"Students who work with this book will emerge with an education in the best sense. They will interact on paper with the greatest thinkers on or in psychology. That does not happen often enough."
-James H. Korn, Saint Louis University
"A wonderful resource collection of 'original source material.' I appreciate the cluster of readings by topic as well as the date."
-James Uchtenberg, University of Kansas
Through carefully selected and extensively annotated original sources, Foundations of Psychological Thought: A History of Psychology deals with some of the most important issues and ideas in the history of psychological thought. Defining questions such as "How do we distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior?" and "How much of our behavior is biologically determined?" are posed throughout the book.
By providing context, background, and interpretation, the editors make the material more accessible to contemporary students. The editors' annotations, found throughout the readings, provide straightforward information about the original text-definitions, translations, underlying assumptions, important contexts, and related ideas. While the readings stretch back as far as the seventeenth century, there are also articles from the past thirty years, showing the evolution of ideas and emphasizing that these topics are still very much with us.
Key Features
Provides meaningfully organized material: Each section of the reader addresses a fundamental question in the field of psychology.
Helps students comprehend original sources: Introductions and extensive annotations encapsulate main ideas, provide important context, highlight significant psychological and historical points, and draw connections among sections and readings.
Pedagogical advantages: Elements such as introductions, annotations, suggestions for further readings, discussion questions, and line numbering make it easy for instructors and students to use this book.
Intended Audience
Foundations of Psychological Thought is an ideal primary or supplemental text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in the History of Psychology and for honors-level Introductory Psychology or Capstone courses in departments of psychology.
"Through carefully selected and extensively annotated original sources, Foundations of Psychological Thought deals with some of the most important issues and ideas in the history of psychological thought."
-Savannah Jones, SirReadaLot.org
"It's clear that the authors are very familiar with their sources, and have really thought about which words, phrases, and implicit assumptions might prove troublesome for student readers."
-Roger J. Kreuz, University of Memphis
PART 1: THE MIND AND THE BODY
1.1 René Descartes (1596-1650) - The Passions of the Soul (1649)
1.2 William James (1842-1910) - Psychology (1892)
1.3 Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) - Outlines of Psychology (1897)
1.4 Alan Turing (1912-1954) - Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950)
1.5 John Searle (b. 1932) - Minds, Brains, and Science (1984)
PART 2: PERCEIVING
2.1 George Berkeley (1685-1753) - An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
2.2 Thomas Reid (1710-1796) - Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785)
2.3 Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) - Treatise on Physiological Optics (1867)
2.4 J. J. Gibson (1904-1979) - The Perception of the Visual World (1950)
2.5 David Marr (1945-1980) - Visual Information Processing: The Structure and Creation of Visual Representations (1980)
PART 3: OPENING THE BLACK BOX
3.1 F. C. Donders (1818-1889) - On the Speed of Mental Processes (1868-1869)
3.2 E. B. Titchener (1867-1927) - An Outline of Psychology (1896)
3.3 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901)
3.4 Herbert Simon (1916-2001) and Kenneth Kotovsky (b. 1939) - Human Acquisition of Concepts for Sequential Patterns (1963)
3.5 B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) - About Behaviorism (1974)
3.6 Michael I. Posner (b. 1936), Steven F. Petersen (b. 1952), Peter T. Fox (b. 1951), and Marcus E. Raichle (b. 1937) - Localization of Cognitive Operations in the Human Brain (1988)
PART 4: NATIVISM AND EMPIRICISM aka HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT
4.1 René Descartes (1596-1650) - Notes Directed Against a Certain Programme (1648)
4.2 John Locke (1632-1704) - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
4.3 Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - The Origin of Species (1859)
4.4 Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) - The Facts of Perception (1878)
4.5 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - Instincts and Their Vicissitudes (1915)
4.6 John Watson (1878-1958) - What the Nursery Has to Say About Instincts (1926)
4.7 Keller Breland (1915-1965) and Marian Breland (1920-2001) - The Misbehavior of Organisms (1961)
4.8 Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) - Language and Mind (1968)
PART 5: LEVELS OF EXPLANATION
5.1 Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) - Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms (1923)
5.2 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) - Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex (1927)
5.3 Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) - Experiments in Social Space (1939)
5.4 Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959) - Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men (1948)
5.5 Donald Hebb (1904-1985) - Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory (1949)
5.6 Brenda Milner (b. 1918), Larry R. Squire (b. 1941), and Eric R. Kandel (b. 1929) - Cognitive Neuroscience and the Study of Memory (1998)
PART 6: NORMAL & ABNORMAL
6.1 Benjamin Rush (1746-1813) - Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812)
6.2 Henry J. Wegrocki (1909-1967) - A Critique of Cultural and Statistical Concepts of Abnormality (1939)
6.3 Karen Horney (1885-1952) - Neurosis and Human Growth (1950)
6.4 Evelyn Hooker (1907-1996) - The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual (1957)
6.5 Thomas S. Szasz (b. 1920) - The Myth of Mental Illness (1960)
6.6 Samuel B. Guze (1923-2000) - Biological Psychiatry: Is There Any Other Kind? (1989)
6.7 Corey L. M. Keyes (b. 1962) - The Mental Health Continuum: From Languishing to Flourishing in Life (2002)
