Explorations in the History of Psychology by Harry A.
Van Belle (Professor Emeritus in Psychology at The Kings University College,
Canada) aims to provide a brief overview of the history of psychology,
discussing the historical development of ideas relevant to psychology from
ancient Greek philosophy to contemporary Western philosophical and scientific
thought in general. As a compilation of lecture notes used by Van Belle during
the many years of teaching at universities in North America and Africa, this
book’s primary audience is that of university students.
At the end of each chapter, Van Belle offers a list of comments, questions, and
observations that can be used as dialogue starters on the topic. He does so
deliberately, because to Van Belle, scholarship is the dissemination of
knowledge, a social interaction process in which we mutually sharpen our
insights into the object of our investigation through dialogue. In that
process, scholars
do not engage in dialogue with contemporaries only,
but also with previous generations.
As for the exposition, Van Belle starts with postulating three main theses
which lead to Van Belle’s theorem that themata persist and paradigms change
over time:
- History is both continuous and discontinuous (instead of the two separate views in the debate);
- Research method should arise from the object of investigation: if the material changes, or our understanding of it changes, so should the method;
- And—as follows from thesis one—the view on history is plural over the years (methodological pluralism).
Van Belle uses these three theses, which he
substantiates by discussing the scientific movements in the history of
psychology, to support his theorem that, while paradigms change over time,
themata are permanent. These theses do not stand on their own but arise from
the ‘problem-historical approach’, a method developed by Dr. D.H.Th. Vollenhoven1.
Van Belle attended some private lectures during his stay at the Free University
from 1967-1971. That Van Belle’s theorem derives from Vollenhoven’s method
shows the importance of Vollenhoven to the author. In fact, Van Belle’s book’s
overall argument and contribution to literature that already exists seems to be
that the history of psychology cannot be properly understood without the lens
of Vollenhoven’s method.
Important for this method is the common view that historically important
persons are influenced by their predecessors as well as by their
contemporaries, and that they also exercise influence on their contemporaries
and on the generations succeeding them. From this point of view, the history of
philosophy, science, and psychology contains a series of successive conceptions
with two dimensions, which Vollenhoven calls
“periodicity” and “typicality”.
“Periodicity” refers to the fact that a person’s conception of reality is
influenced by the period of history in which it occurs. In that sense the
conceptions of persons living in the same historical period show a number of
common characteristics that distinguish these conceptions from conceptions of
persons living in another period of history. In other words, this view holds
that
there are such entities as historical periods and that
therefore historical paradigm shifts are real.
“Typicality” concerns the fact that in any given period of history a number of
qualitatively differing conceptions of reality can be found. These conceptions
appear to show a number of characteristics that are also found in conceptions
present in previous periods of history. Moreover, what unites these conceptions
with the conceptions of their predecessors are the very things that distinguish
them from conceptions of their contemporaries.
Van Belle argues that types of conceptions have a certain historical
continuity, paradigm shifts notwithstanding. He also argues that, if one wants
to think historically, one cannot work only with a typology. For him, types
reoccur in succeeding periods, but only in a transformed manner. The diversity
is always a transformation of the diversity of preceding periods. On the one
hand, people
always speak in the language of their time, but when
they speak they speak in a typologically diverse manner. Traditional types of
conceptions are worked out in terms of the spirit of a given historical period,
while historical periods come to concrete expression in the manner in which
certain traditional types are worked out. It appears then, from this
problem-historical viewpoint, that both
approaches to the history of philosophy, science, and
psychology have relative validity and are interdependent; and that analyses in
terms of typicality and periodicity are complimentary.
The problem-historical method is based on the idea that all conceptions of
reality also have two other dimensions: a diachronic (across time) and a
synchronic (same time) dimension. Combining these dimensions with the ones
described earlier, typology refers to the abiding, recurring problems in the
history of psychology (diachronic similarity), while the answers to these
typical
problems can occur side by side in any period of
history (synchronic diversity). Periodicity refers to the different answers
given to recurring questions in the history of psychology from one historical
period to another (diachronic diversity). These answers can capture the
allegiance of an entire generation of psychologists (synchronic similarity).
Van Belle not only describes Vollenhoven’s method, but he also has
complementing suggestions. For example, he suggests that the activity of
important historical figures to know and to describe events of our world is
twofold. Put differently, they attempt to describe the way things are (or come
into being) and the way things ought to be (or become).
Philosophical and psychological conceptions are then responses to both of these realities in our lives. This formulation gives the writer the criteria for distinguishing between typicality and periodicity. Typicality, he suggests, deals with ontology (or, in the case of human beings, with philosophical anthropology), whereas periodicity deals with normativity. Types of conceptions have
Philosophical and psychological conceptions are then responses to both of these realities in our lives. This formulation gives the writer the criteria for distinguishing between typicality and periodicity. Typicality, he suggests, deals with ontology (or, in the case of human beings, with philosophical anthropology), whereas periodicity deals with normativity. Types of conceptions have
a certain historical continuity. They typically
contain a number of separate themata, which tend to form into clusters. In the
history of philosophy and psychology, then, a type is a basic ontological (or
anthropological) structure— or a view on the being and becoming of
things—surrounded by a constellation of philosophical or psychological
positions. Types exclude one another and are more or less persistent in the
history of Western thought. The implication of this suggested formula for types
is that history deals with only a limited set of reoccurring problems. The
further implication is that this set of problems distinguishes the Western
tradition from other intellectual traditions in the world.
Van Belle’s choice to combine the problem-historical method with the history of
psychology is a valuable one, which is why I have discussed it in some detail
above. However, this is just one out of 88 sections in Van Belle’s book. It
seems to me that the application of this method (provided by Vollenhoven more
than fifty years ago) to explorations in the history of psychology is the only
innovative contribution Van Belle makes in the field of the history of
psychology. Second, many thinkers who have had a major influence on psychology
(e.g. Broca, Willis, Berkeley, Popper, Dennett, Plater and Kraepelin) are
missing in this book. Third, while published in 2013, the book is based on Van
Belle’s teaching until 2005. But he does not discuss any of the more recent
developments in the field, such as the important role of the neurosciences.
This book can be a useful introduction for first-year Bachelor students to the
history of psychology. Also, the dialogue starters provide excellent
possibilities for teachers to get in conversation with their students. For
those who are not new to the fields of the history of psychology and
reformational philosophy, however, this book has not much to offer.
1) D.H.Th.
Vollenhoven (2005 (1st ed. 1961)), The Problem-Historical Method and the History
of Psychology, edited by K.A. Bril, Amstelveen: De Zaak Haes.
