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. Review Quotes: B. C. Beins, Ithaca College | Choice “[Vidal] draws a compelling picture of psychology’s shift from philosophy and religion to science. . . . Recommended.” Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands. | Journal of the History of Medicine "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." Jörgen L. Pind, University of Iceland | British Journal for the History of Science “[A] highly significant contribution to the early history of psychology. It will be indispensable for any further study of the origins of modern psychology.” Robert J. Richards, University of Chicago “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.” Gary Hatfield, author of Perception & Cognition: Essays in the Philosophy of Psychology “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.” Martin Mulsow, University of Erfurt “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.” Contents: List of Figures and Tables Ad Limen Chapter 1 The “Century of Psychology” Psychology as a “discipline” A long past but a short history? Chapter 2 “Psychology” in the Sixteenth Century: A Project in the Making? The function of the neologism “psychology” Aristotelianism and Galenism Psychologia and the scientia de anima Rudolph Goclenius’s Psychologia Chapter 3 From the Science of the Living Being to the Science of the Human Mind Psychology as the generic science of the living being Psychologia and empsychologia On whether de anima books can themselves constitute a science From soul-form to soul-mind Psychology as a metaphysics of the rational soul The new psychology: Christian Wolff Chapter 4 Psychology in the Age of Enlightenment Psychology, anthropology and the human sciences A Republic of Letters Methodological discussions in Enlightenment psychology “The best way to perfect this fine Science” Chapter 5 Historicizing Psychology Inventing a bibliographic tradition Constructing a history for psychology “Psychologiae historico-criticae speciminae” The history of the “theory of ideas” Philosophers write the history of psychology Chapter 6 Psychology and the History of Humankind Friedrich August Carus and the “history of humanity” The primitives and the ancients Toward a total history of psychology The psychology of the Hebrews Homeric psychology Chapter 7 Anthropology’s Place in the Encyclopedias Enlightenment encyclopedias The Syntax of the Encyclopédies The Paris and Yverdon Encyclopédies The “Systèmes figurés” Anthropology in the text The anthropological transformation of morals Chapter 8 Human Perfectibility and the Primacy of Psychology Psychology in the Paris Encyclopédie Psychology in the Yverdon Encyclopédie The fields claimed for psychology Metaphysics Logic Morals The psycho-anthropology of perfectibility The union and interaction of the soul and the body Chapter 9 Psychology, the Body and Personal Identity The soul, the body and the “completeness of the nerve” Psycho-theology and “modern identity” The body in resurrection The loss of the body The seed and the brain The emergence of the cerebral subject Appendix I The Two Editions of Goclenius’s Psychologia Appendix II ANTHROPOLOGIE and PSYCHOLOGIE in the Paris and Yverdon Encyclopédies Appendix III Articles from the Yverdon Encyclopédie Belonging to Psychology and Their Place in the Paris Encyclopédie Bibliography Index
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