Csaba Pléh : Laying the Foundations of Independent Psychology

Part of a two-volume series, this book offers a multicentric perspective on the history of psychology, situating its development in relation to developments made in other social sciences and philosophical disciplines. This first volume, Laying the Foundations of Independent Psychology, provides a detailed exploration of the origins and development of European psychology. The book examines psychology’s beginnings as an independent discipline in the late 19th century through to the emergence of the dominant new schools of behaviorism, Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis in the early 1900s. This volume also offers a broad overview of the early impact of Darwinism, not only on the psychological study of individual differences and on American functionalism, but also on the early evolutionary treatments of cognition in William James, James Baldwin, Ernst Mach and even Sigmund Freud. Taking this wider perspective, the book shows that European psychology was continuously present and active, placing these European developments in their own context in their own time. An invaluable introductory text for undergraduate students of the history of psychology, the book will also appeal to postgraduates, academics and those interested in psychology or the history of science, as well as graduate students of psychology, biology, sociology and anthropology with a theoretical interest.