eBook An Intellectual History of Psychology download

For a terrifyingly broad subject matter that could in itself fill a library - this book manages to do a great job in giving the gist of how human thinking tended to evolve from classical antiquity to modern psychology. Robinson doesn't make the mistake of explaining the old in terms of the new. The idea of how political and economic realities shaped the philosophy of psychology are particularly interesting. Take for example, that Medieval Christians believed in a continuous rebirth, and mortal life was simply taken as one life instead of the only life. This led to a relatively less serious attempt to understand how we behaved in this life, as this was taken as a simple 'phase' unworthy of study.

Prominent thinkers did not have the luxury of the being able to collect large samples of evidence and use the scientific method to make inferences of how humans behave in general. What can be appreciated about this book is that it doesn't dismiss any belief as 'irrational' or 'superstitious' but as a train of thought that was understandable in context of the realities in which the philosophy was developed. Something that impressed me was the ability to reconcile the two major intellectual traditions of Hellenistic-Roman philosophy grounded in Aristotle and Plato and the Judeo-Christian tradition. To the "politically correct" reader - this book is a bit eurocentric, but this bias is something that is prevalent in the field of psychology in general, most participants and experiments involve Western populations.

To those who are looking into cultural movements, he promotes the idea that the Renaissance 'period' and the development of secular thought such as humanistic psychology resulted in a slow transition that led to the modern overthrow of theology by economics. The purpose of life was no longer to seek redemption or cleanse oneself but better one's self through improving one's material condition. The view of personality and education in the Renaissance took a democratic shape where people "evolved until a person has chosen a role for himself." It was in Renaissance Florence that played as a testing ground for an experiment where everyone thought they had limitless possibilities, unperturbed by mortality - modern-day New York being a key example of this project. On the other hand, Savonarola ("bonfire of the vanities") questioned the idea that man is dignified and endowed with divine promise by virtue of simply being human. The modern conception of psychology can somewhat be understood as an extension of the idea that man isn't after all made in "God's image" but is susceptible to hundreds of biases and cognitive distortions that are a product of our evolutionary endowment.

The shortfalls of each idea are succinctly captured, while simultaneously holding the view that each thought has an underlying rationale or that some deficit of knowledge forced some to take a mystical leap to explain things in terms of divine forces or supernatural entities like spirits. This exploration of ideas and their fallibility means that this book can be used a history of epistemology.

The author himself admits to dealing with some traditions in a monolithic way, by branding them into some '-isms', ('macro commentary) but unfortunately, in any commentary of this kind, running into this problem is inevitable - the real trick is how to minimize its effects. If a reader is easily bored by academic texts, this doesn't read like a popular science book. It's style is analytical and captivates you through its insights and not the way it reads. However, the lack of journalistic touch gives the work more legitimacy, so by no means is this a criticism. The best place to read this book would be over a long stretch of free time such as a eight plus hour plane journey, otherwise one would be inclined to drop it if he or she considered it casual or pleasure reading. No use of jargon in employed He relies excessively on quotations, meaning that the author is not championing some revisionist account of Psychology or making a radical commentary, but simply compiling a historical document. As with any other work of history, one's skepticism hat should always be on - history is a narrative discipline and it is very easy to make simplistic narratives that are reductive of the true complexity of the development of human psychology.

I should mention that the greatest power of this book is to give more consequence to the ideas and philosophies than to the figures that conceived those ideas. This makes it a true history of psychology, not a history of thinkers of psychology.

I am a fan of Prof. Robinson's having listened to several of his courses on philosophy from the Teaching Company. I have not read the book in its entirety yet but it looks consistent with his deep knowledge of the subject and erudite presentation.
An added plus is the nice binding- it is very sturdily hardbound with gilding on the front and edges. A welcome relief from the unrelieved paperbackness of most college texts.

This book provides a unique approach to telling the history of psychology and does a great job in tying a historical perspective of people and events. It helped me gain a greater understanding of the history of psychology. I recommend this book to anyone studying psych or has a general interest in expanding their knowledge of psychology. It can be a bit of a dry read (much like a text book), but I enjoy that style and this book kept me interested. GREAT FOR FIRST YEAR PSYCH STUDENTS!!!

The book is interesting, but a bit dense. Robinson expects you to have a pretty through knowledge of history as well.

Content and approach are excellent, but the author enjoys being purposefully obtuse. It's not an effective way of gleaning information, but if you want a philosophical thought experiment, go for it.

Wonderful, thoughtful work. Well-written journey through 2000 plus years of thought on human psychology. Fascinating to see how we change directions as to what psychology consists in as an academic discipline (we currently appear rather rudder-less -- devolving in bad biology of the brain; the book was written prior to this new, unfortunate chapter in the discipline's metamorphosis).

Highly recommend. A bit too much for teaching to undergrads taking intro psychology -- but greatly superior to the "and now this" approach of modern texts on the topic.

Great!

Very informative history of psychology and theories of knowledge. A great value for anyone interested not only in psychology but intellectual history in general. Well constructed, excellent in style, vast in scope.