The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Davis - Elements of Psychology
The remarkable growth of interest in the study of Psychology in America within the last five years is, perhaps, not less shown in the establishment of psychological laboratories in most of the larger universities than in the multiplication of text-books. Within the short six months of the life of the Philosophical Review, the manuals of Baldwin and James have called for recognition, and the ink is hardly dry on the last-named work before Professor Davis's Elements of Psychology appears in the field. But if Professor Davis's Elements is in part a result of the awakening interest in the study of psychology, there is little evidence that those especial tendencies of the "Zeitgeist" which have led to the establishment of the laboratories, have had a strongly formative influence in the writing of the book, unless perhaps in a reactionary way. If it cannot be said that the work is as it would have been had no advance in psychological investigation been made during the last fifteen years, it must be said that neither by references to literature nor by summaries of results is there any indication of the existence of most of the later experimental researches.
To "physiological psychology," the author devotes twelve pages of his introduction, at the end of which he quotes approvingly Ladd's dictum in regard to the final validity of the introspective method, and closes with saying, " Let us then pass on to the study of the pure psychology, . . . fully persuaded . . . that it can never be superseded so long as there are subjective facts to be investigated, so long as consciousness is the ultimate ground of all science."
It is, in many respects, unfortunate that the name "objective method" should have attached itself to experimental psychology, and that it should have thus been set over against "introspection," regarded as the "subjective method." For, indeed, experiment simply gives an enormous increase of reach and accuracy to introspection, making it, what unassisted it rarely is, trustworthy. The real contrast in method is between subjective psychology, on one hand, whether carried on with or without instrumental aid, and objective psychology, on the other hand, embracing child, animal, and folk psychology. "I assert," says Wundt [Phil. Stud., IV, 307], "that the application of the experimental method not only makes possible a relatively exact self-observation, but that it is the very best kind of exercise — and a kind which can be replaced by no other — for sharpening the attention in observing the objects of inner experience." And again [ibid. 307], "Experiment not only requires of us self-observation, but it is in truth the only way that is fitted for making self-observation exact, because it permits us to repeat at will not merely the more or less changed memory pictures of psychological processes, but the very processes themselves."
In devoting but a small space — nine pages — to the Nervous Organism, and in referring students for a more extended knowledge of the subject to text-books on physiology, the author sets an example which may be profitably followed by future writers of text- books on psychology. The time has come, or is fast coining, when a text-book of psychology will devote itself wholly to psychological problems, and will not be loaded down with elementary physics and nerve-physiology. But a glance at the table of contents of the book before us does not seem to indicate that it is for the sake of limiting himself to purely psychological questions that Professor Davis has so little to say about nerves, and ether-waves, and sound-waves. The comparatively long chapters on "Pure Intuition," "Origin of Pure Truth," "Mind and Matter," are, as the titles indicate, epistemological and metaphysical, and the right which the author reserves (p. 49) to "freely transgress the limits of empirical psychology and touch upon metaphysical inquiries" is freely exercised throughout the book. The chapter on "Thought" is for the most part logical in its treatment, as indeed the standpoint throughout is logical rather than psychological.
It seems in many respects a pity that the author should have given to the work the name "Psychology" rather than "Introduction to Philosophy"; whether one agree or disagree with the conclusions reached by experimental psychology, such is the richness and authoritative character of the evidence it presents, that no text- book in psychology can be regarded as wholly fulfilling its function which does not give a critical estimate of the bearing of this evidence on the past laws affected by it. The present writer has no desire to exalt psychology at the expense of metaphysics and epistemology; on the contrary, he considers that in separating themselves from psychology these sciences gain not less in value and definition than psychology; but he cannot concede that the discussion of epistemological and metaphysical questions belongs properly to a treatise on psychology.
While, therefore, it cannot be said that the contents of Professor Davis's work wholly warrant the name "Psychology," its scope is such as to include much the same ground as that covered by a German Einleitung in die Philosophie. And for the purpose of acquainting the student with the more important problems of psychology, and with the general philosophical questions underlying them, the work may be recommended.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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