Review by Choice Review
"Psychology has a long past, but a short history," according to German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. With the present book, psychology's history becomes a little longer. Vidal (research scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) establishes the path of psychological thought from the 18th century to its inception as the laboratory discipline of Wilhelm Wundt. As Vidal points out, some mid-16th-century work incorporated the term "psychology" in the title, but the treatment was purely philosophical. By the early 18th century, psychology had begun to acquire empirical trappings, dealing with issues of sensation, perception, logic, and thought; this approach was based in empirical philosophy but was moving inexorably toward the methodological empiricism that characterizes psychology today. This volume provides an interesting look at the evolution of ideas about the relation between the soul and the external world and about the translation of sensory stimuli to thought, the focus of the research in the first psychological laboratories. The ideas in the book are complex, and readers with basic knowledge of European philosophy will have an easier time with the connections between ideas, but the author draws a compelling picture of psychology's shift from philosophy and religion to science. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. B. C. Beins Ithaca College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
