On 2014-04-10, at 3:27 PM, Claudia Stanny wrote:
>
> In the historical context, can we blame Munsterberg?
> As late as the early 1980s, scoffing at the value of a detailed understanding
> of brain function as a constraint on models of memory dominated the culture
> of psychology, even among many cognitive psychologists (with a minimal nod to
> HM and related cases).
>
No, I don't think so. Psychology has always had good "boundary-work" reasons to
keep its distance from neurology. In the late 19th c., consciousness was the
discipline's central term precisely to defend against physiologists who claimed
that psychology wasn't doing anything that physiology hadn't already claimed
for itself. As the consciousness consensus began to break down in the wake of
William James' two 1904 articles ("Does Consciousness Exist?" and "A World of
Pure Experience"), the scramble was on to find something that could similarly
keep the physiologists at bay. "Behavior" was eventually invoked by Watson and
others. By the 1940s, Skinner was claiming that psychologists *shouldn't* be
interested in neurological explanations because that was the business of brain
science (and, by implication, that physiologists should keep their paws off
behavior). But then came the ethologists from Europe with behavior all over
their work. In the late 1950s, the advent of the computer gave psychologists a
new way to talk (apparently) rigorously about the "mental" that didn't
re-invoke the problems of consciousness. But there were always some who worked
on the "border" between the disciplines with technologies like GSR, then EEG,
then CAT and MEG, but when functional MRI broke through in the 1990s, I think,
two things happened: (1) Psychology was well-enough institutionally entrenched
by then that the old worries weren't serious concerns any longer, and (2) the
technology was so compelling (overly compelling, really, considering what it
actually does) that it just couldn't be resisted. Now, we have studies showing
that simply placing an fMRI image on the page next to a poor scientific
argument makes the argument seem more plausible (and, of course, there are the
fMRI readings from dead salmon).
Chris
---
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
[email protected]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
=========================
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 1:59 PM, Christopher Green <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Very interesting response, Mike. I agree with all of it except one thing:
> that "Psychology and Education" was primarily a response to Cattell. If you
> look back at "The Danger from Experimental Psychology," you'll see that,
> about 2/3 the way through, Münsterberg takes a brief swipe at Hall's "Child
> Study," but says he doesn't have time there to deal with the "treat" that it
> poses. The first half of "Psychology and "Education" is where he comes back
> to dismantle Hall questionnaire by questionnaire. Only then does he return to
> the earlier task of explaining why (he thinks) experimental (and
> physiological) psychology has nothing to offer treachers either.
>
> Chris
> ---
> Christopher D. Green
> Department of Psychology
> York University
> Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
> Canada
>
> [email protected]
> http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
> =========================
>
> On 2014-04-10, at 1:49 PM, Mike Palij wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 10 Apr 2014 09:29:28 -0700, Christopher Green wrote:
>>> Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to discuss the
>>> following claim:
>>>
>>> "If the teacher, in the hope of understanding the inner life of
>>> children better, studies the ganglion cells under the microscope,
>>> he could substitute just as well the reading of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
>>> All talk about the brain is, from the standpoint of the teacher, merely
>>> cant."
>>> - Hugo Münsterberg, "Psychology and Education," 1898.
>>
>> NOTE: In 1898, Munsterberg wrote two articles with the title
>> "Psychology and Education": one was in Psychological Review
>>
>> Münsterberg, H. (1898). Psychology and Education. Psychological
>> Review, 5(5), 500-503. doi:10.1037/h0065106
>>
>> And the other was in Educational Review:
>>
>> Munsterberg, H. (1898). Psychology and Education. Educational
>> Review, 16, 105-132.
>>
>> Chris Green's quote is from the latter and is on page 124. The
>> volume for this journal is available on books.google.com and
>> be downloaded for free here:
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=FFEtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA124&dq=%22educational+review%22++ganglion+cells+hieroglyphs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=79NGU9C3Iuy_sQTMnoGgCA&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22educational%20review%22%20%20ganglion%20cells%20hieroglyphs&f=false
>>
>> Munsterberg had stirred up a hornet's nest earlier with the
>> following article:
>>
>> Munsterberg, H (1898). The danger from experimental psychology.
>> The Atlantic Monthly, 81, 159-167,
>>
>> James McKeen Cattell was one person who responded to the
>> Atlantic article (see his response at:
>> http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2005-12819-004 )
>> and Munsterberg was mainly responding to Cattell and other
>> critics in "Psychology and Education" articles. One response
>> to Munsterberg's original article was by Charles Bliss and
>> I quote:
>>
>> "Prof. Munsterberg has not realized the inspiration of the hour.
>> He misses the whole spirit of modern science and American
>> science teaching. He betrays a low ideal of what teaching should
>> be, and an almost intentional ignorance of schoolroom work. He
>> tells us we can't do this and we can't do that, when we are doing
>> these very things every day. (Bliss, 1898, p. 214; Cited by
>> Benjamin 2006)
>> Bliss reference:
>> Bliss, C. B. (1898, April). Professor Munsterberg's attack on
>> experimental psychology. Forum, 214-223.
>>
>> For more on this incident, see Ludy Benjamin's article:
>>
>> Benjamin Jr, L. T. (2006). Hugo Münsterberg's attack on the application of
>> scientific psychology. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 414-425.
>>
>> Finally, after you get your kicks into Munsterberg, take a look at:
>> Spillmann, J., & Spillmann, L. (1993). The rise and fall of Hugo
>> Münsterberg. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 29(4),
>> 322-338.
>>
>> -Mike Palij
>> New York University
>> [email protected]
>>
>>
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