The Sciences of the Soul – The Early Modern Origins of Psychology

Author:   Fernando Vidal ,  Saskia Brown
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
ISBN:  

9780226710365


Pages:   432
Publication Date:   17 July 2020
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Our Price $70.95 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

The Sciences of the Soul – The Early Modern Origins of Psychology


Add your own review!

Overview

Fernando Vidal’s trailblazing text on the origins of psychology traces the development of the discipline from its appearance in the late sixteenth century to its redefinition at the end of the seventeenth and its emergence as an institutionalized field in the eighteenth. Originally published in 2011, The Sciences of the Soul continues to be of wide importance in the history and philosophy of psychology, the history of the human sciences more generally, and in the social and intellectual history of eighteenth-century Europe.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fernando Vidal ,  Saskia Brown
Publisher:   The University of Chicago Press
Imprint:   University of Chicago Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.30cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.544kg
ISBN:  

9780226710365


ISBN 10:   022671036
Pages:   432
Publication Date:   17 July 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables  Ad Limen Chapter 1 The “Century of Psychology”      Psychology as a “discipline”      A long past but a short history? Chapter 2 “Psychology” in the Sixteenth Century: A Project in the Making?     The function of the neologism “psychology”      Aristotelianism and Galenism      Psychologia and the scientia de anima      Rudolph Goclenius’s Psychologia Chapter 3 From the Science of the Living Being to the Science of the Human Mind      Psychology as the generic science of the living being      Psychologia and empsychologia      On whether de anima books can themselves constitute a science      From soul-form to soul-mind      Psychology as a metaphysics of the rational soul      The new psychology: Christian Wolff Chapter 4 Psychology in the Age of Enlightenment      Psychology, anthropology and the human sciences      A Republic of Letters      Methodological discussions in Enlightenment psychology          “The best way to perfect this fine Science” Chapter 5 Historicizing Psychology      Inventing a bibliographic tradition      Constructing a history for psychology      “Psychologiae historico-criticae speciminae”      The history of the “theory of ideas”      Philosophers write the history of psychology Chapter 6 Psychology and the History of Humankind      Friedrich August Carus and the “history of humanity”      The primitives and the ancients      Toward a total history of psychology      The psychology of the Hebrews      Homeric psychology Chapter 7 Anthropology’s Place in the Encyclopedias      Enlightenment encyclopedias           The Syntax of the Encyclopédies      The Paris and Yverdon Encyclopédies      The “Systèmes figurés”      Anthropology in the text      The anthropological transformation of morals Chapter 8 Human Perfectibility and the Primacy of Psychology      Psychology in the Paris Encyclopédie      Psychology in the Yverdon Encyclopédie      The fields claimed for psychology         Metaphysics         Logic         Morals      The psycho-anthropology of perfectibility         The union and interaction of the soul and the body Chapter 9 Psychology, the Body and Personal Identity       The soul, the body and the “completeness of the nerve”      Psycho-theology and “modern identity”          The body in resurrection         The loss of the body         The seed and the brain       The emergence of the cerebral subject Appendix I The Two Editions of Goclenius’s Psychologia Appendix II ANTHROPOLOGIE and PSYCHOLOGIE in the Paris and Yverdon Encyclopédies Appendix III Articles from the Yverdon Encyclopédie Belonging to Psychology and Their Place in the Paris Encyclopédie Bibliography Index

Reviews

[A] highly significant contribution to the early history of psychology. It will be indispensable for any further study of the origins of modern psychology. --Joergen L. Pind, University of Iceland British Journal for the History of Science A much more nuanced and textured view of the eighteenth-century sciences of mind than has hitherto been available. --L. S. Jacyna Annals of Science Ambitious, erudite, and stimulating. --Michael Edwards Social History of Medicine Highly informative and well-documented. . . . A great book, which has the merit of reshaping completely the historical framework within which the early modern origins of psychology must be understood. --Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences It brings to light a lost continent of literature that has yet to make its appearance in the standard textbooks on the history of psychology. It also provides us with the missing link between Aristotle's work on the soul and the modern discipline of psychology that usually considers itself to be a science. --Adrian Brock Centaurus Firm scholarly conviction has it that psychology began as a scientific discipline only in the last part of the nineteenth century. Fernando Vidal thoroughly overturns that assumption in his compelling historical reconstruction of the development of psychology from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. He shows how the concept of soul, initially caught in scholastic rationalism, underwent an empirical transformation from the form of the body to the activities of the mind, a mind whose intense thought had been compared to 'a ligature applied to all of the nerves.' By contrast, Vidal's work--linguistically adroit, amazingly comprehensive, and scholarly satisfying--releases the nervous fluids to invigorate the mind of the reader. No other history comes close to his exquisite accomplishment. --Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago The Sciences of the Soul is clearly the product of a substantial period of sustained research. It will set the framework for research in the history of psychology in the period from 1600 to 1850 for many years to come and will also entail changes in the usual discussion of the 'origin' of psychology as a discipline. --Gary Hatfield, author of Perception & Cognition: Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology [Vidal] draws a compelling picture of psychology's shift from philosophy and religion to science. . . . Recommended. --B. C. Beins, Ithaca College Choice This is a very impressive book, a work of high and original scholarship. Vidal follows the history of the concept of 'psychologia' from the sixteenth century and argues that even without there being already a 'discipline, ' one can talk of a sound psychological thinking from that time on. Vidal demonstrates how key ideas of eighteenth-century 'psychology'--the concept of the esprit humain; the connections between anthropology, psychology, and moral sciences; and the notion of perfectibility--found their beginnings in the sixteenth century. The Sciences of the Soul will be the standard reference work on early modern 'psychology' for specialists in psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and the history of science. --Martin Mulsow, University of Erfurt


Firm scholarly conviction has it that psychology began as a scientific discipline only in the last part of the nineteenth century. Fernando Vidal thoroughly overturns that assumption in his compelling historical reconstruction of the development of psychology from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. He shows how the concept of soul, initially caught in scholastic rationalism, underwent an empirical transformation from the form of the body to the activities of the mind, a mind whose intense thought had been compared to 'a ligature applied to all of the nerves.' By contrast, Vidal's work--linguistically adroit, amazingly comprehensive, and scholarly satisfying--releases the nervous fluids to invigorate the mind of the reader. No other history comes close to his exquisite accomplishment. --Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago [A] highly significant contribution to the early history of psychology. It will be indispensable for any further study of the origins of modern psychology. --Joergen L. Pind, University of Iceland British Journal for the History of Science Highly informative and well-documented. . . . A great book, which has the merit of reshaping completely the historical framework within which the early modern origins of psychology must be understood. --Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Journal of the History of Medicine The Sciences of the Soul is clearly the product of a substantial period of sustained research. It will set the framework for research in the history of psychology in the period from 1600 to 1850 for many years to come and will also entail changes in the usual discussion of the 'origin' of psychology as a discipline. --Gary Hatfield, author of Perception & Cognition: Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology [Vidal] draws a compelling picture of psychology's shift from philosophy and religion to science. . . . Recommended. --B. C. Beins, Ithaca College Choice This is a very impressive book, a work of high and original scholarship. Vidal follows the history of the concept of 'psychologia' from the sixteenth century and argues that even without there being already a 'discipline, ' one can talk of a sound psychological thinking from that time on. Vidal demonstrates how key ideas of eighteenth-century 'psychology'--the concept of the esprit humain; the connections between anthropology, psychology, and moral sciences; and the notion of perfectibility--found their beginnings in the sixteenth century. The Sciences of the Soul will be the standard reference work on early modern 'psychology' for specialists in psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and the history of science. --Martin Mulsow, University of Erfurt


Author Information

Fernando Vidal is research professor at the ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) and professor at the Medical Anthropology Research Center at Rovira i Virgili University in Spain. His most recent book, co-authored with Francisco Ortega, is Being Brains: Making the Cerebral Subject. Saskia Brown has translated many books from French, including Homo Juridicus: On the Anthropological Function of the Law by Alain Supiot

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

ls

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List