Why the History of Psychology should matter to Philosophers
Sandra Lapointe (McMaster University)

January 20, 2017, 9:00am - 10:30am
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario

Stevenson Lawson Hall 1145
1151 Richmond Street
London N6A 5B8
Canada

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The emergence, over the course of the last two hundred years, of new empirically based research programs in sciences such as psychology that co-opt domains of investigation that traditionally belonged to philosophy raises some important questions as regards the approach that is best suited to the history of the study of mind. Psychology has deep historical connection to philosophy and the same kinds of connections are at the heart of current cross-disciplinary research on, e.g. perception, emotions and communication. Yet, their respective histories are almost perfectly disjointed. What’s more there are important differences in the underlying historical approaches. While History of Psychology remains a curriculum requirement in most Psychology Departments in North America, the role it plays in students’ training or academic research is at best marginal. By contrast, the history of the philosophical study of mind is an intrinsic part of any philosophical training. Arguably a better understanding of the common history of the two disciplines is relevant to determining their potential for collaboration in the future. But how is such a “common” history really possible? To the extent that the history of philosophy is presumed to be distinctively philosophical, one should want to gain clarity on what makes it different from other similar enterprises: sociological history, the history of scientific disciplines, sociology of knowledge cultural and intellectual history. While some of the methodological questions that need to be answered belong to the foundations of an adequate approach in general, there are challenges that are specific to the philosophy of mind. The paper aims at defining an approach that could do justice to the cross-disciplinary character of the history of the study of mind. 

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