Overview

Discussing marginality from an analytic perspective and drawing on canonical theories by a diverse set of authors, such as Dilthey, Collingwood, Wittgenstein, Foucault, John McDowell, Susan Carey, Michael Tomasello, and Chris Frith, this book is an important contribution to ongoing debates on marginality among psychiatrists, psychologists, social scientists, and philosophers. Psychology often resorts to overambitious theorizing due to a perceived pressure to justify its scientific credentials. Taking the cases of preverbal children and mentally ill patients, George Tudorie illustrates that applying overarching and unifying explanations to marginal subjects is problematic, arguing instead that those at the margins should be given their proper explanatory autonomy. Tudorie examines recent cognitive theories on early development in children to reveal the difficulties of conceptualising the emergence of human abilities, while also demonstrating how cognitive accounts of psychosis, built around the typical concepts of ‘belief-desire-intention’ psychology, eventually falter. In doing so, he reveals that interpretation is not a route psychology can take at the margins, and calls for a clearer view of explanatory options in marginal cases.

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9781350320956

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Probing the relationship between philosophy and psychology, Tudorie boldly confronts systemic injustices underlying long-held, paradigmatic approaches to explaining the human mind. The arguments presented equip readers to confront mysteries that conventional psychological concepts often subvert. Through investigating the philosophy of psychology, Tudorie examines the language-the conceptual fabric-of norms, deviations, and all that occurs in varying degrees from constructed ideals. Language is revealed as both the means and barricade to acquiring diverse epistemologies for explaining the human mind. Methodically and courageously, Tudorie confronts readers with difficult questions that counter cultural assumptions and create space for nuanced ways of conceiving psychological theory, research, and practice. --Laura Russell, Associate Professor of Communication, Denison University, USA Writing in clear and accessible prose, George Tudorie delivers a rich philosophical history of psychology. Offering sharp insight into the development of a discipline as much as to questions about what it means to be human, Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology is essential reading for students of psychology, but also for scholars interested in the history of consciousness. --Bruce O'Neill, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Saint Louis University, USA George Tudorie's Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology: The Limits of Psychological Explanation is, at first glance, an extraordinarily judicious and subtle critique of the role of philosophical premises in recent psychological and cognitive-scientific research. Tudorie persuasively argues that philosophies presupposing the normal adult mind may not provide a stable conceptual basis for research in developmental psychology and psychopathology. His book also provides a readable and timely history of the sciences of mind. Finally, Tudorie makes an impassioned plea for the importance of methodological precautions and guardrails in the field of psychology and by extension the social sciences in general. Social science, in this case psychology, is perched between natural scientific and humanistic methodologies and remains the problem child (despite and because of the vast scale of its institutionalization). This fundamental insight does not lead Tudorie to an anti-psychological or anti-scientific position. He instead calls for heightened epistemic responsibility based on the clear-eyed recognition that the social sciences are here to stay, and that they are a source of truth-claims we can no longer do without. This essentially practical quality of social scientific knowledge makes it imperative to deal openly with inherited epistemological deficits, which translate into vast real-world human costs. --Kirk Wetters, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, USA In this exciting new book, George Tudorie offers a devastating critique of certain philosophical commitments that remain central to mainstream psychology, with a particular emphasis on the explanatory relation between marginal and paradigmatic cases. Practitioners from across a number of psychological schools would greatly benefit from paying attention to its wealth of insights. Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology: The Limits of Psychological Explanation is a must-read for anybody interested in what psychological explanations can and cannot do. --Constantine Sandis, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, UK

Probing the relationship between philosophy and psychology, Tudorie boldly confronts systemic injustices underlying long-held, paradigmatic approaches to explaining the human mind. The arguments presented equip readers to confront mysteries that conventional psychological concepts often subvert. Through investigating the philosophy of psychology, Tudorie examines the language-the conceptual fabric-of norms, deviations, and all that occurs in varying degrees from constructed ideals. Language is revealed as both the means and barricade to acquiring diverse epistemologies for explaining the human mind. Methodically and courageously, Tudorie confronts readers with difficult questions that counter cultural assumptions and create space for nuanced ways of conceiving psychological theory, research, and practice. * Laura Russell, Associate Professor of Communication, Denison University, USA * Writing in clear and accessible prose, George Tudorie delivers a rich philosophical history of psychology. Offering sharp insight into the development of a discipline as much as to questions about what it means to be human, Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology is essential reading for students of psychology, but also for scholars interested in the history of consciousness. * Bruce O'Neill, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Saint Louis University, USA * George Tudorie's Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology: The Limits of Psychological Explanation is, at first glance, an extraordinarily judicious and subtle critique of the role of philosophical premises in recent psychological and cognitive-scientific research. Tudorie persuasively argues that philosophies presupposing the normal adult mind may not provide a stable conceptual basis for research in developmental psychology and psychopathology. His book also provides a readable and timely history of the sciences of mind. Finally, Tudorie makes an impassioned plea for the importance of methodological precautions and guardrails in the field of psychology and by extension the social sciences in general. Social science, in this case psychology, is perched between natural scientific and humanistic methodologies and remains the problem child (despite and because of the vast scale of its institutionalization). This fundamental insight does not lead Tudorie to an anti-psychological or anti-scientific position. He instead calls for heightened epistemic responsibility based on the clear-eyed recognition that the social sciences are here to stay, and that they are a source of truth-claims we can no longer do without. This essentially practical quality of social scientific knowledge makes it imperative to deal openly with inherited epistemological deficits, which translate into vast real-world human costs. * Kirk Wetters, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University, USA * In this exciting new book, George Tudorie offers a devastating critique of certain philosophical commitments that remain central to mainstream psychology, with a particular emphasis on the explanatory relation between marginal and paradigmatic cases. Practitioners from across a number of psychological schools would greatly benefit from paying attention to its wealth of insights. Marginality in Philosophy and Psychology: The Limits of Psychological Explanation is a must-read for anybody interested in what psychological explanations can and cannot do. * Constantine Sandis, Professor of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, UK *

Author Information

George Tudorie is Lecturer at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration in Bucharest, Romania.

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