The Uses of History

Abstract

This is a rich paper which advocates ‘resuming the critical tradition’ and condenses into a brief compass a series of practical recommendations for the direction of psychological research. As I understand the paper, these recommendations may be summarized: (1) historical work can play a major part in equipping psychologists with the imagination to transcend the limits of practice acquired by training; (2) subjectivity is a proper and necessary topic for psychological study, and it has historically specific qualities; and (3) the pursuit of ‘theoretical psychology’ cannot be isolated, as a meta-level activity, from such practically-engaged tasks. Writing as a historian of science, I have no desire (and certainly no power) to suggest tasks to psychologists, but there are perhaps certain implications of ‘the uses of history’ which can be explored. I will consider three such implications, one corresponding to each of the main recommendations summarized above. These comments are certainly not exclusive or comprehensive; rather, they grow out of my own work in the history of psychology.