A science that can endure the ravages of two such distempers as behaviorism and psychoanalysis and recover without permanent disfigurement must have a lusty constitution.
I found this important because he's actively challenging behaviorism and psychoanalysis again, but also saying that psychology has a chance at being a legitimate science. We know that eventually it does, but Jastrow was just a hopeful scientist pushing his field into the limelight.
The flounderings of psychology, and the bickerings of psychologists, damage its prestige.
The majority of this article was a one-sided bickering session for Jastrow, so I'm going to take this humorously.
Psychology as made in Germany, and psychology as made in America, have much to answer for.
I like how he calls for improvement of the field before he'd left it.
Any pronouncement that psychology has failed contrasts what might have been with what is.
How can we know what might have been?
Yet my faith in the redemption of psychology remains, for It has within itself, once the shouting and the tumult die, a valid principle of interpretation
He's still confident in his field, even if he's unhappy about the way it looked that year.
panaceal
Wasn't able to find a definition - but some kind of flourish
More than a dislocated shoulder or fallen arches is wrong with psychology and answerable for much of its failure.
I don't understand this reference - but clearly it was important.
They leave the student with the impression of a patch-work quilt whereas actually the mind is a tapestry.
Basically how this article read. A patchwork quilt of harsh critique and petty commentary when in actuality it could've been an actual doctrine for naturalism.
points the way to the promised land
Very limited scope from someone accusing other factions of having a limited scope
If called upon to indicate the approach and temper of naturalistic psychology -- which unites the wandering tribes and points the way to the promised land -- I cannot here outline a program; I can only set down its major tenets.
I'm left confused. Why write an article filled with petty complaints? Why say that naturalism is the way to go, but never say the reason it's superior? Why never present a coherent thought that isn't a lament on another psychologist? No outline.
Devising a system seems to be the surest way to making a noise that shall be heard.
I think that there was noise heard, it just wasn't the noise that Jastrow wanted. He's hypercritical of Freud and Jung for their psychoanalysis, Pavlov and behaviorism as a whole, and several other groups of psychologists - but hasn't yet made noise for himself. Not a single part of this article sings his praises.
if judged by the industry of many of its protagonists the intention is to reconstruct the creature in the image of its caudal appendage
If it were left up to the applied psychologists or psychoanalytics - they'd scrap the dogs body and have a tail with a tail - so essentially, he's saying that all psychology will be applied if Freud is given the choice. I don't think that this is accurate as most psychologists seemed more or less interested in their own work and scholarship. It's almost like he's a tad jealous of Freud and his success.
If judged by the volume of output the tail appears to wag the dog
The little amount of output was creating too much commotion for Jastrow's tastes.
The immense vogue of applied psychology has added to the difficulty of a sound program.
This is what Jastrow has wanted to say for this entire paper! This is his thesis! The "massive style/fashion" of applied psychology was messing with his own momentum and he was frustrated by this new "thing" coming onto the scene!
The I.Q. is a useful wedge and no more. It is only by having the limitations of the tests constantly in mind that they can be validly applied.
The original test had limited uses and was seriously flawed - I will grant this. Jastrow is once again pointing out how the focus is too narrow and how the tests can't be useful unless you realize how the flaws show up.
its true nature as well as available indices remain to be determined.
This is accurate and I suppose, frustrating to those developing the tests and theories. For instance, I know what these tests have morphed into and while some of their uses I find reprehensible at best, I know they have value. At the time, there was no value because the test wasn't even widely used in France yet (where it ended up undergoing 3 transitions before they had a test they were happy with)
Side by side with able leadership and significant accomplishments this open sesame to research has led to the uncritical acceptance of the I.Q. as though it were engraved on the brain structure and Binet had deciphered it.
Jastrow's back to the fuming that I've come to know from him. He's upset about the lack of work and effort put into determining the value of the I.Q. test. I think he's judging too quickly as they had JUST translated it into English and began actually using it - all good science takes trial and error. I'm sure Jastrow wasn't the only one with a foul taste when the reason for the I.Q. test was discovered, but he's maintained his critical thoughts on psychology as a whole, which I think makes him an asset to the field.
Their establishment gave the decisive impetus to the emergence of an applied psychology, congenial to the pragmatic temper of our pursuits.
Freud, Jung, and the work of Simon-Binet had the necessary impact to send ripples of approval for applied psychology through the U.S. psychological societies webs. It seems to have opened doors and windows that had previously been shuttered. Huge momentum would follow, no doubt.
congenial to the pragmatic temper
"friendly to the sensible temper"
same year is memorable for the transfer of Binet and Simon's mental tests to American soil.
The Binet-Simon test was actually invented in France to help determine which children needed additional/remedial work to catch up with their peers - that's not how it ended up in the U.S. though! It was a part of a eugenics movement by H.H. Goddard by means of testing and sterilizing those thought to be feeble-minded. This is a huge part of U.S. history as well as the history of psychology. As deplorable as it was, it was an adaptation by an exceptional psychologist (who later became responsible for what would evolve to the Vineland test).
This was the first important academic recognition of psychoanalysis.
This is monumental for any new idea, the first time it's academically recognized. 1909 was the first time psychoanalysis was "seen" by Hall to be of value! I can only imagine the relief Jung and Freud felt at this huge accomplishment!
In 1909 Freud and Jung came to this country at Stanley Hall's invitation-in those days a bold step for Hall to take.
I feel, based on the tone of the article, that this is pretty critical of Hall. I don't have a lot of backstory other than his opinion on Freud, so I can only make the assumption that it was brave/stupid of Hall to associate with the likes of Freud and Jung.
professional Freudians may disappear, the valid deposit of their doctrines will be absorbed into the accredited body of psychology. [p. 267]
That it did! Without Freud, who knows what psychology today would look like? I don't mean to put so much emphasis on Freud specifically, but any founding father of a branch of the great tree of psychology.
Freud has ignored the academic psychologists and they have returned the compliment. They find his premises so unsupported by any naturalistic foundations, his conclusions so vitiated by false logic, that most of them reject his structure completely. The more tolerant ponder and select. And the essential values of "psychoanalysis" will remain.
I know that Freud's work was a hit with the public, but I didn't know that it was so scorned by the general psychologists of his time. I suppose it makes sense in the context that anytime someone "invented" or shed light on a new topic it was initially a bit of a pariah.
Neither psychology nor civilization will ever return to a pre-Freudian stage.
We shouldn't! The "dark ages" before the mind and psyche was truly discovered were not a place to have lived. Psychology as a whole has changed considerably since then and that progressive attitude is what was necessary to propel the field forward with necessary force for change.
Intellectual ventures may lead to as strange issues as geographical ones.
Once you open the can of worms, it's impossible to get every speck back in. He was predicting the wide array of possibilities here.
The heroic values of Freud's psychology lie in the adequate recognition of the emotional life, the play of subconscious functioning, including fantasy, the great extent of psychogenic influence, all directed to the abnormal mind and by that illumination reinforcing the understanding of our normal being.
Freud broke through a ceiling and added a floor to the great building of psychology. His work was revolutionary. Jastrow is giving Freud the credit he deserves.
the deficiencies in his logic, his ignorings, his flagrant misinterpretations of the precepts of a naturalistic psychology, have led him into woeful extravagance in application.
Please see my earlier note- this seems more along the lines of what I've seen Jastrow throwing out. He's harsh - again, i'm sure, to push for more results. Hypercritical judgment seems to be one of his specialties.
Most remote from my intention is it to belittle Freud.
Was it, really? It definitely seemed like he wanted to belittle most everyone.
No theological damnation of the innocents carried so awful a charge as "infant sexuality," "polymorphous pervert," hurled indiscriminately at all babes.
Again - I agree - I find some of the terms used morally reprehensible, but then again, we often are taken aback by that which is accurate. I think that this is indicative of the zeitgeist - no one was prepared for the terminology Freud and Jung would use. I find it essential to psychology though because it's again pushing the field.
Contemporary with the earthquake of behaviorism came the air raid of Freudianism.
This is actually pretty humerus, although I'm not certain that's the message he meant to send.
The cerebral cortex is a proclamation of emancipation, still, however, "conditioned" by the ancient bondage.
He references Pavlov's work with preoperant conditioning and dogs and states that it's wildly overblown. He states how conditioning becomes the new idolatry of behaviorism. His finally point though, is that the brain is intricate and responsible for preventing our conditioning.
Under this simple and lucid, but somewhat adolescent, dispensation there is no more need for psychology than for the theology that discovered in the apple the Fall of Man.
He's essentially saying that behaviorism is useless, which very well may have been true at this time. I'm glad that nothing stopped the evolution of the field which is today, quite productive. Perhaps his harsh critique in 1935 was the necessary push!
unduly complimentary to the explanatory value of the behaviorist's barren formula of stimulus and response.
Jastrow basically says that the behaviorists formulas will never work - they're barren. Judging as harshly as he has in the entire article, he condemns behavioral psychology for its principles that simply differ from the other factions of psychology. I think he's judging harshly, again, to inspire change.
The fallacy of the behaviorist's formula lies in the omitted terms with the result that, were he consistent, his cupboard would be as bare as Mother Hubbard's; he smuggles in his provender from stores which he ignores.
This was tough - there's definitely a lot of room for interpretation. I'm fairly certain that he's renouncing behaviorists for their methodology.
provender
Food when meant humorously, otherwise animal fodder
It represents a legitimate protest against the anti-naturalism of the orthodox psychology which was so long in the saddle -- more precisely, against the neglect of the naturalistic axiom that the human organism, mind and all, from guts to cortex, and all its expressions from sigh to soliloquy, is root, stem, and blossom an instrument of behavior.
Behaviorism as a whole does state that every bit of human action is a result of a behavior. At the time Jastrow wrote this behaviorism was still infantile compared to the adolescent stage of, say, empiricism.
Exposed to persuasive appeals that this or that system alone is the gospel truth, and none genuine without a personal signature, the layman is justifiably irritated into exclaiming: A plague on all your schools! [p. 264]
This I agree with! There were so many vying for the lead position and jockeying to be the "first" that there were probably MANY multiples throughout the early years of psychology and it did nothing but muddy the field.
The conflict of the psychologies in learned arenas and in popular forums is a further dismal evidence of its crucial failure.
I don't think that conflict equates failure. From failure comes understanding by way of trial and error, one of the most important methods of any science.
for there is but one Psychology
Jastrow states that there is foreshadowing of what's to come from the evolution tangent, but in the end he believes that all factions belong to the umbrella of psychology.
Francis Galton, who was a keener psychologist for not being one professionally
Jastrow was giving credit to Galton for his contributions to psychology, but moreover for benefiting the field when he wasn't even a psychologist.
The concept of evolution was at hand, its power to fertilize the psychic pastures feebly appreciated
Initially, evolution was a tough pill to swallow for a Church powered psychological field. It was harshly received on its first outing, and this actually caused Darwin to withhold some of his academic papers in order to avoid the scorn. When Origin of Species came out in 1859 it was much better received that it's predecessor.
The early misdirection of psychology was the failure to follow wholeheartedly the biological lead -- from the beginning to the end of the chapter.
Tad judgy, but I can see where he's coming from. Philosophy was and still is it's own field. We weren't at a place where we needed an offshoot of philosophy - we needed more - the biological aspect. There were physicians, philosophers, and psychologist should've been a kind of cross over of the two in a Venn diagram - that hadn't happened yet and his disappointment is evident. I believe he was trying to push his contemporaries to see his point by making frank statements versus the prior paragraph where he beat around the bush, twice.
Laboratory artefacts are imperfect substitutes for complete human situations.
It took him four sentences, but he straight said what I thought he'd been saying the whole time. The field of psychology was separated from philosophy to solve the age old problem of how to FIX the human situation, and now he's realizing that the fields not there yet.
They may embody important and valid truths or trivial inconsequences or pretentious errors.
Having the numbers doesn't equate to having the answer! Huge step considering most of the zietgeist at the time was find the number, worship the number, improve the number. The psychology I know today was forming in this period - when it went from collecting data and reviewing and debating data to looking at the mind/spirit as a whole.
There is no inherent validity in numbers, no sanctity in equations.
Jastrow seems to be saying that an equation is not going to unlock the mind - a statistic or number is not the answer to cracking the riddle of the mind/soul or psychology as a whole.
golden foot rule
Per wikipedia- this is an award for football players that perform well in their field - I'm not sure this is what Jastrow meant, but the only other Golden rule is THE golden rule and honestly, not sure what that has to do with psychology either. He's a bit of a rambler.
The essential measure of rationality may escape the ingenuity that devises the tests.
Jastrow appears to be doubting the field as a whole here - doubting the rationality of being able to accurately assess the human mind and seems to be saying that the tests aren't enough. He's pushing for more - the more we push, the more results we will see. Definitely essential to the history of psychology!
Experiment continues to be the major occupation of psychologists; by that route psychology became an accredited science
Jastrow recognizing that the experimentation leading psychology into an accredited science is important to psychology because its this kind of interior recognition that's needed to stay the course.
Wissenschaft
systematic pursuit of knowledge, learning, and scholarship
Fach
compartment/subject of study - wikipedia
Up to the end, in 1927, he resisted the tidal wave of innovation all along the psychological front, particularly the swarming hosts of applied psychology, resolved that the academic robe of pure psychology should not be defiled by the overalls of practice.
This surprises me, after he'd spent so much time pushing for the changes that created results, its unbelievable that he'd resist change as much as Jastrow accuses him of. I find that his reluctance to accept the new psychology troubling, to say the least.
British Titchener who in Oxford gown and manner inducted Yankee disciples into Teutonic methods.
Psychology truly "began" under Wundt, Wundt trained Titchener who in turn brought it to the U.S with him own spin on things. It seems to be the greatest minds spin the idea just a smidge and that's when the results flow. When Titchener began his teachings, he taught the same way he'd been taught and allowed his students to twist the theories on their own. Without that kind of selfless regard, I don't think psychology would be what it is today.
Teutonic methods
Per dictionary.com teutonic pertains to Northern European stock (i.e. German related people).
"the imperishable glory" of setting psychology on the wrong tack
Again I'm seeing a bit of misplaced judgement. There's enough room here for experimental psychology and according to my research on Wikipedia Jastrow himself was noted for his invention contributions to experimental psychology.
It began with so lowly a performance as judging, by lifting, which of a pair of weights was the heavier and plotting endless series of "just observable differences."
I feel like this is a pretty harsh gloss over of something that was fairly revolutionary considering the infancy of the science. It reeks of presentism, and potentially envy, in that Jastrow is attempting to down play the significance.
Geleherte
I really couldn't find anything that told me what this was. According to google translate this means "learned" in Afrikaans.
The present generation has but a waning interest in origins of a half-century ago.
I'd be greatly concerned if the psychologists in the early 20th century had the same concerns as the later 19th century. The amount of change to the field of psychology in just 50 years was substantial, and to still be focused on those issues would've been a massive oversight. Our responsibility as scientists (as these researchers were) is to expound on ideas, not dwell.
"that the condition of psychology is far from satisfactory, and that the promise of two decades ago has not been fulfilled" (1923)
G. Stanley Hall was concerned that the field hadn't improved along the anticipated trajectory - fear of failure can be a powerful motivator.
"a loathsome, distended, putrified, dropsical mass, testifying to nothing but two facts: first, that there is no such thing as a science of Psychology, and second, that W.J. is an incapable."
Any amount of self-critiquing is helpful to furthering any form of science. This is definitely a harsh review by William James, but necessary to furthering the field.