide ranging review of the historiography of western psychology, first, in connection with the field’s extreme modern diversity; second, in relation to the possible antecedents of the field in the early modern period; and lastly, through a brief introduction (...) to usage of the words ‘soul’, ‘mind’, ‘memory’ and ‘emotion’. The discussion situates the history of psychology within a large historical context, questions assumptions about the continuity of meaning, and draws out implications for the philosophical and social constitution of ‘psychology’ and ‘the psychological’ from the existing literature. The historical evidence, this paper concludes, does not support the conventional presumption that modern psychological terms describe ‘natural kinds’. (shrink)

Challenges the revised standard historiography on Wundt as a psychologist. Considers the concept of psychology as a natural science. Examines the relations between psychology and philosophy before and after 1900. Reflects on the notion of disciplinehood as it affects historical narratives.

This chapter challenges the view that psychology emerged from philosophy about 1900, when each found its own proper sphere with little relation to the other. It begins by considering the notion of a discipline, defined as a distinct branch of learning. Psychology has been a discipline from the time of Aristotle, though with a wider ambit, to include phenomena of both life and mind. Empirical psychology in a narrower sense arose in the eighteenth century, through the application (in Britain and (...) elsewhere) of the observational attitudes of the physical and life sciences to mental phenomena. The experimental psychology of the latter nineteenth century was a transformation of this empirical psychology, although the British version was characterized by new theoretical conceptions (including evolutionary ideas) as well as new empirical techniques. After surveying psychology in and out of universities in this period, the chapter reviews a taxonomy of “schools” of psychology from 1923. Notice of anti-psychological attitudes in British philosophy before and after 1900 is balanced by considering positive conceptions of psychology’s role in connection with epistemology and the problem of the external world. (shrink)

This paper explores a pair of puzzling and controversial topics in the history of late nineteenth-century philosophy: the psychologism debates, and the nature of neo-Kantianism. Each is sufficientl...

This paper explores a pair of puzzling and controversial topics in the history of late nineteenth-century philosophy: the psychologism debates, and the nature of neo-Kantianism. Each is sufficientl...

It fills an important gap in intellectual history by being the first book to emphasize the enormous intellectual transformation in the eighteenth century, when...