http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1352886

Psychology

"Any book, written as this one is, expressly for use in class-room instruction, must meet one question with which text-books outside the realm of philosophy are not harassed. What shall be its attitude towards philosophic principles? The older works, indeed, were not so much troubled by it, for it is only recently that psychology has attained any independent standing. As long as psychology was largely a compound of logic, ethics, and metaphysics, the only thing possible was to serve this compound, mingled with extracts from the history of philosophy. But at present, aside from the fact that there is already an abundance of text-books of this style, which it were idle to increase, psychology seems deserving of a treatment on its own account. On the other hand, there are books which attempt to leave behind all purely philosophic considerations, and confine themselves to the facts of scientific psychology. One essential element in the situation is that it is the custom of our colleges to make psychology the path by which to enter the fields of philosophy. How, then, shall we unite the advantages of each class of text-books? That is to say, how shall we make our psychology scientific and up to the times, free from metaphysics--which, however good in its place, is out of place in a psychology--and at the same time make it an introduction to philosophy in general? While I cannot hope to have succeeded in presenting a psychology which shall satisfactorily answer this question, it does appear to me an advantage to have kept this question in mind, and to have written with reference to it. I have accordingly endeavored to avoid all material not strictly psychological, and to reflect the investigations of scientific specialists in this branch; but I have also endeavored to arrange the material in such a way as to lead naturally and easily to the problems which the student will meet in his further studies, to suggest the principles along which they will find their solutions, and, above all, to develop the philosophic spirit. I am sure that there is a way of raising questions, and of looking at them, which is philosophic; a way which the beginner can find more easily in psychology than elsewhere, and which, when found, is the best possible introduction to all specific philosophic questions. The following pages are the author's attempt to help the student upon this way"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

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