1st Edition

Psychological Knowledge A Social History and Philosophy

By Martin Kusch Copyright 1999
    428 Pages
    by Routledge

    428 Pages
    by Routledge

    Psychologists and philosophers have assumed that psychological knowledge is knowledge about, and held by, the individual mind. Psychological Knowledge challenges these views. It argues that bodies of psychological knowledge are social institutions like money or the monarchy, and that mental states are social artefacts like coins or crowns.
    Martin Kusch takes on arguments of alternative proposals, shows what is wrong with them, and demonstrates how his own social-philosophical approach constitutes an advance. We see that exists a substantial natural amount of philosophical theorising, a body of work that tries to determine the nature and structure of folk psychology.
    Examining the workings of constuctivism, Psychological Knowledge is an invaluable introduction to the history of psychology and the recent philosophy of mind.

    Introduction PART I A social history of psychological knowledge: the controversy over thought psychology in Germany, 1900–20 Introduction to Part I 1 The Würzburgers 2 Friends and foes 3 Recluse or drillmaster versus interlocutor and interrogator 4 Purist versus promiscuist 5 Collectivist versus individualist 6 Protestant versus Catholic 7 Conclusions PART II The sociophilosophy of folk psychology Introduction to Part II 8 The folk psychology debate 9 Folk psychology as a social institution

    Biography

    Martin Kusch is Lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He is also the author of Psychologism, Foucault’s Strata and Fields and Language as Calculus vs. Language as the Universal Medium.

    'This work is a model of clarity ... It is written by an author fully in command of his material, seeking to advance debate by serious engagement with much serious literature.' - History of Psychiatry