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

Vidal, Fernando

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226855864 ISBN 13: 9780226855868

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2012

Synopsis

"The Sciences of the Soul" is the first attempt to explain the development of the disciplinary conception of psychology 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. Fernando Vidal traces this development through university courses and textbooks, encyclopedias, and nonacademic books, as well as through various histories of psychology. Vidal reveals that psychology existed before the eighteenth century essentially as a "physics of the soul", and it belonged as much to natural philosophy as to Christian anthropology. It remained so until the eighteenth century, when the "science of the soul" became the "science of the mind". Vidal demonstrates that this Enlightenment refashioning took place within a Christian framework, and he explores how the preservation of the Christian idea of the soul was essential to the development of the science. Not only were most psychologists convinced that an empirical science of the soul was compatible with Christian faith; their perception that psychology preserved the soul also helped to elevate its rank as an empirical science. Broad-ranging and impeccably researched, this book will 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.

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Review:

"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

"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 "

"[Vidal] draws a compelling picture of psychology's shift from philosophy and religion to science. . . . Recommended."
--B. C. Beins, Ithaca College "Choice "

"[A] highly significant contribution to the early history of psychology. It will be indispensable for any further study of the origins of modern psychology."--Jörgen L. Pind, University of Iceland "British Journal for the History of Science "

"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

"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

About the Author:

Fernando Vidal is a research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He is the author of Piaget before Piaget. Saskia Brown has translated many books from French, including Homo Juridicus: On the Anthropological Function of the Law, by Alain Supiot.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0226855864
• ISBN 13: 9780226855868
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 440