Abstract
This chapter, of my own authorship, focuses on the historical fact that William Stern developed his critically personalistic perspective in psychology at a time of ever broadening advocacy among psychologists for severing their discipline’s ties to philosophy. Firmly opposed to that prospect, Stern understood that such a severance would in time blunt psychologists’ facility with the conceptual issues that inevitably arise in any scientific discipline alongside its empirical and methodological concerns, and that such a development would ultimately undermine the integrity of psychology as a genuinely scientific discipline. The cleft between psychology and philosophy did materialize, however, in time transforming psychology into what has become a highly scientistic discipline. It is argued that until mainstream psychology recognizes once again the extent to which conceptual work matters, the rich possibilities for the field offered by Stern’s critically personalistic vision will remain unrealized.
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Notes
- 1.
William Whewell lived from 1794–1866.
- 2.
The cited reference here is to my English translation of the entirety of Stern’s 1917 monograph.
- 3.
It is of relevance to point out here that Stern stipulated as a precondition of his accepting the offer of a professorship in Hamburg that he would be able to offer coursework in philosophy as well as psychology (Bühring, 1996). This precondition was met in 1919 when, upon the formal opening of the University of Hamburg, the first course that Stern taught was Introduction to Philosophy.
- 4.
Refer to endnote 2.
- 5.
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Lamiell, J.T. (2021). Conceptual Work Matters. In: Uncovering Critical Personalism. Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67734-3_10
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