In this chapter, you have been asked to reflect on what you already know about psychology and its history. The notes you took can be helpful later in the course when you are ready to take a look back and see how (or whether) your knowledge and opinions about the history of psychology have evolved.

You were first asked to think about the value and limits of history and historical narratives. Historical accounts may help us learn about the past, understand the present and, perhaps, predict the future. However, history and associated historical narratives are not without limitations, often suffering from

• The problem of causality, and how historical methods lack the luxury of counterfactuals to help establish causation
• The problem of perspective, and how historical accounts are not value-free but, rather, imbued in the cultural and personal context of the historian creating the account
• The problem of lack of diversity, and how historical accounts have often focused on a few prominent individuals

You have nevertheless learned about alternative approaches to historical accounts based on “great men”, including five approaches and concepts available to historians of psychology today, such as historiometry, psychological factories, scientific personae and moral economies, multisited ethnography, and the analysis of the biography of scientific objects.

A critical understanding of the value and limits of history and historical methods can help you think about your own experience in learning about the history of psychology.

Lizenz