Abstract

Info

Title:: A Theoretical Observation of and Reflection on Some Development Patterns of Western Psychology

Keywords:: Western psychology; development patterns; history of psychology in Germany; history of psychology in America; theoretical transformation of James’ psychology

Abstract:: The idea of psychology as a science emerged during the mid-nineteenth century and has ever been the fundamental landmark by which psychology in the modern sense differs from all of its past forms. The history and its diversified episodes of modern psychology are all contingent forms trying to actualize the necessary idea of psychology as a science. However, on the one hand, the categorical meaning of the idea of psychology as a science is not definite and unequivocal from its inception, the clarification of which, rather, is the aim of the history of modern psychology; on the other hand, the diversified historical episodes of modern psychology are not logically equivalent when viewed from the perspective of attempts to actualize the idea of psychology as a science. Rather, they form a continuum between the two poles of alienation and actualization. By investigating some typical historical episodes of modern psychology, we will discern a general and logically identical developmental pattern in all of them, getting a theoretical insight concerning its indicative significance for the idea of psychology as a science. This, therefore, proves to be one of the most potent ways for our understanding of the categorical meanings behind the idea of psychology as a science.