Philosophy and History of Psychology

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves

present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts
from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical
theoretical contributions.
Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and
pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings
together some of her best work over the last thirty years.
A specially written introduction gives an overview of her career and con-
textualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. Part I
on Philosophy covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology,
introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different
types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. Part II, From
Philosophy to History, includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout
and James Sully among others. Part III on History covers Valentine’s more recent
historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional
and biographical – which includes accounts of both Bedford College and University
College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists.
The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history
of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to those with interests in these
areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced under-
graduate courses in conceptual and historical issues.

Elizabeth R. Valentine is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Royal Holloway,

University of London and Honorary Senior Research Associate at University
College London, UK. Best known as the author of Conceptual Issues in Psychology,
she has published many papers on theoretical psychology and experimental
psychology. She is a founder member and former chair of the History and
Philosophy of Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society and the
founding editor of its periodical, History & Philosophy of Psychology.
The World Library of Psychologists

The World Library of Psychologists series celebrates the important contributions

to psychology made by leading experts in their individual fields of study. Each
scholar has compiled a career-long collection of what they consider to be their
finest pieces: extracts from books, journals, articles, major theoretical and practical
contributions, and salient research findings.
For the first time ever the work of each contributor is presented in a single
volume so readers can follow the themes and progress of their work and identify
the contributions made to, and the development of, the fields themselves.
Each book in the series features a specially written introduction by the con-
tributor giving an overview of their career, contextualising their selection within
the development of the field, and showing how their thinking developed over time.

Reasoning, Rationality and Dual Processes

Selected Works of Jonathan St B. T. Evans
By Jonathan St B. T. Evans

The Assessment, Evaluation and Rehabilitation

of Everyday Memory Problems
Selected Papers of Barbara A. Wilson
By Barbara A. Wilson

Philosophy and History of Psychology

Selected works of Elizabeth Valentine
By Elizabeth R. Valentine
Philosophy and
History of Psychology
Selected works of Elizabeth Valentine

Elizabeth R. Valentine
First published 2014
by Psychology Press
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Psychology Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Elizabeth R. Valentine
The right of Elizabeth R. Valentine to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
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ISBN: 978–1–84872–274–3 (hbk)

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by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton
Contents

List of illustrations vii

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

PART I
Philosophy 11

1 Philosophy and psychology 13

2 Psychology as science 15
3 Folk psychology and its implications for cognitive science:
discussion 22
4 Introspection 28
5 The possibility of a science of experience: an examination of
some conceptual problems facing the study of consciousness 47
6 Dissociation and the delimitation of consciousness:
implications of neuropsychological phenomena for
philosophical conceptions of consciousness 56
7 Perception and action in East and West 66
8 Metaphysics 74
9 Mind-body problems: distinguishing the soluble from the
insoluble 82
10 Explanation 93
11 Reduction 104
vi Contents
PART II
From philosophy to history 111

12 Neural nets: from Hartley and Hebb to Hinton 113

13 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 123
14 Biographical introduction to James Sully’s Studies of
Childhood 137

PART III
History 147

15 Psychology at Bedford College London 1849–1985 149

16 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell, pioneer woman
psychologist of Bedford College 163
17 The founding of the Psychological Laboratory, University
College London: “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 179
18 Spooks and spoofs: relations between psychical research
and academic psychology in Britain in the inter-war period 196
19 To care or to understand? Women members of the British
Psychological Society 1901–1918 220
20 The other woman 233
21 “A brilliant and many-sided personality”: Jessie Margaret
Murray, founder of the Medico-Psychological Clinic 237

Index 256
Illustrations

Figures
16.1 Diverse, artificial and kindred memory associations as a function
of age and sex 170
18.1 Articles on psychical research in Nature 200
18.2 References to psychical research in The Times 201
19.1 Number of qualifications obtained by early women members of
the BPS 224
19.2 Occupations of early women members of the BPS 226
19.3 Number of books published by early women members of the BPS 227

Tables
19.1 Names and dates of women members of the British Psychological
Society 1901–1918 222
19.2 Number of women and men in Educational, Medical and Industrial
Sections of the British Psychological Society in 1921 225
Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the following individuals and organisations for permission to

reproduce material in this book:

John Wiley & Sons for: Chapter 1. Philosophy and psychology. Mind & Language,
1, 28–30, 1986. Chapter 5. The possibility of a science of experience: An exami-
nation of some conceptual problems facing the study of consciousness. British
Journal of Psychology, 90, 535–542, 1999.
Taylor & Francis for: Chapter 2. Psychology as science. Conceptual Issues in
Psychology, Chapter 1. 2nd edn. London: Routledge, 1992. Chapter 4. Introspection.
Conceptual Issues in Psychology, Chapter 5, pp. 56–72. 2nd edn. London:
Routledge, 1992. Chapter 10. Explanation. Conceptual Issues in Psychology,
Chapter 8, pp. 106–116. 2nd edn. London: Routledge. 1992. Chapter 11. Reduction.
Conceptual Issues in Psychology, Chapter 11, pp. 155–62. 2nd edn. London:
Routledge, 1992.
Suzanne Smith and Sage for: Chapter 3. Folk psychology and its implications
for cognitive science: Discussion. In W. O’Donohue & R. Kitchener (Eds.), The
philosophy of psychology, pp. 275–78. London: Sage, 1996. Chapter 18. Spooks
and spoofs: Relations between psychical research and academic psychology in
Britain in the inter-war period. History of the Human Sciences, 25(2), 67–90, 2012
(http://hhs.sagepub.com/ content/25/2/67.abstract). The final, definitive version of
this paper has been published in History of the Human Sciences, 25, 2012 by SAGE
Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. © Elizabeth R. Valentine.
Geoff Ellis, Jon Sutton and the British Psychological Society for: Chapter 19.
To care or to understand? Women members of the British Psychological Society
1901–1918. History & Philosophy of Psychology 10(1), 54–65, 2008. Chapter 20.
The other woman. The Psychologist, 21(1), 86–87, 2008.
Graham Horswell and Imprint Academic for: Chapter 6. Dissociation and the
delimitation of consciousness: Implications of neuropsychological phenomena for
philosophical conceptions of consciousness. In B. Borstner & J. Shawe-Taylor
(Eds.), Consciousness at the Crossroads of Philosophy and Cognitive Science,
pp. 24–31. Thorverton, England: Imprint Academic, 1995.
Elsevier Limited for: Chapter 7. Perception and action in East and West. In
J. P. Forgas & M. J. Innes (Eds.), Recent Advances in Social Psychology: An
x Acknowledgements
International Perspective, pp. 139–147. Amsterdam: Elsevier (North-Holland),
1989, © Elsevier Science Publishers (North-Holland), 1989. Chapter 12. Reprinted
from Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 33 (3), Elizabeth R. Valentine, Neural
nets: From Hartley and Hebb to Hinton, 348–357, 1989, © 1989 by Academic
Press, Inc.
The American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press for:
Chapter 8. Metaphysics. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology,
Vol. 5, pp. 204–209. New York: American Psychological Association and Oxford
University Press, 2000 (www.apa.org). By permission of Oxford University Press.
The American Psychological Association for: Chapter 17. The founding of the
psychological laboratory, University College London: “Dear Galton . . . Yours
truly, J Sully”. History of Psychology, 2 (3), 204–218, 1999. Copyright © 1999 by
the American Psychological Association. Reproduced with permission.
Professor Dr Matjaž Gams on behalf of the MultiConference Information
Society for: Chapter 9. Mind-body problems: Distinguishing the soluble from the
insoluble. In I. Kononenko & I. Jerman (Eds.), Proceedings of Mind-Body Studies.
6th International Conference on Cognitive Science. Vol. C, pp. 27–32. Jožef Stefan
Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2003.
Springer for: Chapter 13. Elizabeth R. Valentine, G. F. Stout’s philosophical
psychology. In L. Albertazzi (Ed.), The Dawn of Cognitive Science: Early
European Contributors, pp. 209–224. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001, © 2001 Kluwer
Academic Publishers. Reprinted with kind permission from Springer Science+
Business Media B.V.
Cathy Miller and Free Association Books for: Chapter 14. Biographical
introduction to James Sully, Studies of Childhood, pp. xlii–liii. London: Free
Association Books, 2000.
Royal Holloway, University of London for: Chapter 15. Psychology at Bedford
College London 1849–1985. Egham, Surrey: Royal Holloway, University of
London, 1997. Chapter 16. Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell, Pioneer Woman
Psychologist of Bedford College. Egham, Surrey: Royal Holloway, University of
London, 2004.
Wiley-Blackwell for: Chapter 21. “A brilliant and many-sided personality”:
Jessie Margaret Murray, founder of the Medico-Psychological Clinic, Elizabeth
R. Valentine, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 45(2), 145–61,
2009, © Wiley Periodicals Inc. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jhbs.
20364/abstract).
Introduction

Autobiography
Personal careers, like science, do not always progress in a logical fashion and are
affected by contingent factors. My bachelor’s degree was a joint honours in
Philosophy and Psychology at University College London. I chose philosophy
because I was attracted by perennial, fundamental questions and I was good at
maths, so I thought I would be able to do logic; my choice of psychology was less
clearly motivated and somewhat arbitrary. I stayed on to do a PhD in cognitive
psychology but the present volume of selected papers does not include any of my
work in cognitive psychology or in the psychology of music, which I later pursued.
Partly by nature and partly by necessity, I have been Jill of a number of different
trades. Two particularly influential teachers were A. R. Jonckheere in psychology
and John Watling in philosophy, who stimulated and guided my interests as an
undergraduate (without any ‘aims and objectives’, ‘bullet points’ or PowerPoint
presentations, though there was a wonderful thing called an epidiascope). They were
distinguished by their willingness—indeed eagerness—to cross the divide between
their respective departments; these occupied adjacent houses, but rarely did their
occupants or their occupants’ minds meet. My original training gave me a lasting
interest in the borderland between philosophy and psychology, a particular interest
in cognitive psychology, and a preference for ‘hard’ over ‘soft’ psychology; I would
be classified as a ‘quantoid’ rather than a ‘smoosh’ (see Hatch, 1995, p. xvi).
I was fortunate, in my teaching posts, to have a fair amount of freedom to develop
my own courses. At West Ham College of Technology, subsequently North East
London Polytechnic and now the University of East London, John Radford (my
head of department) allowed me to create and teach a course on the theory of
psychology. On moving to Bedford College London in 1972, I inherited Joan Wynn
Reeves’ course on Theoretical and Historical Issues in Psychology. In those days
the degree examinations were university- rather than college-based. Here I
conceived the idea of writing a book entitled Conceptual Issues in Psychology,
which served as a text for this course and was published in 1982. Excerpts from
the second edition, published in 1992, are presented here in Chapters 2, 4, 10 and
11. At the time, there was very little published in this field. Although there was an
established body of literature on the philosophy of science, there was virtually
2 Introduction
nothing on philosophical issues specifically related to psychology, nor any books
written by someone trained in both disciplines. Since then, the field has burgeoned
(partly as a result of the development of critical psychology) and now there are
perhaps a dozen texts in the area. At Royal Holloway, with which Bedford College
merged in 1985, I taught in addition a third year course in Philosophical Issues
which included topics within the philosophy of mind, another area that has
blossomed in recent decades.

Position statement
There is a fundamental tension between the natural and the social sciences. My
own affinities lie with the natural rather than the social sciences. I am sympathetic
towards positivism and realism, and unsympathetic towards post-modernism,
social constructionism and critical psychology. I prefer to seek universal statements
and cumulative knowledge rather than ‘truths’ that are specific or relative to a
particular time and culture. As I wrote in response to a target paper by Roger Smith
(Smith, 2010):

One can accept that scientific activity occurs in a social context, that scientific
theories are from a particular perspective, that explanations invoke a
theoretical framework, and that they are pragmatic . . . without concluding that
psychology is intrinsically historical. Psychology is a hybrid of natural and
social science (and unsatisfactory for this reason). It is not exclusively a human
science nor is the investigation of human nature (whatever that is) of
paramount importance. On the natural science view, psychological science is
primarily concerned with the psychological capacities and processes of
an “ahistorical, generalised mind or brain” and not those as exhibited by
“particular people, or particular organisms, in particular contexts” (p. 31): the
determinants of competence in the species rather than the explanation of
particular behavioural episodes (Russell, 1984). Large areas of psychology
seek universal, at least relatively permanent, natural kinds . . . In a recent study
by Boyack et al. (2005), which used citation data to plot the semantic space
of different disciplines, psychology was situated between neurology and
sociology with history the far side of sociology from psychology. The vehe-
ment opposition sometimes encountered to the view espoused in the target
paper, viz. that psychology is essentially historical, results from the fact that
such a view undermines the natural science project. There is indeed a tension
between, on the one hand, the desire for the explanation of particular behav-
ioural episodes, typical of the lay person or non-scientist, and perhaps the
provenance of applied psychology, and, on the other, what ‘pure’ psycho-
logical science can offer. Nor is it clear that one can be derived from the other
in any straightforward manner.

Perhaps it may be helpful to introduce Bent Flyvbjerg’s (2001) distinction

between phronesis and episteme here. Flyvbjerg uses a contemporary
 Introduction 3
interpretation of these two Aristotelian intellectual virtues . . . to suggest a
resolution of the Science Wars. He aligns the social sciences with phronesis
and the natural sciences with episteme. Phronesis is prudence or practical
wisdom . . . Episteme is analytical, scientific knowledge. For Aristotle, they
are two different ventures, with reciprocal strengths and weaknesses. The
social sciences’ forte is reflexive analysis and discussion of values and
interests, a prerequisite for enlightened political, economic and cultural
development of a society . . . The natural sciences’ forte is explanatory and
predictive theory.
(Valentine, 2010, p. 57)

Philosophy and history

Although it is difficult to deal with either the philosophy or the history of psy-
chology without becoming involved in the other, they are often the provinces of
independent learned societies. Britain and Canada have been distinguished by
attempting to integrate them. A History & Philosophy of Psychology Section of
the British Psychological Society (HPPS) was founded in 1984 followed by the
Canadian Psychological Society in 1986. The British Section has been an important
source of support for those of us interested in this area. Brian Foss, my then head
of department, encouraged me to become involved and I became a founder
member. I was Chair of the Section from 1994–97 and founding editor of its
periodical, History & Philosophy of Psychology, from 1999–2012. Although
always small in numbers, the Section has remained active throughout its existence.
Many of the chapters in this volume began life, or were presented in some form,
at HPPS conferences.

History and psychology

Although history of psychology is often described as a ‘sub-discipline’ of
psychology, my own view is that it is history rather than psychology. (Boyack et
al.’s 2005 paper cited above also supports this view.) It is closer to history of
science. And while I regard conceptual or theoretical issues as an obligatory part
of the syllabus of an honours degree in psychology, I consider history of
psychology to be an option and more suited to postgraduate than undergraduate
courses. The hard sciences do not have history courses as part of their curriculum:
their history has been incorporated into the established body of knowledge. But
much of psychology is non-cumulative and fragmented. For the most part, those
who seek to make history a core part of the psychology curriculum want to use it
to inculcate a particular view of psychology as a human or social science rather
than a natural science.
The historiography of psychology has undergone radical changes in the last three
decades. The traditional narrative, didactic approach has been criticised; seen
as celebratory and presentist, it has been superseded by much scholarly work,
especially by historians. An assumption underlying much of this work is that
4 Introduction
psychological categories are historically constituted and culturally variable—a
view, as we have seen, to which I do not subscribe. My own interests have been
much more narrowly circumscribed— focussed particularly on the development
of institutional psychology in London at the beginning of the 20th century, with a
particular interest in biographies.

Selection of chapters
In making this selection of chapters, I have attempted to produce a representative
sample of my more important and better pieces of work. I had hoped to include
some that are not easily accessible but the word limit prevented this. The chapters
are ordered thematically, though there is a chronological trend. The first eleven
chapters are predominantly theoretical or philosophical; the last seven are largely
historical. Chapters 12–14 are a mixture and form a useful bridge. Only minor
alterations have been made, e.g. corrections and updates.

Part I Philosophy
Chapter 1 discusses the relation between philosophy and psychology, arguing for
their mutual interdependence. This early paper was a contribution to a Forum on
the topic, published in the first issue of Mind & Language.
Chapter 2 is the first chapter of Conceptual Issues in Psychology, which provided
an overview of most of the topics covered and indicated the position to be taken
on them.
The stated aim of the book was to provide a broad treatment of the main
conceptual issues in psychology: to explain what the problems are, to outline the
main approaches taken to them and to indicate their relative merits and demerits,
although my hope was that the reader would ultimately reach his or her own
conclusions. The first part of the book was concerned with the more substantive
philosophical questions such as free will and determinism, consciousness and the
relation between body and mind, and included consideration of ways in which
empirical work in psychology may be able to throw light on these perennial
problems, which have interested scholars and lay people alike. These led on to the
methodological problems of introspection and sources of artefact in experi-
mentation. The second half of the book was concerned with different theoretical
approaches and types of explanation within psychology, such as behaviourism,
reductionism, computer modelling and purposive explanation.
A second edition was published ten years later. As I commented in the Preface
to that edition, conceptual change is slower than empirical advance. Perennial
questions tend to be reformulated rather than radically altered. Nevertheless, the
focus of interest shifts—psychology is particularly prone to fashion—and a number
of major developments took place, notably work on computational models and
neural networks. ‘Cognitive science’ was born, with the aim of fostering inter-
disciplinary links amongst philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics
and neuroscience. Work on consciousness exploded, though with uncertain results.
 Introduction 5
Attacks on positivism continued; the philosophy of mind flourished and alter-
natives to orthodox approaches increased in sophistication and popularity. New
sections on parallel distributed processing and Eastern Psychology were included
to reflect some of these changes.
Chapter 3 contrasts folk psychology with scientific language. It consists of my
comments as discussant at a symposium on ‘“Folk psychology” and its impli-
cations for psychological science’, convened by Ullin Place on behalf of the HPPS
for the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference, in Blackpool, in 1993.
I concluded that folk psychology differs from scientific psychology in its functions,
scope, criteria and evidential base. I returned to this topic in an invited lecture on
‘The role of introspection and folk psychology in a scientific psychopathology’ to
a research meeting on the theme of Philosophical Foundations of Psychopathology
for Spanish psychiatrists and mental health workers, held in El Puerto de Santa
María (Cádiz) in 2009.
Chapter 4 discusses introspection, both the theoretical problems of its nature and
status, and practical problems such as interference and accessibility. I first
published on these topics in 1978 with regard to the use of introspection in the study
of thinking (Valentine, 1978), and concluded that introspection was more useful
for studying the content than the process of thought. In the more general discussion
of the topic in the first edition of Conceptual Issues in Psychology (1982), I
extended the classification to the content of experience, the process of behaviour
and the determinants of behaviour (what? how? and why? questions respectively).
By the second edition I was able to incorporate Ericsson and Simon’s analysis of
the conditions governing the production of verbal reports, which enable the
identification of situations conducive to reliable reports.
Chapter 5 addresses problems that are perceived as obstacles to the scientific
investigation of conscious experience: (1) conceptual confusion and an absence of
natural categories; (2) privacy; and (3) epiphenomenalism or lack of causal
efficacy—and considers the extent to which they can be mitigated. The paper was
a contribution, at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in 1996,
to the inaugural symposium of the Consciousness & Experiential Psychology
Section, of which I was a founder member (together with Jane Henry, Max
Velmans, Richard Stevens and John Pickering). The paper also introduces ideas
developed more fully in Chapter 9.
The next two chapters engage in deconstruction. Chapter 6 provides a critique
of the claim that consciousness is a transparent, unified, coherent system that plays
an important role in the control of behaviour, based on neuropsychological data.
This paper was originally presented at the conference on ‘Consciousness at the
Crossroads of Philosophy and Cognitive Science’, in Maribor, Slovenia, in 1994;
subsequently to a joint meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the HPPS
on ‘Dysfunctions of consciousness’ at the University of Wolverhampton in 1995;
and under a slightly different title, as the inaugural lecture to the Association of
Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neurology at the Paediatric Hospital,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 1996. The first of these lectures was part of an international
project entitled ‘Phenomenology and Cognitive Science’ funded by the European
6 Introduction
Union under the Tempus Programme, in which philosophers, psychologists and
computer scientists from England, Germany, Italy, Austria and Slovenia took part.
The aim of the project was to explore relations between the Continental,
phenomenological tradition of Brentano and Husserl and Anglo-American work
in cognitive science. Four conferences were held and there were exchange visits
of both staff and students between 1992 and 1994, culminating in the publication
of the volume Handbook: Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (Baumgartner
et al., 1996). The project was not only academically fruitful but also personally
rewarding, with many lasting friendships made.
Chapter 7 offers a critique of the conceptual ‘ecological’ self, and concludes
that work in current Western philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience
accords with ancient Eastern philosophy, in denying our everyday conception of
the existence of a self as perceiver and agent. It was first presented as a paper at
the 24th International Congress of Psychology in Sydney, Australia, in 1988.
The next two chapters discuss various aspects of the mind-body problem.
Chapter 8 is an encyclopaedia entry on ‘metaphysics’. After distinguishing
ontological, epistemological and conceptual issues, it provides an account of the
mind-body problem that supersedes that presented in the second edition of
Conceptual Issues in Psychology. It also lays the basis for the distinction drawn
between different forms of the problem, discussed in the following chapter, where
it is argued that epistemologically the problem is insoluble, ontologically it is
straightforwardly soluble, and theoretically it is soluble with difficulty but that
greater progress has been made on this than is generally accepted. This latter paper
was originally presented under the title: ‘The science of experience: Popper’s three
worlds and attitudes to the explanatory gap’ as the Chair’s address to the HPPS at
their Annual Conference at York in 1996 and published in New Ideas in Psychology
(Valentine, 1999). It was given in a modified form as an invited lecture at the 6th
International Conference on Cognitive Science in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2003,
under the title ‘Mind-body problems: Distinguishing the soluble from the insol-
uble’, the version included here.
Chapters 10 and 11 deal with explanation and are taken from the second edition
of Conceptual Issues in Psychology. Chapter 10 provides a fuller account of
different types of explanation than that provided in the first edition. The relation
between causal and teleological explanations was the subject of an early paper,
‘Causal and teleological explanation: same or different? Which one or both?’ given
at the first annual conference of the HPPS at Ilkley, Yorkshire, in 1987, sub-
sequently published in the first issue of Philosophical Psychology (Valentine,
1988). Chapter 11 deals with the specific issue of reduction, whether psychological
explanations might be replaceable by physiological ones, which was the subject
of a paper, ‘The reducibility of psychology to physiology: Putnam vs. Churchland’,
presented to the HPPS in 1989 meeting in Lincoln.
 Introduction 7
Part II From philosophy to history
Chapters 12 to 14 serve as a bridge from philosophy to history. The relation
between psychology and neuroscience is pursued in Chapter 12, with a paper on
‘Neural nets: from Hartley and Hebb to Hinton’, which traces the history of neural
nets. This too was originally presented to the HPPS (in Leeds in 1988) and was
spotted by the Book Review Editor of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology,
leading to a surprising but most welcome invitation to submit it for publication
there. Chapters 13 and 14 on G. F. Stout and James Sully respectively, philosophi-
cal psychologists at the turn of the 20th century as psychology was becoming
established as a scientific discipline, form a useful link to the succeeding three
chapters which deal with the development of psychology at two of the University
of London’s constituent colleges. Chapter 13, ‘G. F. Stout’s philosophical
psychology’, is based on a paper presented at a conference on ‘The origins of the
cognitive sciences 1870–1930: Theories of representation’, hosted by the Central
European Institute, Bolzano, Italy, in 1997. I am grateful to Liliana Albertazzi for
the invitation to participate in this meeting, which included delegates from
Germany, Italy, the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, France and the UK.
Chapter 14 is a biographical introduction to a re-issue of James Sully’s Studies of
Childhood just over a hundred years after it was first published. Sully’s role in
establishing the psychological laboratory at University College London is the
subject of Chapter 17.

Part III History

Research for the papers that form Chapters 15 to 17 was occasioned by centenary
celebrations. Centenaries are denigrated by professional historians but in my case
they provided the entrée into an exciting new field of academic endeavour. Once
introduced to the world of archives, I was ‘hooked’ and have been pursuing the
history of psychology ever since. The centenary of the appointment of Beatrice
Edgell to Bedford College London prompted research into the history of its
Psychology Department, where I was then a member of staff, and to an extended
study of Edgell herself. Chapter 15 is a history of the Department, based on oral
presentations given at the centenary celebrations and as the Chair’s address to the
HPPS Annual Conference in York in 1997.
Beatrice Edgell, head of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at
Bedford College from 1898–1933, was the subject of my inaugural lecture,
attended by several of her relatives, and reprinted as Chapter 16. She was the first
British woman to be awarded a doctorate in psychology and to become professor
of psychology in the UK. I discuss the setting up of one of the first psychological
laboratories in the country (at Bedford College), Edgell’s own research and
teaching, and consider reasons for her success at a time of limited access to
education for women, when social mores dictated that it was unnatural for women
to pursue professional careers. She was the subject of a number of further lectures
by me, most notably a public lecture at the National Portrait Gallery in connection
8 Introduction
with the exhibition ‘Portraits in Mind’ to mark the centenary of the British
Psychological Society in 2001, as well as an interview on Woman’s Hour the same
year, and an invited lecture in celebration of the centenary of the admission of
women to Bavarian universities at the University of Würzburg in 2003. Amongst
her many firsts, Edgell was the first female graduate of that university, where she
was awarded her doctorate in 1901. The Department of Psychology there have
instituted a prize in her name awarded annually for the best doctoral dissertation.
My research on Edgell led to publication of a full-length monograph on her
(Valentine, 2006).
An invitation to speak at the centenary celebrations of the founding of the
Psychological Laboratory at University College London (UCL) led to the discovery
of a set of correspondence from James Sully to Francis Galton on precisely this
topic. Happily the College still holds student records dating back over 100 years
and exciting detective work enabled identification of a hitherto anonymous donor.
This is featured in Chapter 17 and led to an interview on BBC Radio 4 (‘All in the
Mind’) and a number of lectures in the UK.
I had been aware for some time of the close relations between psychologists and
the Society for Psychical Research in the late 19th century, but was surprised to
find such activity continuing as late as the 1920s and 1930s. I came across something
called the ‘University of London Council for Psychical Investigation’ and wondered
what this was and how it could have come about. Further investigation revealed
that a number of senior academics (including a number at UCL) were involved with
the amateur psychical researcher Harry Price in the inter-war years. This research
was presented to the HPPS in Edinburgh in 2009. At the meeting of the European
Society for the History of the Human Sciences (ESHHS) in Budapest the same year,
there was a session on ‘Parapsychology, occultism and spiritualism’. It became
apparent that a number of scholars were working in what might at first appear to be
a ‘fringe’ area. Following a suggestion made by Ian Lubek, I convened a symposium
on ‘Relations between psychical research and mainstream psychology in Europe,
the USA and Japan’ which took place at ESHHS the following year in Utrecht—a
highly appropriate venue given that the first professor of parapsychology (Wilhelm
Taenheff) was appointed there in 1953. The papers from this unique event were
subsequently published as a Special Issue in History of the Human Sciences
(Valentine, ed., 2012). My own paper is reprinted here as Chapter 18. Psychical
research has proved a popular topic and several further presentations were invited,
most notably one at the Royal Society in their history of science series in 2012.
The need to contextualise my study of Beatrice Edgell (a conference presentation
in the United States raised the question of whether there were any other women
like her) led me to research an extended sample of the 16 women who became
members of the British Psychological Society between its inception in 1901 and
the widening of access (by loosening the admission criteria) in 1918. Chapter 19,
which presents data on this sample, is based on presentations at the first joint
meeting of Cheiron and ESHHS in Dublin in 2007, and ‘Collecting Women’s
Lives’, the 16th Annual Conference of the Women’s History Network in
Winchester the same year.
 Introduction 9
The remaining two chapters constitute studies of some of the more interesting
members of this group. Chapter 20 recounts the exciting story of Nellie Carey,
which has popular appeal. Its discovery was the result of typing ‘Wohlgemuth’ into
the Times Digital Archive in an idle moment. Chapter 21 is a biographical study
of Jessie Murray, founder of the Medico-Psychological Clinic. I was lucky to find
archival sources that revealed details of her suffragist activities as well as how she
came to write the Preface to Marie Stopes’ Married Love. Originally presented as
a paper to the 22nd HPPS Annual Conference in Oxford in 2008, it later formed
the subject of a lecture for the British Psychological Society-sponsored ‘Stories of
Psychology. Archives, Histories and What They Tell Us’ at the Wellcome
Collection Conference Centre, 2012.

References
Baumgartner, E., Baumgartner, W., Borstner, B., Potrč, M., Shawe-Taylor, J. & Valentine,
E. (Eds.). (1996). Handbook: Phenomenology and cognitive science Dettelbach:
Verlag Josef Röll.
Boyack, K. W., Klavnas, R. & Börner, K. (2005). Mapping the backbone of science.
Scientometrics, 64, 351–74.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it
can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hatch, J. A. (Ed.). (1995). Qualitative research in early childhood settings. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Publishing Group.
Russell, J. (1984). Explaining mental life. London: Macmillan.
Smith, R. (2010). Why history matters. History & Philosophy of Psychology, 12(1), 26–38.
Valentine, E. R. (1978). Perchings and flights: Introspection. In A. Burton & J. Radford
(Eds.), Thinking in perspective (pp. 1–22). London: Methuen.
Valentine, E. R. (1988). Teleological explanations in psychology and their relation to causal
explanations. Philosophical Psychology, 1, 61–68.
Valentine, E. (1999). Popper’s three worlds and attitudes to the explanatory gap. New Ideas
in Psychology, 17, 31–39.
Valentine, E. R. (2006). Beatrice Edgell: Pioneer woman psychologist. Hauppage, NY:
Nova Science.
Valentine, E. R. (2010). Phronesis and episteme. History & Philosophy of Psychology, 12,
57–60.
Valentine, E. R. (Ed.) (2012). Special Issue, Relations between Psychical Research and
Academic Psychology in Europe, the USA and Japan. History of the Human Sciences,
25(2).
Part I
Philosophy
1 Philosophy and psychology

The background text raises the question of the relation between philosophy and
psychology, in particular, whether this is one of dependence or independence. Can
psychological experiments refute philosophical claims? Are psychological findings
relevant to philosophy? Can philosophy alter psychology? Or do they pass each
other by?
At first sight, a verdict of independence may be returned. It might be said that
the two disciplines differ with respect to both their aims and methods. Thus,
philosophy is concerned with conceptual clarification, with questions of the form:
‘What does it mean to say that x?’, whereas psychology is concerned with the
empirical discovery of facts. Philosophy employs logic as its main tool, whereas
psychology employs observation, quantification and controlled experimentation.
Although there are numerous areas of apparent common subject-matter (for
example, perception, thinking, language and knowledge), philosophical and
psychological questions, although superficially similar, generally demand very
different kinds of answer. There is a temptation for each to see the other as
irrelevant. Thus, the question of the conditions for knowledge, for the philosopher,
requires a consideration of the grounds of knowledge, and falls in the domain of
epistemology, which may make recommendations as to how knowledge is best
acquired. For the psychologist, on the other hand, an empirical study of the
conditions in which knowledge is actually acquired is required. This exercise is
descriptive, whereas the philosophical pursuit may be prescriptive. As Hume
(1739) demonstrated, ‘ought’ cannot be derived from ‘is’.
However, facts cannot be discovered in a theoretical vacuum, nor are purely
armchair theories of much use. The notion that the philosopher is concerned to
discover what is the case in all possible worlds is incoherent. Quine (1951)
demonstrated that it is difficult to defend the distinction between analytic and
synthetic. Moreover, it is not easy to decide whether the relationship between an
experience and the mechanism that mediates it is purely contingent or whether
there are some necessary constraints. An example of the latter approach is
O’Keefe’s (1985) exploration of the analogy between the anatomy and physiology
of the hippocampus and optical holography, on the grounds that similar principles
of information storage are involved, such as non-topological representation;
and his identification of consciousness with theta activity in the hippocampus,
14 Philosophy
following an examination of parallels in their principles of operation. The unified
and holistic nature of consciousness he identifies with the distributed nature of
representation, such that information about an environment is stored across the
entire surface of the hippocampus and each neuron may participate in the storage
of many environments.
Two lines of evidence are open to the supporter of the ‘dependence’ position:
philosophical influences on psychology and psychological influences on philos-
ophy. That empirical discoveries are dependent on philosophical presuppositions
is now not disputed: Kuhn demonstrated that any knowledge worth having is
parasitic upon a particular paradigm. Philosophy can make important contributions
to metapsychology, for example, by clarifying distinctions between different types
of explanation. Boden’s (1972) explication of the relation between purposive and
mechanistic explanations, or Gauld and Shotter’s (1977) contrast of hermeneutic
and positivist approaches, are cases in point. Or it may make explicit the impli-
cations of particular views as, for example, in the distinction between type identity
(the view that each mental event is a particular type of physical event), and token
identity (the view that each mental event is one physical event), as applied to the
mind-body problem. The former rules out artificial intelligence (i.e. the possession
of mental properties by machines): the latter does not.
On the other hand, psychology may contribute facts that lead to the revision of
commonly held philosophical notions. (Indeed, one might go so far as to say that
the discovery of empirical facts is more likely than armchair logic to lead to
conceptual revision.) Several of these relate to the role of consciousness in
behaviour. Freud’s theories forced the acceptance of the notion of unconscious
causes and reasons for behaviour. Work on subliminal perception has demonstrated
the possibility of perception, or at least discrimination, without awareness. The
same might be said of ‘blindsight’, where patients with damage to the occipital lobe
can respond correctly to visual stimuli, given a forced choice, in situations where
they lack the experience of seeing. An alternative interpretation in some cases may
be that such people are aware but are unable to describe their experiences. They
frequently report that they had a sort of feeling but not one that is normally called
‘seeing’. Perhaps a subdivision into two types of awareness is called for.
I conclude that, although the separatist view has prima facie validity, the integral
view is the correct one and that the dependence is mutual.

References
Boden, M. (1972). Purposive explanation in psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gauld, A. and Shotter, J. (1977). Human action and its psychological investigation. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Hume, D. (1739). Treatise of human nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge (Ed.) Oxford: Clarendon.
O’Keefe, J. (1985). Is consciousness the gateway to the hippocampal cognitive map? A
speculative essay on the neural basis of mind. In D. A. Oakley (Ed.) Brain and mind.
London: Methuen.
Quine, W. V. O. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. Philosophical Review, 60, 20–43.
2 Psychology as science

Is psychology different from other sciences? Many of its theoretical problems are
based on such a belief. What particular problems does the nature of its subject
matter raise and how may they be resolved? In this chapter we shall introduce a
number of issues that will be dealt with in more detail later in the book and indicate
the main approaches to be taken to them. Our first concern will be to consider
psychology as science and what assumptions underlie such treatment. For con-
venience, these may be classified as: (1) metaphysical – fundamental views about
the nature of the subject matter, (2) theoretical – relating to the nature of scientific
theories, and (3) methodological – pertaining to observation and experimentation.

Metaphysical assumptions
The scientific treatment of psychology assumes that its subject matter, the
behaviour of humans and other animals, is similar in relevant respects to the
subject matter of other sciences, namely, other natural phenomena. Human
behaviour is indeed one of the most recently added areas of scientific investigation,
partly due to theological objections: it was formerly considered sacred and not
appropriate subject matter for science. (For the history of, and rationale for, the
dichotomy between human beings as the possessors of a soul and reason, and other
animals whose behaviour is guided by instinct, see Beach, 1955.) This dichotomy
was challenged by Darwin’s assertion of continuity between human and
infrahuman species, which led to the ‘brutalisation of Man’ and the ‘humanisation
of animals’ (Peters, 1953).
An important respect in which this similarity must be assumed is that of
determinism, which implies that behaviour is caused and is therefore predictable
in principle. This appears to raise a difficulty for free will (how can a person be
‘free’ if behaviour is completely determined?) and similarly for moral respon-
sibility (how can people be held responsible for their actions or praise and blame
be apportioned?). Possible resolutions of this dilemma will be discussed in Chapter
2,1 where it will be argued that the obverse of determinism is randomness, that
free will may require rather than preclude determinism (the issue becoming one of
the nature rather than the existence of determination) and that determinism does
not imply compulsion, coercion or any mysterious force.
16 Philosophy
Determinism does imply predictability, at least in principle though not
necessarily in practice. It is interesting to speculate as to whether our failures to
predict are due to lack of skill on our part or the inherent nature of the subject
matter. One successful prediction does not imply determinism (one might predict
correctly by chance) but repeated successful prediction does imply an underlying
regularity.
There are, however, a number of difficulties here, namely, areas of unpre-
dictability. One of these is the possibility of the falsification of predictions (which
has sometimes been used as an argument in favour of, or at least a test of, free
will). The process of making a prediction may be subject to interfering effects
which invalidate it. Attempts to take these into account lead to an infinite regress.
A similar difficulty arises from Gödel’s theorem, which demonstrates that within
some consistent systems of logic there are propositions that can be seen to be true
but are not provable within the system. Neither of these, it will be argued, endangers
determinism but both suggest that there are limits to the possible completeness of
descriptions.
A discovery in quantum mechanics, namely, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle,
threw doubt on the universality of determinism: at the level of sub-atomic physics
there are certain conjugate properties such as the position and momentum of a
particle that cannot be simultaneously determined. Thus, there is some evidence
for indeterminism in some aspects of the universe. The implications of this micro-
level for the macro-level of human behaviour are, however, remote and obscure to
say the least.
The possibility of prediction raises the possibility of control, and the consequent
ethical problems of deciding who does the controlling, frequently levelled against
Skinner’s Utopia (Skinner, 1948, 1971). In a symposium with Rogers (1956) the
latter points out that science, and Skinner, must presuppose values. Science can
investigate the determinants and effects of values and hence may provide
knowledge relevant to their selection and implementation (see Day, 1976) but it
cannot itself determine what they shall be (see also Heather, 1976, who argues
forcefully against the notion that psychology is value free).
A fundamental problem in the philosophy of psychology has been whether laws
of a different nature from those that apply to inorganic matter are required. An
adequate solution to this problem may depend on advances in the philosophy of
biology. Generally in science a mechanistic model has been preferred, which
enables the prediction of future events on the basis of antecedent conditions and
assumes the universal applicability of causal laws. (It is worth noting, however,
that physics has advanced beyond causal explanations. Psychology has frequently
sought to ape outdated models from other sciences.) There are a number of features
of the behaviour of organisms that have raised doubts about the appropriateness
of the mechanistic model. One is purposiveness, essential to survival, which
involves flexibility, sensitivity to consequences and the direction of behaviour
towards goals; this has tempted explanation by reference to future events. On first
sight it looks as though purposive and causal explanations are diametrically
opposed and, indeed, many philosophers have taken the view that actions are
 Psychology as science 17
intentional and fundamentally different from movements or happenings. Much heat
has been generated on this question. We shall argue that the two types of explana-
tion are compatible but different. Indeed, purposive phenomena depend on
mechanistic ones. It can thus be argued that the truth of a mechanistic account is
a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the truth of a purposive one.
This intentionality of behaviour leads on to the issue of consciousness. What
treatment it should be afforded in psychology and its relation to behaviour are
considered in Chapter 4, and its relation to physiological processes as an aspect of
the mind-body problem in Chapter 3. One particularly thorny issue is whether
conscious processes should properly be assigned causal efficacy. This view has
not found much favour amongst psychologists for a variety of reasons: (1) the
difficulty of operationalisation (i.e. specifying observations that would be relevant
to the truth of statements about a concept); (2) the difficulty of independent
identification of mental states and resulting circularity of explanations in these
terms; and (3) the successful prediction of behaviour without recourse to conscious
states, though this does not preclude the possibility of alternative explanations in
terms of mental states. Some form of double aspect theory, according to which the
mental and physical are two aspects of the same underlying reality, will be
considered the most acceptable solution to the mind-body problem.
A general assumption held in varying degrees of strength by scientists concerns
the relation between different sciences. Many would agree that sciences can be
arranged in a hierarchical order according to the size of unit or level of analysis,
e.g. it might be said roughly that sociology deals at the level of groups, psychology
at the level of individuals, physiology with parts of individuals, biochemistry at
the intra-cellular level and physics at the molecular. Hence, what is relatively
molecular for a higher level science is relatively molar for a lower level science
(compare, for example, a muscle twitch for psychology and physiology). The
question arises as to what the relation between these different level descriptions is
or should be. Reductionism is the view that higher level descriptions can be derived
from lower level descriptions and hence in due course it might be possible to
replace psychological explanations by physiological explanations. There is a covert
assumption that lower level descriptions are more fundamental and hence
preferable. Emergence is the opposite view that higher level descriptions cannot
be derived from lower level ones. The assumptions underlying reduction and the
whole issue of the relation of psychology to physiology are discussed in Chapter
11. It will be argued that, as in the case of the relation of purposive to mechanistic
descriptions, psychology and physiology describe different aspects of phenomena
and hence are complementary, that strict reduction entailing logical identity is
untenable because psychological and physiological descriptions have different
meanings, and that empirical reduction which requires the establishment of
bridging laws faces many difficulties.
18 Philosophy
Theoretical assumptions
Many of the characteristics of scientific laws raise potential problems for the
subject matter of psychology.
A first requirement is that of systematicity. At the very least, science must be a
coherent body of knowledge. The complexity of psychological subject matter,
notably the diversity and likely interactive nature of relevant variables, promises
trouble for psychology, a promise that has been amply fulfilled. Grünbaum (1952),
however, argued that the subject matter of other sciences such as physics is hardly
simple, and may have seemed as complex as that of psychology at the time of its
inauguration. It is unlikely that psychology can rely on youth to account for its
lack of progress. Comparison with biochemistry is enough to suggest that the
malaise goes deeper.
A particular difficulty is due to the reflexivity of psychology. Not only is it the
case that the observer and the observed are often members of the same species,
but also that actually doing psychology constitutes part of its subject matter. This
means at the very least that psychological theories must be self-referring in the
sense of explaining the psychologist’s own behaviour, as Oliver and Landfield
(1963) point out. Bannister (1968) has used this as an argument for the non-
reducibility of psychology to physiology (see Chapter 11).
Other problems are associated with a second characteristic of scientific laws, that
of generality. It is generally accepted that scientific laws are unrestricted in space
and time. A glance at typical psychological theoretical statements indicates that
this condition is not always met. Too often these statements refer to specific times
and places. Of course this is a matter of degree: all statements are restricted to a
greater or lesser extent, but the scientific ideal is that this should approach the latter
rather than the former. The failure probably reflects a greater interest on the part
of investigators in the content rather than the process of behaviour. Since the
content of behaviour varies considerably, it presents much greater problems for
scientific treatment than do the principles of adaptation. Social and cultural aspects
of behaviour are much less amenable to a scientific analysis than are biological
aspects.
Another possible challenge to generality comes from the conflicting demand to
recognise the uniqueness of the individual. Since the movement of Verstehen
psychology in 19th century Germany, there have been cries to understand the
individual rather than predict behaviour in general. It is frequently said that more
is to be learned about human behaviour by studying literature rather than
psychology. A comparison of idiographic and nomothetic approaches, which focus
on the particular and general respectively, and encompass differences in subject
matter, methods and explanations, is the topic of Chapter 14. They probably largely
reflect differences in aims: empathic understanding as against deductive, predictive
explanation, and in application they may be complementary. As far as science goes,
however, nomothesis must be the rule of the day. If a clinical method works it
must be covertly nomothetic and if truly unique it could not be communicated (see
Holt, 1967). Nevertheless, there can be a scientific study of individuals.
 Psychology as science 19
Since, if not before, Popper’s (1959) epoch-making work, the hallmark of
scientific hypotheses has been testability, in this case, falsifiability. This has raised
problems for psychology because of the inherent difficulty in operationalising its
concepts. Most of its area of interest is not directly observable. Indeed, Popper
was led to formulate his demarcation principle partly as a result of noting the
inadequacies in this respect of the psychological theories of Freud and Jung. The
whole question of the relation of theoretical constructs to the evidence for them is
thus a central one in psychology.

Methodological assumptions
There may well be no definitive characteristics of science and indeed if there were
they would probably change from one time to another. Strictly, ‘science’ means
‘knowledge’ but what it has come to mean in the modern Western world is
knowledge acquired as a result of employing empirical methods. If there is any
one thing that characterises it more than anything else, it is probably the empirical
method. Other pursuits have been systematic, such as Greek cosmology, but we
would not call them science. Empiricism involves appeal to sensory experience as
opposed to reliance on a priori reasoning; the criterion of truth becomes one of
correspondence with the facts rather than logical coherence. Typically it involves
observation, measurement and experimentation. In some sciences, such as astron-
omy and geology, only observation and measurement are possible but usually
experimentation is regarded as the characteristic of science par excellence. There
are some difficulties in the way of experimentation in psychology, as we shall see
below, and it may be more akin to geology than has been generally recognised.
The possibility of applying any of these three procedures to psychological subject
matter has been doubted by many.
Observation presents problems for psychology on account of the previously
mentioned fact that most of what is of interest, that which is essentially psy-
chological – thoughts, feelings and the springs of action – is not open to direct
observation. Hence, as indicated above, almost all psychological statements must
be inferential. I would claim that this is true of all sciences but the gap between
data and theory is probably greater and the connection looser in psychology than
in other sciences. The issue of privacy will be taken up in Chapter 5, where it will
be argued that all scientific statements are based on observations of private
experiences, and that the distinction between subjective and objective is not as
clear-cut as at first supposed.
Furthermore, it is now clear that neither the observer nor the observed are
passive, non-interactive organisms in the experimental situation. The fact that
observation necessarily interferes with what is observed, first discovered in
physics, became the subject of experimentation in psychology with the recognition
that the experiment is itself a social situation.
Dualistic thought would suggest that quantifiability was the exclusive
prerogative of the physical. Kant (1781/1974) held that observation could be
applied to psychological phenomena but that measurement and experimentation
20 Philosophy
were impossible. However, since the latter part of the 19th century, advances in
the measurement of psychological or mental characteristics have progressively
been made and the grounds for such a belief gradually eroded. In 1861 Fechner
published an account of psychophysical methods, in the vain belief that they solved
the mind-body problem. They did, however, provide methods for establishing
functions relating psychological values or reported sensations to physical values
of stimuli, though these have since been superseded. Ebbinghaus, coming on a copy
of Fechner’s Elemente der Psychophysik, was spurred to similar achievement in
devising ways of measuring memorial associations. The turn of the 20th century
saw the beginning of attempts to measure intellectual ability, or at least
performance, with the Binet-Simon scale, and Galton’s predominantly physical
measures and development of percentile ranks and correlation. From these sprang
the whole field of psychometrics and factor analysis. Scaling focusses the difficulty
of measurement in psychology. One of the central questions is the arbitrariness of
the scale: to what extent can the values be said to reflect fundamental realities and
relations and to what extent are they a function of theoretical constructs? For further
discussion of this topic see, for example, Coombs, Dawes and Tversky (1970).
Herbart (1824) believed that observation and measurement could be applied
to psychology but not experimentation. Wundt (1862), the first experimental
psychologist proper, thought that experimental methods could only be applied to
what he considered lower order processes; thinking, judgment and language were
too socially conditioned to be similarly treated. Empirical investigation of social
phenomena is possible, but experimentation in the sense of isolating variables with
the purpose of identifying causal factors may not be because it is virtually
impossible to implement sufficient control. There are various reasons why this is
so: the number of variables, their interaction and the history of the organism.
One reason results from the adaptability of organisms. Behaviour is a function
of the past history of the organism and can only be explained by reference to it.
Only the blinkered would still fail to acknowledge that behaviour is not predictable
on the basis of the observable, external physical stimuli but only on the basis of
the meaning of these stimuli for the organism (cf. Underwood’s (1963) distinction
between the nominal and the functional stimulus). In addition, there are practical
and ethical limitations to the amount of control that is possible. Despite trans-
gressions in this direction, there are limits to noxious stimuli that can be inflicted
on subjects. Impoverished environments and brain damage have to be taken
advantage of rather than created.
In conclusion, psychology does have particular problems but generally these
represent differences in degree rather than kind from those of other sciences. Most
are capable of resolution to a greater or lesser extent.

Note
1 References to chapters are to Valentine (1992), not the present volume.
 Psychology as science 21
References
Bannister, D. (1968) The myth of physiological psychology. Bulletin of the British
Psychological Society, 21, 229–31.
Beach, F. A. (1955) The descent of instinct. Psychological Review, 62, 401–10.
Coombs, C. H., Dawes, R. M., and Tversky, A. (1970) Mathematical Psychology: An
Elementary Introduction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Day, W. F. (1976) The case for behaviourism. In M. H. Marx and F. E. Goodson (Eds.)
Theories in Contemporary Psychology. London: Macmillan.
Grünbaum, A. (1952) Causality and the science of behaviour. American Scientist, 40,
665–76, 689.
Heather, N. (1976) Radical Perspectives in Psychology. London: Methuen.
Herbart, J. F. (1824) Psychologie als Wissenschaft. Königsberg: Unzer.
Holt, R. R. (1967) Individuality and generalization in the psychology of personality. In
R. L. Lazarus and J. R. Opton (Eds.) Personality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kant, I. (1781/1974) Kritik der reinen Vernunft. (J. M. D. Meikeljohn, Trans.). London:
Dent.
Oliver, W. D. and Landfield, A. W. (1963) Reflexivity: an unfaced issue of psychology,
Journal of Individual Psychology, 20, 187–201.
Peters, R.S. (Ed.) (1953) Brett’s History of Psychology. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Popper, K.R. (1959) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.
Rogers, C. R. (1956) Some issues concerning the control of human behaviour. Science, 124,
1057–66.
Skinner, B. F. (1948) Walden Two. New York: Macmillan.
Skinner, B. F. (1971) Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf.
Underwood, B. J. (1963) Stimulus selection in verbal learning. In C. N. Cofer and
B. S. Musgrave (Eds.) Verbal Learning and Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Valentine, E. R. (1992) Conceptual Issues in Psychology. London: Routledge.
Wundt, W. (1862) Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung. Leipzig: Winter.
3 Folk psychology and
its implications for
cognitive science
Discussion

If inclined to Rorty’s (1965) view that folk psychology is little better than witch-
craft, one may be tempted to suggest that time devoted to its discussion might more
profitably be spent debating the language appropriate to scientific psychology or
cognitive science, a point to which I shall return. In fact, I suspect that the label
‘cognitive science’ licenses, or at least encourages, discussion of folk psychology.
Rather than present detailed comments on the excellent set of papers presented
here, I shall raise some general issues and in so doing attempt to draw threads
together. There seem to me to be at least three important issues:

1 What is folk psychology?

2 What are its strengths and weaknesses from the point of view of scientific
psychology?
3 What is the relation of folk psychology to scientific psychology, and in
particular what differences are there between them?

What is folk psychology?

It can be quite difficult to find out. Most of the authors assume it is already known
and concrete examples are fairly thin on the ground. Smith’s (1996) paper has the
merit of providing a definition:

Folk psychology is part of common sense. It is that part we use to make sense
of our own and other people’s words and deeds. We rely on it to predict what
people will do and say on particular occasions, and to make them intelligible
even when what they do and say surprises us.
(Smith, 1996, p. 256)

In addition, he gives the following concrete examples: “she did it because she
wanted to hurt him”; “he went to the house because he believed she’d be there”;
“she stood up because she wanted to leave.” And in a quotation from Dennett
(1987): “wants to visit China” or “expects noodles for supper”. Richards (1996)
offers us: “It is my belief that you are profoundly mistaken”; “I have a vivid
recollection of my fifth birthday party” . . . “You have some strange ideas”. The
 Folk psychology and cognitive science 23
main point I wish to make with respect to these is that they include very different
types of statements, so that answers to questions one may wish to raise about folk
psychology will vary accordingly. Thus, we may have descriptions of mental states
or sensory contents (though Place (1996, p. 269) claims that phenomenological
descriptions of private experiences do not provide either the data or the concepts
on the basis of which folk psychological explanations of behaviour are con-
structed); descriptions of the process of behaviour (e.g. how one sets about carrying
out a task); or par excellence explanations or reasons for behaviour. In accord with
my analysis of introspection (Valentine, 1978), the validity of these may decrease
from the first to the last. Philosophers have tended to focus attention on beliefs
and desires, a Fodorian ‘language of thought’, based on the computational model
of mind because they have tended to gloss folk psychology as propositional
attitudes (Greenwood, 1992). Social psychology is largely ignored, whereas the
primary explanatory constructs in folk psychology are generally emotions, motives
and opinions (Dennett’s ‘linguistically infected’ beliefs). I agree with Patricia
Churchland (1986) that not all mental life is a matter of sentence crunching (except
perhaps for philosophers) and that the linguistic control of behaviour is often a
fiction. Neither am I convinced, contrary to the claims of utility theory, that people
generally do what they believe will achieve their fondest wish. But, as Greenwood
(1992) argues, the inaccuracy or inadequacy of explanations advanced by folk
psychology does not entail the rejection of the ontology of contentful psychological
states; likewise, the inadequacy of sentential theories of cognitive processing does
not entail the inadequacy of scientifically developed forms of folk psychological
explanations of behaviour, e.g. as advanced by contemporary social psychology.
Similarly, McGinn (1989) has distinguished the ontology of persons, attitudes and
propositional contents as independent aspects of folk psychology with respect to
its theoretical viability.

Strengths and weaknesses of folk psychology from the point

of view of scientific psychology
In everyday life the main function of folk psychology is to give an account of others’
behaviour. This is reminiscent of Humphrey’s (1983) view that the function of self-
consciousness is to enable social animals empathically to make sense of the
behaviour of other members of the group. For science, folk psychology could pro-
vide preliminary hypotheses, as in the method of Verstehen, by means of empathic
understanding, which then need to be tested by more objective empirical or
experimental methods. Folk psychology helps to pick out or fix the reference of the
states in which we are interested (Smith, 1996, p. 260). Conceptual analysis may
provide important insights, as in the analysis of mental activity verbs, e.g. Ryle’s
‘heed’ concepts (Place, 1954); intensional statements such as those containing the
words ‘imagine’ or ‘see’; and the subtle language of emotion and feeling (Place,
1996, p. 267). Some scientific psychology is refined folk psychology: Greenwood
(1992) cites Latané and Darley’s (1970) explanation of bystander apathy as an
example of the replacement of one folk psychological explanation by another.
24 Philosophy
On the other hand, folk psychology can be misleading. Place’s (1996, pp. 267–
269) paper carefully details six respects in which this may be so. Why are we
misled? Chater and Oaksford (1990) suggest that folk psychology is a paradigm
in which we are indoctrinated from birth. Greenwood (1992) cites data from Leslie
(1988) suggesting that children engage in folk psychology from about 3 to 4 years
of age, although this claim has been disputed (Wellman, 1988).
Is the fact that we think we have a ready-made language just the respect in which
psychology differs from other sciences? Is it different from other sciences? Should
it be? A technical language has never really been established: for reasons which
we need not discuss here, the behaviourist language didn’t catch on. It seems to
me that we should be considering the sort of language(s) that scientific psychology
requires. This issue was not really addressed by the participants; Chater and
Oaksford (1996, pp. 246–252) were plentiful in their criticisms of folk psychology
without offering any positive suggestions as to alternatives. Some might be inferred
by contrast with the dangers exposed by Place (1996, pp. 267–269). For example,
the warning about reification (‘nominalisation’) suggests that the focus should be
on processes rather than entities (though capacities and competences might be
allowed). Should we aim for the expression of generalities by means of mathe-
matical formulae rather than verbal propositions? Perhaps the fault has been to be
too atomistic and insufficiently relational and holistic: “a theoretically adequate
social psychology will only be developed when it embraces a relational conception
of the psychological states, one that recognises the social embeddedness of human
emotions, motives and opinions” (Greenwood, 1992). Or the complaint may be that
what is missing from theories of personality is the person (Paranjpe, 1993). Or,
more fundamentally, that a dialectical rather than a causal model should be pursued.

Relation of folk psychology to scientific psychology

This issue was ably addressed by Smith (1996). As we have already noted, in some
areas there may be a partial overlap between folk psychology and scientific
psychology. There is also an important sense in which folk psychology is part of
the subject matter of scientific psychology (Chater and Oaksford, 1996, p. 253;
Goldman, 1993): scientific psychology has to give an account of folk psychology
among other things. I consider work on attribution and locus of control, and in
particular the differences in attributions given for one’s own behaviour compared
with that of others, to be cases in point. It is part of the task of scientific psychology
to give an account of the determinants and consequences of engaging in folk
psychology. Both folk psychology and scientific psychology primarily aim to give
an account of others’ behaviour (a point that Place (1996, p. 269) reminds us was
originally made by Ryle, 1949), though by extension it applies also to one’s own.
The question thus arises as to whether folk psychology just does what scientific
psychology does, but badly. Would people be better off using scientific psy-
chology? Fontana (1992) makes the point that, since we are so often mistaken in
our attributions of other people’s behaviour, we would be better off using folk
psychology a lot less than we do, simply observing rather than interpreting.
 Folk psychology and cognitive science 25
However, it appears that there are number of important differences between folk
psychology and scientific psychology, first, with respect to functions. Folk psy-
chology is a framework for managing interpersonal relationships, and thus often
has moral, theological or epistemological overtones and purposes (Richards, 1996,
p. 274). Wilkes (1981) and Gergen (1989) have argued that it serves sociolinguistic
functions such as excusing and entreating. The fact that folk psychological terms
continue in use after any scientific backing has ceased (Richards, 1996, p. 273) also
confirms the hypothesis that it serves a different function or functions from
scientific psychology. It has often been argued that they have different criteria:
pragmatic utility in the case of folk psychology, whereas scientific psychology
claims to be true in some sense. This view of folk psychology is reminiscent of
Rycroft’s (1966) suggestion with regard to psychoanalysis, that it is simply a
language for making symptoms intelligible rather than a scientific theory that is
empirically testable.
Folk psychology and scientific psychology also differ with respect to their scope.
The former is primarily concerned with social and personality psychology, whereas
the latter deals with the whole range of behaviour, including cognitive and phy-
siological aspects. “The sorts of linguistically informed psychological states that are
posited by explanatory folk psychology are complex states of persons: complex
states of organisms with a certain developmental history, linguistic competence and
social position” (Greenwood, 1992). This is in contrast to the sorts of repre-
sentational states that are the subject matter of competing theories of cognitive
processing—states of the brain with representational properties (Greenwood, 1992).
Another important difference is that folk psychology is generally concerned with
the explanation of particular actions of individuals and is hence idiographic,
context-sensitive and normative (McGinn, 1979), whereas scientific psychology
is concerned with general competence in the species. It is for this important reason
that Russell (1984) argues that folk psychological explanations can never form part
of scientific psychology.
Folk psychological statements are subjective (‘egocentric’), value-laden (Place,
1996, p. 268) and vague (Fodor’s ‘granny psychology’); whereas those of scientific
psychology purport to be objective, value-free and precise. I suspect that, contra
Place (1996, p. 264), folk psychology is subject to both individual and cultural
differences (consider, for example, cross-cultural differences in the relative impor-
tance attached to individual and groups processes, or the aboriginal Australian
language in which everything is expressed in the passive voice: Dixon, 1980).
Finally, folk psychology is based on a much more limited perspective, what one
is conscious of; thus, belief in free will, for example, may be the result of being
aware of the consequences but not the determinants of behaviour. I believe that
Nisbett and Wilson (1977) have convincingly shown that we are frequently
unaware of the causes of our behaviour. Scientific psychology, on the other hand,
is much more broadly based, on the results of behavioural experiments aimed at
elucidating the causal network; it is empirically tested and supported, and repli-
cated by peers. It includes more levels of description: Dennett’s (1971) physical
and design as well as intentional stances.
26 Philosophy
I conclude, therefore, that folk psychology differs from scientific psychology in
its functions, scope, criteria and evidential base.

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theories. (Technical report No. UWB-CNU-TR-90-4, Cognitive Neurocomputation Unit,
Department of Psychology, University of Wales, Bangor.)
Chater, N. & Oaksford, M. (1996). The falsity of folk theories: Implications for psychology
and philosophy. In W. O’Donohue & R.F. Kitchener (Eds,) The philosophy of
psychology (pp. 244–56). London: Sage.
Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Dennett, D. C. (1971). Intentional systems. Journal of Philosophy, 68, 87–106.
Dennett, D. C. (1987). The intentional stance. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1980). The languages of Australia. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
Fontana, D. (1992). Know who you are, be what you want. London: Fontana.
Gergen, K. J. (1989). Warranting voice and the elaboration of the self. In J. Shotter &
K. J. Gergen (Eds.) Texts of identity (pp. 70–81). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Goldman, A. I. (1993). The psychology of folk psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences,
16, 15–28.
Greenwood, J. D. (1992). Against eliminative materialism: from folk psychology to
Völkerpsychologie. Philosophical Psychology, 5, 349–67.
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Latané, B. & Darley, J. M. (1970). The unresponsive bystander. New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts.
Leslie, A. M. (1988). Some implications of pretense for mechanisms underlying the child’s
theory of mind. In J. W. Astington, P. L. Harris & D. R. Olton (Eds.) Developing
theories of mind (pp. 19–46). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McGinn, C. (1979). Action and its explanation. In N. Bolton (Ed.) Philosophical problems
in psychology (pp. 20–42). London: Methuen.
McGinn, C. (1989). Mental content. Oxford: Blackwell.
Nisbett, R. E. & Wilson, T. deC. (1977). Telling more than we can know: verbal reports on
mental processes. Psychological Review, 84, 231–59.
Paranjpe, A. (1993). Is the person missing from theories of personality? In I. Lubek, R. van
Hezewijk, G. Pheterson & C. Tolman (Eds.) Recent trends in theoretical psychology
(Vol. 8). New York: Springer.
Place, U. T. (1954). The concept of heed. British Journal of Psychology, 45, 234–55.
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London: Sage.
Richards, G. (1996). On the necessary survival of folk-psychology. In W. O’Donohue &
R. F. Kitchener (Eds.) The philosophy of psychology (pp. 270–75). London: Sage.
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Russell, J. (1984). Explaining mental life. London: Macmillan.
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London: Constable.
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Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson.
Smith, B. C. (1996). Does science underwrite folk psychology? In W. O’Donohue &
R.F. Kitchener (Eds.) The philosophy of psychology (pp. 256–64). London: Sage.
Valentine, E. R. (1978). Perchings and flights: Introspection. In A. Burton and J. Radford
(Eds.) Thinking in perspective (pp. 1–22). London: Methuen.
Valentine, E. R. (1992). Conceptual issues in psychology. London: Routledge.
Wellman, H. M. (1988). First steps in the child’s theorizing about the mind. In
J. W. Astington, P. L. Harris and D. R. Olton (Eds.) Developing theories of mind
(pp. 64–92). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wilkes, K. (1981). Functionalism, psychology, and the philosophy of mind. Philosophical
Topics, 12, 147–67.
4 Introspection

Theoretical problems
Is introspection different in kind from other methods, and if so, in what way?
Considerable debate has centred on the nature of introspection and the status of
introspective reports. On the one hand it has been suggested that it confers
privileged ‘access’, and that it can supply unique data which could not be obtained
in any other way; on the other hand, it has been rejected as a scientific method on
the grounds of subjectivity. According to the mentalist, the subject has direct access
to inner states, which are observed as if on a private cinema screen. These
determine and are referred to in verbal reports. According to the behaviourist, the
experimenter observes verbal responses, which are the product of, and provide
indirect evidence for, underlying processes.
Ayer (1959) has distinguished a number of different senses in which mental
states might be considered to be private. On the most stringent interpretation,
introspective reports would provide the only possible evidence for the existence
of a mental state. This is more plausible for images than for motives but is generally
untrue. In most cases other behavioural and/or physiological observations can be
made which are relevant to determining its existence.
According to a second interpretation, the subject is the only person who has this
particular type of evidence. This appears to be true of our current situation. People
do have special knowledge of their sensations. Whether anyone in the future could
have the same kind of evidence of another person’s mental states would depend
on technological advances and the conceptual analysis of personal identity (i.e.
how we chose to describe such advances should they occur).
Thirdly, are mental states private in the sense that introspective reports of them
are subjective? The distinction between subjective and objective is less clear cut
than at first appears. On the one hand, as we have seen, there are usually alternative
public sources of evidence; private experiences can be made public by communi-
cating them; and descriptions of private events are derivative from public ones. The
impossibility of private languages has been demonstrated by Wittgenstein (1953)
and the social origin of descriptions of inner states has been discussed by Skinner
(1953). On the other hand, all so-called ‘objective’ observations depend on sub-
jective experiences. “Strictly speaking, every first hand observation is necessarily
 Introspection 29
‘private’” (Burt, 1962). As Schrödinger (1958) pointed out of physics, “All this
information goes back ultimately to the sense perceptions of some living person
or persons, however many ingenious devices may have been used to facilitate the
labour . . . The most careful record, when not inspected, tells us nothing” (p. 162).
Observations are necessarily private and particular; the scientific statements
inferred from them are necessarily public and general (Perkins, 1953). Thus the
distinction between subjective and objective is a matter of degree.
If verbal reports are allowable as scientific data, how are they to be treated? Can
they be accepted at face value? Or do they have the same status as data from other
methods, simply providing a basis from which inferences can be made? Some have
argued that they carry special authority, perhaps even being incorrigible; others
that they are particularly prone to artifact.
It might be claimed that the final authority for descriptions of mental states lies
with the subject. This may be defensible with respect to experience but appears
not to be so with regard to behaviour. Subjects may be in a privileged position due
to greater familiarity with their own biographies. As Skinner (1953) observed,

Because of his preferred position with respect to his own history, he may have
special information about his readiness to respond, about the relation of his
behavior to controlling variables, and about the history of these variables.
Although this information is sometimes erroneous and . . . may even be
lacking, it is sometimes useful in a science of behavior.
(Skinner, 1953, pp. 278–279)

The results of psychological experiments clearly show that introspective reports

are not infallible. In many cases subjects may be in no better a position to make
observations about their behaviour than other observers, and there is evidence
that introspective reports are susceptible to various kinds of bias (e.g. Sheehan
& Neisser, 1969; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). But “because one sometimes makes
mistakes . . . it does not follow that one always makes them or even that one makes
them frequently” (Kelvin, 1956). Harré and Secord (1972) support a balanced view,
espousing what they call an ‘open souls doctrine’, according to which introspective
reports are authentic but revisable; a special case must be made out if they are to
be rejected.
Introspection provides data like any other method, from which inferences are
made. The behaviourist is incorrect in denying that subjects have privileged access
to their experiences and in assimilating introspective reports to ejaculations
such as ‘ouch!’ (Hebb, 1968); they are conceptually different in that they make
referential claims. The mentalist is incorrect in attributing to them superior validity.

Practical problems
Some have suggested that introspection is actually impossible. Kant claimed that
introspective acts could not themselves be introspected. Comte argued the point
explicitly:
30 Philosophy
As for observing in the same way intellectual phenomena at the time of their
actual presence, that is a manifest impossibility. The thinker cannot divide
himself in two, of whom one reasons whilst the other observes him reason.
The organ observed and the organ observing being, in this case, identical, how
could observation take place? This pretended psychological method is then
radically null and void.
(Comte, 1842, vol. 1. pp. 37–38)

That the thinker cannot divide himself in two, and that the organ observed and the
organ observing are the same, are assumed rather than demonstrated. Parallel
processing does occur, but to the extent that the processes involved are dependent
on conscious attention there are likely to be severe capacity limitations. An extreme
case of impairment would be attempting to make reports while in a state of
heightened emotion.
J. S. Mill’s reply was

It might have occurred to M. Comte that a fact may be studied through the
medium of memory, not at the very moment of our perceiving it, but the
moment after: and this is really the mode in which our best knowledge of our
intellectual states is generally acquired.
(Mill, 1882, p. 64)

The following dilemma arises as described by De Groot (1965), who has provided
one of the most thorough discussions of the topic, having used the method of
thinking aloud to study the making of moves in chess. If subjects delay their report
until after they have completed the task, they may forget what has happened and
memory errors may creep in. If, on the other hand, they attempt to introspect at
the same time as performing another intellectual task, there is likely to be mutual
interference and alteration of the process.

Verbalising one’s thoughts unequivocally adds an extra burden to the

subject’s task. On the one hand, the added instruction to think aloud,
necessarily influences the thought process to some degree; on the other,
concentrated thinking on the problem itself must somewhat hamper its
reporting . . . Quite often thoughts move so quickly that the spoken word cannot
keep up with them. The subject is then either forced to skip steps or to
deliberately slow down his thinking (if possible) which thereby disturbs the
thought process.
(De Groot, 1965, pp. 81–82)

Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1984) argue that the effect of verbalisation depends on
the task demands, and review evidence that is consistent with their hypotheses that
recoding of information from non-verbal to verbal form has the effect of slowing
down performance, whereas tasks that require selection and inference may result
in an alteration of the thought process. For example, Gagné and Smith (1962) found
 Introspection 31
that instructions to state reasons for each move in the Tower of Hanoi problem
improved efficiency of performance, the suggestion being that this encouraged
more deliberate planning.
Another effect De Groot’s subjects reported was abnormal formalisation of
thinking.

With some subjects gaps and pauses in reporting are frequent and of such
duration that they cannot be assumed to result from actual pauses in thinking.
He may just temporarily forget his second task (to think aloud), or he may not
be able to verbalize adequately what he is or has been doing mentally.
(De Groot, 1965. p. 379)

Thus the nature of the difficulty may lie in communication, in the translation of
thoughts into words. Skinner has frequently remarked on the ambiguities asso-
ciated with labelling private states. Part of the problem may lie in trying to force
parallel processes into a sequential mode. De Groot found that there were indi-
vidual differences with respect to the ease with which subjects were able to describe
their mental processes, intuitive thinkers finding the most difficulty. Thus,
introspective reports are likely to provide a distorted account of such processes.
Deception may be either intentional (some of De Groot’s subjects suppressed
strategies of which they were ashamed), or unintentional. A venerated case of the
latter is rationalisation described by Freud, who distinguished the subject’s reason
from the reason, which might be an unconscious motive. A simple demonstration
is post-hypnotic suggestion, where subjects construct a reason for behaviour which
is in fact determined by instructions of which they are unaware given under
hypnosis. More recently, Wason and Evans (1975; see also Evans & Wason, 1976)
have argued that protocols given by subjects in reasoning tasks are sometimes
rationalisations. These appear to be determined by the situation and their behaviour
in it, rather than being expressions of the causes of the behaviour, which are known
from an analysis of performance in other experiments to be discrepant with the
subjects’ reports; see also data from Nisbett & Wilson (1977) discussed below.
There is in fact evidence that introspective reports are particularly prone to
experimental artifacts. For example, Sheehan and Neisser (1969), in a study which
failed to demonstrate a relation between reported vividness of imagery and memory
for patterns, found effects due to the experimenter (Sheehan obtaining higher
vividness ratings than Neisser) and demand characteristics (vividness ratings
increased after an enquiry which focussed attention on imagery). As Orne (1962)
observed, the more ambiguous the situation for the subject the greater the likely
resulting variability in interpretation. It is perhaps ironical that Orne recommends
pre- and post-experimental enquiry as methods of attenuating the effect of demand
characteristics.
The most serious objection to introspection as a method in psychology, however,
is the fact that most of the relevant data are unavailable to consciousness.
Conscious processes are the tip of the iceberg (Miller, 1964). Most of mental
life and behaviour proceeds unconsciously. Discrimination can occur without
32 Philosophy
awareness, concepts can be formed and problems solved without subjects being
able to report on the critical features. The Würzburg psychologists made this
discovery when they attempted to apply the structuralists’ method to thinking and
judgment, and their findings were soon confirmed by Binet (1903) and Woodworth
(1906). It is the perchings (the static images) rather than the flights (the relations
in the margins of attention) (James, 1890) that are in consciousness, the products
rather than the processes of thinking (Lashley, 1956). One example is the storing
of running totals in mental arithmetic (Hayes, 1973). Ericsson and Simon (1980)
propose three causes of incompleteness of verbal reports:

1 Information may be unavailable to short-term memory, e.g. in fast, automatic

processes in contrast with slow, controlled processes (Kellogg, 1982), as is
often the case in perceptual encoding, retrieval of familiar items from long-
term memory, and perceptual-motor tasks.
2 There may be failure to report the contents of short-term memory, e.g. in cases
where there is a high cognitive load or where a task is interrupted. In Maier’s
(1931) experiment, subjects were more likely to report the hint if they
described the solution to the problem as emerging in several steps rather than
one. The suggested explanation (although others are possible) is that in the
latter case the hint was only transiently available in short-term memory, being
quickly obliterated by other information (possibly the appearance of the
solution, White, 1988). Ericsson and Simon (1980) suggest that periods of
thinking during the incubation period in creative problem-solving may be
forgotten because they are frequently interrupted.
3 Retrieval from long-term memory may be incomplete. For example, the
content of daydreaming may be difficult to retrieve subsequently because
appropriate cues are lacking in the external environment.

Nisbett and Wilson’s (1977) paper is devoted to showing that subjects are only able
to give correct reports on the determinants of their behaviour when the stimuli are
salient and plausibly related to the responses, these judgments resulting from a
priori causal hypotheses rather than direct access to mental processes. Furthermore,
introspection cannot be used with animal subjects and presents problems in
developmental and abnormal psychology. Unfruitfulness rather than subjectivity
was the reason for its decline.
At best introspective reports are likely to lead to an account which is incomplete,
at worst to one which is misleading. What is required is an analysis of the
conditions which determine such reports so that their reliability and validity can
be assessed. Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1984) have attempted to produce just such
an account. In a re-examination of verbal reports as data, they argue that what is
required is a theory of the measuring instrument, a model of how verbal reports
are generated, which will enable the prediction of situations where they are likely
to be reliable as distinct from those where they are not. They claim that ‘verbal
reports, elicited with care and interpreted with full understanding of the circum-
stances under which they were obtained, are a valuable and thoroughly reliable
 Introspection 33
source of information about cognitive processes’ (Ericsson & Simon, 1980). Four
relevant factors are considered:

1 The relation of the verbalisation to the task-directed process. The verbalisation

may be unrelated to, dependent on, or may modify the task-directed process.
2 The time interval. The verbalisation may be concurrent or retrospective.
3 The existence and nature of any intermediate process. Verbalisations may
come direct from short-term memory; they may require recoding; or they may
require selection and inference, e.g. being asked to supply reasons for
behaviour or answering personality questionnaire items which involve
consideration of hypothetical states.
4 The form of the probe, which may be specific or general. Their thesis is that
verbal reports will be most reliable when the information to be reported is
attended to, or heeded, i.e. stored in short-term memory and therefore directly
accessible.

Any of the four factors above may have the effect of weakening the relation
between the verbalisation and the heeded information.

The use of introspection in current psychology

An examination of the use of introspective reports in current psychology may
illustrate some of its advantages and disadvantages, and ways in which the
problems of reliability and validity can be tackled.

The content of experience

Introspective reports can provide useful information in a variety of circumstances
and in some cases may be superior to either behavioural or physiological measures.
Verbal descriptors have been found useful in the measurement and diagnosis of
different pain syndromes. Dubuisson and Melzack (1976) found that syndromes
could be accurately predicted on the basis of pain descriptors from the McGill pain
questionnaire, and Leavitt and Garron (1980) found that functional pain disorders
could be distinguished from organic ones in this way. Thayer (1970) argued that
self-report scales provided a more integrative and representative estimation of
general states of bodily activation than did four physiological measures, which
inter-correlated poorly.
One of the most obvious areas for the use of introspection, and one in which
systematic sources of error have been extensively investigated, is psychophysics.
Fechner’s methods may not have solved the mind-body problem as he had hoped
but they enabled a start to be made on the investigation of sensory experience and
an examination of the validity of sensory judgments. Few would hesitate to use
verbal reports in the study of perception, but much has now been learned about
their limitations (see Woodworth & Schlosberg, 1954). One discovery that was
made was that more accurate results were obtained if subjects were not allowed to
34 Philosophy
use a ‘don’t know’ category. In this case subjects may know more than they are
aware of. Other systematic sources of bias such as time errors and series effects
were also revealed.
The study of perception also illustrates one of the advantages of introspection.
Although discriminative capacities can be studied by other means, for example by
instructing subjects to adjust a comparison stimulus to match a standard or by
operant conditioning (as must perforce be done in the case of animals, cf. Stretch,
1966), verbal report may be a much more convenient method, avoiding the
necessity of setting up elaborate apparatus and training schedules. Asking can save
a great deal of time and trouble.
An extension of sensation and perception, posing even more challenging
problems for experimental investigation, is imagery. A number of innovative
techniques have been developed. Haber and Haber (1964) introduced the criteria for
eidetic imagery of accuracy, scannability, positive colour and persistence, thereby
increasing the stringency of claims for its existence. Accuracy can be objectively
checked against the presented stimulus, scannability probably by observing the
subject’s eye movements, and positive colour perhaps by getting subjects to
superimpose their images on differently coloured backgrounds and observing the
results. Persistence is more dependent on the subject’s report but might be checked
by observation of eye movements or a superimposition technique.
An extension of this last was used in an ingenious experiment by Stromeyer and
Psotka (1970), employing identical Julesz random dot stereograms. On these a
figure was superimposed, slightly displaced between the stimuli for the two eyes,
such that it stood out in depth when viewed stereoscopically. The stimulus for one
eye was presented to the subject, who was instructed to form an eidetic image of
it. After an interval of up to twenty-four hours the appropriate stimulus was
presented to the other eye and the subject instructed to combine the two. Their
eidetic subject was able to point to the corners of the figure. The likelihood of such
a result occurring by chance is extremely remote. However, no other subject has
been found to equal this performance.
A related case is the study of dream imagery, which is particularly interesting
with respect to the use of multiple measures. Stoyva and Kamiya (1968) have
documented the way in which the study of the subjective state of dreaming became
respectable with the discovery of a correlation between rapid eye movements
(REM) and dream reports (DR) by Aserinsky and Kleitman in 1953. This raises
the question of whether the increase in respectability is justified. Is one measure
superior to the other or is it the correlation that is important? In what way can a
correlation strengthen an inference? They suggest that, in this case, verbal reports
provide primary validation, and behavioural and physiological measures corrob-
orative evidence. REM by themselves tell us nothing about dreaming; their
usefulness is dependent on their having first been validated against verbal reports.
We take it on trust, arguing by analogy that when other people report dream
experiences these are similar to our own.
The corroborative value of the correlation between physiological measures and
verbal reports was strengthened by establishing what might be described as
 Introspection 35
gradations of correlation. Qualitative and quantitative improvements were made by
making the correlation more fine grain. A nominal correlation (the co-occurrence
of REM and DR) was raised to a quantified one by the following demonstrations:
(1) a correlation between the time elapsed prior to awakening and the estimated
length of dream (Dement & Kleitman, 1957); (2) a correlation between the density
of REM and the amount of physical activity reported in the dream (Berger &
Oswald, 1962); (3) a relation between the direction of REM and the visual activity
reported in the dream, e.g. horizontal movements for watching tennis matches
(Dement & Kleitman, 1957), although this has not been confirmed by all subsequent
work. These ‘extensions of the empirical network’ strengthen the corroborative
validation.
Stoyva and Kamiya claim (rightly) that the mental state of dreaming is indexed
imperfectly by both verbal report and physiological measures (i.e. DR and REM).
This raises the very interesting question of what inferences are made when the
measures conflict, and we may take this example as a case study.
Here we have two indices (DR and REM) of a hypothesised mental state
(dreaming). Logically there are four possible empirical situations: DR and REM,
DR in the absence of REM, REM in the absence of DR, and neither DR nor REM.
For each of these, logically, there are two possible conclusions: the existence or
non-existence of the hypothesised state of dreaming. It is instructive to consider
how the conclusion might be reached in each case.

1 Co-occurrence of DR and REM. This is represented by Aserinsky and

Kleitman’s (1953) original demonstration. Here researchers seem to be in
agreement that the appropriate conclusion is that dreaming took place. This
inference is strengthened by the refined correlations with respect to duration,
density and direction described above. However, it should be noted that it is
logically possible that dreaming did not occur. Is the fact that this conclusion
has been ignored an instance of verification bias?
2 DR in the absence of REM. Here opinions differ. Those who take DR as the
sole criterion of dreaming (e.g. Malcolm, 1959) conclude that dreaming
occurred; those who take REM as the ultimate criterion (e.g. Dement, 1955;
Wolpert, 1960) deny that dreaming occurred and conclude that the DR was a
fabrication. And indeed such reports might be considered suspect because of
the lack of physiological corroboration; there is a sense in which they are less
convincing than cases where both indices are present. There are a number of
instances of this situation and they may perhaps warrant different conclusions.
We shall consider them in turn. Foulkes (1962) obtained reports from non-
REM periods. However, these were qualitatively different from reports from
REM periods, being more thought-like. Distinctive verbal reports correlated
with distinctive physiological measures might give credence to a conclusion
of different mental states and hence non-existence of dreaming. Reports are
sometimes also obtained from hypnagogic states (Foulkes & Vogel, 1965). In
the absence of further evidence, the choice is perhaps equally divided between
a conclusion of dreaming on the basis of the similarity of verbal report, or not
36 Philosophy
dreaming on the basis of a difference in physiological measure. Other cases
of mental activity in non-REM periods, such as sleep-talking and sleep-
walking, being so different from verbal reports of dreaming, might best be
interpreted as indicative of non-dream states. And indeed this is confirmed by
their occurrence in stage 4 rather than stage 1 sleep (where REM occur).
Finally, subjects deprived of sleep often come to report dreams outside REM
periods. As these might be thought to be abnormal and dream-deprived a
conclusion of dreaming might be appropriate.
3 REM in the absence of DR. In this case also opinions diverge and opposite
conclusions may be reached. Those who define dreaming in terms of REM
conclude that dreaming occurred; those who opt for DR as the sole criterion
conclude that dreaming did not occur. There are a number of empirical
instances of this situation: 15–20 per cent of times where subjects are
awakened from REM periods they do not report dreams. Are these cases of
recall failure or did dreaming not occur? Cases of non-report where it may be
plausible to argue that the subject has forgotten the dream are those where there
is a delay before wakening (evidence for interference or decay theory could
be brought in support). In this latter case, the argument is supported by the
knowledge that had the sleeper been awakened there is a high probability that
a dream would have been reported. Here REM are preferred to DR as the
criterion and, if this argument is accepted, it shows that DR are not always the
sole or best indicator. Another difficult case is that of neonates, in whom REM
periods form about 50 per cent of their sleep. Some have queried whether they
dream. Here other theoretical ideas might help to disambiguate the situation.
For example, if dreams are thought to have the function of organising
experience then a verdict of dreaming would be plausible. That DR are not
the sole index of dreaming is shown somewhat trivially by an experiment of
Antrobus et al. (1965), in which human subjects were taught to indicate dreams
by pressing a switch, the frequency of such presses increasing during REM
periods; and more intriguingly perhaps by one in which monkeys were taught,
in an avoidance conditioning paradigm, to press a bar whenever a visual image
appeared on a frosted screen (Vaughan, 1964). High rates of bar pressing in
REM periods were taken to indicate dreaming. This is noteworthy as an
attempt to demonstrate dream imagery in animals but hinges on the verbal
report validation in humans and the argument from analogy.
4 Neither DR nor REM. An example is the failure to give dream reports when
awakened in non-REM periods. It would probably be concluded that dreaming
did not occur, and indeed anyone who holds either index as the sole criterion
must conclude this. It might also be taken to confirm the correlation of DR
and REM. However, it is logically possible that a dream experience did occur.
If this were so then dreaming would not be a necessary condition of either DR
or REM and neither would be an infallible index.

What can be concluded from this discussion? An examination of these situations

has shown that a complex network of data and theory is involved. It appears that
 Introspection 37
verbal reports are necessary for initial validation but that the physiological measure
turns out to be slightly more reliable.
In a final example, also involving sleep, three measures were compared. Birrell
(1983) examined the relationships between physiological, behavioural and self-
report measures of sleep onset latency and sleep duration. The behavioural measure
(pressing a button switch in response to a chime) correlated well with EEG stage
2 sleep and is a cheaper and more convenient method. By contrast, stage 1 EEG
gave a significantly shorter estimate of sleep onset latency and one which was
behaviourally very similar to EEG stage 0 (81 per cent as against 100 per cent
response rate); the self-report measure gave a significantly longer estimate of sleep
onset latency. The pattern was reversed for sleep duration. In comparison with the
behavioural and stage 2 EEG measures, stage 1 EEG provided an overestimate
and self-report an underestimate. Sixty-five per cent of subjects awakened from
EEG stage 3 reported that they had not been asleep!

The process of behaviour

Introspection is an obvious method for studying the content of experience. When
it comes to the processes underlying behaviour, however, its use is much more
questionable. Nevertheless, there have been some reports of the superiority of
introspection over other measures. Kroll and Kellicutt (1972) found that
subsequent recall could be predicted much better on the basis of self-reported
rehearsal of the material (indicated by pressing a button) than on the basis of
performance on another task undertaken during the retention interval. Introspection
may provide more detailed information about methods used, e.g. mnemonic
techniques (Gordon, Valentine & Wilding, 1984), than could be obtained using
purely behavioural methods. A number of classic studies employed the technique
of asking subjects to think aloud. Duncker (1945) hoped to reveal the processes of
problem solving in this way. One of the most extensive investigations of this type
has been De Groot’s (1965) study, in which he aimed to infer the macroscopic
structure of processes involved in chess playing, an activity he considered to be
goal-directed and hierarchically organised. Shallice (1972) has suggested that this
work provides some of the best evidence for serial processing in thinking.
A particularly interesting case of the application of introspection to the study of
thinking is that of Newell and Simon (1972), who used protocols both as an initial
starting point from which to develop a theory and a final validation. They asked
subjects to think aloud while solving symbolic logic and other problems and used
the descriptions of the operations employed as the basis for the construction of
computer programs to model the thought process. The resulting simulations were
accepted as psychological theories if they generated behaviour which adequately
matched that of the subjects. (See Valentine, 1978, for a fuller discussion of the
contribution of introspection to the study of thinking.)
As a final example, consider the case of personality questionnaires. These
employ a type of introspection, in that self-reports of feelings or behaviour
are elicited. However, there is no necessity to take these reports at face value: a
38 Philosophy
behaviourist approach is perfectly possible. It may merely be concluded that a
particular pattern of responding (e.g. ‘neurotic introversion’) is predictive of a
particular pattern of behaviour in another situation (e.g. taking fewer involuntary
rest pauses in tapping tasks).

The determinants of behaviour

Nisbett and Wilson (1977) make it abundantly clear that subjects are often
unreliable informants with respect to the determinants of their behaviour. Evidence
is reviewed from subliminal perception, learning without awareness, problem
solving, complex decision making, cognitive dissonance, attribution and helping
behaviour, in addition to a number of experiments of their own, which demon-
strates that subjects are, in general, unable to report accurately on the effects of
stimuli influencing their behaviour. It is argued that subjects have little or no
introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. They may be unaware of
the stimuli (as in the case of subliminal perception or Maier’s (1931) experiment,
where the majority of subjects failed to report the usefulness of the hint which
helped them solve the problem); they may be unaware of the responses (subjects
in studies of attitude change may report their pre-experimental opinion inaccurately
and thus be unaware that a change has occurred, as in experiments by Bem &
McConnell (1970) and Goethals & Reckman (1973)); or they may be unaware of
the relation between stimuli and responses.
On the one hand, subjects may fail to report influential stimuli. There is now an
increasing body of evidence where an experimental manipulation is demonstrated
to have an effect on behaviour but whose efficacy is denied by subjects. For
example, Storms and Nisbett (1970) anticipated that insomniac subjects given
placebo pills said to produce arousal would report getting to sleep earlier than
controls (because they would attribute their symptoms to the pill rather than their
internal state), whereas those given pills said to produce relaxation would report
getting to sleep later (because they would infer that they must be particularly
aroused if they had their usual sensations despite having taken a ‘relaxation’ pill).
These predictions were borne out but when asked to account for their behaviour
subjects did not report that the pill had had any effect on it. In the bystander effect,
subjects deny the influence of the number of people present on the likelihood of
their helping (Latané & Darley, 1970), perhaps to avoid moral embarrassment. In
one of Nisbett and Wilson’s own experiments, evaluative judgments concerning
the quality of articles of clothing showed a marked position effect, right-most
objects being over-chosen; not surprisingly subjects denied any such influence.
These last two cases provide instances of phenomena which are dependent on
subjects’ ignorance for their existence. It seems unlikely that people would
continue to behave in these ways if they were fully cognisant.
On the other hand, ineffective stimuli may be reported, as in Maier’s (1931)
experiment where some subjects reported the efficacy of a useless hint, or one of
Nisbett and Wilson’s experiments where subjects incorrectly reported that the
inclusion of a ‘reassurance’ phrase in the instructions increased their willingness
 Introspection 39
to take electric shocks. In this latter case, in common with many others, subjects’
reports correlated very much more highly with the predictions of observers or
control subjects not actually run in the experiment, but asked to say what they
thought the effect would be, than with what actually happened. This led Nisbett
and Wilson to argue that subjects’ reports have the same basis as observers’ reports,
namely, a priori causal theories, which may have as their source cultural rules,
implicit causal schemata, assumed covariation or connotative similarity between
stimuli and responses. (There is evidence that people’s judgments of covariation
are based on conceptual similarity rather than empirical observations, see e.g.
Shweder, 1977.) Subjects’ reports will sometimes be correct, but only incidentally
and not as the result of direct introspective access. Conditions where they are likely
to be correct, it is argued, are those where the influential stimuli are available, the
connection between the stimuli and responses plausible, and where there are few
plausible non-influential factors available. One case where these conditions obtain
is in learning without awareness paradigms (Dulany, 1962). Another is where rules
are overtly checked, as in the complex judgments made by stockbrokers and
clinicians (Slovic & Lichtenstein, 1971). Reports will be likely to be inaccurate
when either the relevant stimuli are unavailable or non-salient, e.g. if they are
contextual rather than in the focus of attention, non-verbal, removed in time, or
where the non-occurrence of events is significant; or where the connection between
stimuli and responses is implausible, as for example in the case of discrepant
magnitudes between cause and effect. Other known factors which militate against
the accuracy of verbal reports are what Nisbett and Wilson label the ‘mechanics
of judgment’, such as order, anchoring, contrast and position effects.
It remains to explain the illusion of introspective access. People do have
privileged knowledge of their sensations and personal biographies. Three factors
which may help to maintain the illusion are the confusion of products or inter-
mediate outputs with process; the fact that disconfirmations are relatively hard to
come by, negative instances being easily explained away; and self-esteem, people
preferring to feel they are in a position of superior knowledge and control.
Nisbett and Wilson (1977) have been criticised on theoretical and method-
ological grounds by Smith and Miller (1978) and White (1980, 1988). They argue
that the thesis is not formally stated and depends on unjustified assumptions about
the relations between conscious awareness, internal processes and verbal reports.
(Indeed, until these relations are specified precisely, there can be no adequate
theory of introspection.) It is also asserted that the case is overstated and that there
is evidence that verbal reports can be accurate in certain circumstances. Ericsson
and Simon (1980) contend that the unreliable reports described by Nisbett and
Wilson are obtained in exactly those conditions which their model would predict,
i.e. in retrospective reports or generalised probes, where information is required
which was never in memory or which can be generated without consulting it.
40 Philosophy
Validation
Pilkington and Glasgow (1967) argue that the use of introspection may be more
difficult than other methods but that it is not substantially different in kind.
Conditions can be specified in which statements about subjective experiences
can be intersubjectively confirmed and their truth checked. As they point out:
‘Statements subjects may make about their subjective experiences are not unique
in being difficult to confirm’ and ‘introspective reports are not unique in achieving
only high probability’. Approaches to the validation of introspective reports have
also been discussed by Natsoulas (1967).
Internal validity can be improved by ingenious experimental design as in the
case of Stromeyer and Psotka (1970). Schoenfeld and Cumming (1963) are of the
opinion that discrimination training might improve the control of perceptual
responses over verbal responses.
External validity can be obtained by the application of a public criterion as a
check on the accuracy of reports, as suggested by Natsoulas (1967), who comments
that autonomic responses are often favoured. Behavioural measures can also be
employed as was discussed in connection with the experiment on eidetic imagery
by Haber and Haber (1964). That this is not a simple matter became clear from the
examination of indexing the state of dreaming. Broadbent (1961) takes the view
that ‘amongst responses, it is perfectly legitimate to include the statements made
by human beings, as long as the differences between such responses correspond
to differences between other stimuli or other responses’, implying that these other
responses are somehow more respectable or more reliable. This leads to the
paradox that if verbal reports correlate with other measures then they are redundant;
if they do not correlate, the problem arises of deciding which are valid. The
example quoted by Natsoulas is an instance of a discrepancy between verbal and
autonomic responses. In an experiment by Gunter (1951) on the binocular fusion
of colours, a galvanic skin response (GSR) was conditioned to binocular presen-
tation of yellow spectral light. In one of the test conditions, red was presented to
one eye and green to the other. The autonomic responses indicated fusion (a large
GSR occurring) whereas the verbal responses indicated rivalry (subjects reporting
that they experienced red and green rather than yellow). Our discussion of
dreaming illustrated both the way in which the validity of verbal responses could
be strengthened by corroboration from other measures and how cases of conflict
might be resolved by judicious theorising and experimentation.
Another possibility is to make verbal reports the object of investigation and
examine their determinants. What is required is the discrimination of cases where
they can be taken at face value from those where they cannot. Ericsson and Simon’s
(1984) model, discussed above, provides important guidelines towards this end.
They also review empirical studies on verbalisations. Pilkington and Glasgow
(1967) note, as general kinds of test, that it is possible to search for intrasubject
consistency, and evidence of the subject’s honesty and reliability in situations where
these can be checked. Warshaw and Davis (1984) found that subjects who reported
themselves as having high self-understanding were better at self-prediction than
were subjects who reported themselves as low in self-understanding.
 Introspection 41
On the one hand it may be possible to distinguish different types of verbal report.
Carlson (1960 et seq.) tested the implications of hypotheses concerning subjects’
errors in size constancy experiments. Empirical confirmation of these enabled
conditions where phenomenal matches were obtained to be determined with some
certainty. A possible technique is to obtain subjects’ comments on their intro-
spections. Joynson (1958 et seq.) asked subjects, after participating in constancy
experiments, to comment on the nature of their judgments, thus acquiring evidence,
supplementary to that obtained by manipulating the instructions, on the distinction
between judgments of apparent shape or size (‘looking the same’) and analytic
judgments of ‘real’ shape or size (‘being the same’).
On the other hand it may be possible to uncover systematic sources of error.
Pilkington and Glasgow refer to the elimination of motives for deception, artifacts
such as suggestibility and demand characteristics. An experiment by Natsoulas and
Levy (1965) suggests conscious monitoring of verbal reports: subjects who knew
that tapes they heard were of repeated material were less likely to report trans-
formations than subjects not so informed. Other examples are provided by the work
on the ‘mechanics of judgment’ in psychophysics, and other evidence cited by
Nisbett and Wilson (1977).
Most of these approaches involve embedding reports in a theoretical network
(Dulany, 1962) and testing the implications (Natsoulas, 1967). Hypotheses may
either be confirmed or disconfirmed. Platt (1964) and Garner, Hake and Eriksen
(1956) have argued that inferences can be considerably strengthened by systematic
formulation and elimination of competing hypotheses. However, two points should
be made: (1) The number of possible alternative hypotheses is unlimited. All
scientific hypotheses are revisable. The possibility of a better one always exists.
(2) There is no algorithm for formulating alternative hypotheses. The elimination
of alternative hypotheses may be effected either statistically or experimentally
(Natsoulas, 1967). An example of the former is an experiment by Landauer and
Rodger (1964) in which the hypothesis that apparent brightness judgments were
composed of a combination of judgments made under ‘reflectance’ or ‘luminance’
instructions was disconfirmed by demonstrating that the variance for apparent
judgments was lower than would be predicted on this basis, thus favouring the
conclusion that distinct kinds of judgment were involved. Empirical elimination
of alternative hypotheses is likely to involve the use of convergent operations
(Garner, Hake & Eriksen, 1956). They write:

Convergent operations are any set of experimental operations which eliminate

alternative hypotheses and which can lead to a concept which is not uniquely
identified with any one of the original operations, but is defined by the results
of all the operations performed. Thus converging operations can lead to
concepts of processes which are not directly observable.
(Garner, Hake & Eriksen, 1956, p. 158)

They illustrate the use of convergent operations to distinguish perceptual from

response effects. For example, the demonstration that increasing the response set
42 Philosophy
improves discrimination suggests that response factors may be involved in sub-
ception (Bricker & Chapanis, 1953). Stoyva and Kamiya (1968) consider the use
of dream reports and rapid eye movements to be another example of the use of
convergent operations, enabling the rejection of the hypothesis that DR from REM
periods reflect inaccurate recall and fabrications, and acceptance of the alternative
hypothesis that they represent dream experiences reasonably accurately. Natsoulas
(1967) gives as an example an experiment by Wallach, O’Connell and Neisser
(1953) in which, in order to check that the three-dimensional perception of shadows
cast by stationary wire figures was not due to knowledge that the shadows were of
three-dimensional figures, a control condition was introduced in which subjects
were not exposed to the wire figures rotating. Alternatively, competing hypotheses
may be shown to be incapable of producing the effects, as in an experiment by
Haber (1965), in which the hypothesis that experimental results were due to
differential knowledge of the stimulus materials was eliminated by showing them
to all subjects before the experiment.
All these methods involve the collecting of more data in a variety of theoretically
linked situations, the progressive elimination and confirmation of hypotheses and
the strengthening of inferences.

Evaluation
Introspection was first over-rated and then under-rated. The structuralists thought
it provided a royal road to the contents of the mind. The behaviourists rejected it
as unscientific on the grounds of subjectivity and privacy.
It has both advantages and disadvantages. Some of its advantages have been
listed by Pilkington and Glasgow (1967). Introspection may provide important
information on phenomena such as imagery, and in disciplines such as psychiatry
and sociology. In clinical psychology it may additionally facilitate empathy.
Reports by subjects or experimenters (perhaps themselves as subjects) may
generate new hypotheses to test, or suggest modifications to experimental designs.
They may aid in the interpretation, control and elimination of artifacts. Finally,
it has the advantage of convenience, providing a method which is very much
quicker and easier than most. Introspection as a method is not unique but it may
be useful.
The disadvantages have already been discussed in detail. We have seen that
introspective reports are particularly prone to distortion but that the problems raised
are not different in kind from those of other methods. No methods guarantee
certainty and all can be validated in the same ways by theorising and experi-
mentation.
Introspection has been under-rated because it was once over-rated. With
hindsight we are in a better position to come to a balanced view. With regard to
the contents of experience, introspection provides primary data which can be
supported with other measures. With respect to the process of behaviour,
introspection is of relatively little use because most of the relevant data are
unavailable to consciousness. Subjects have a reasonable chance of telling an
 Introspection 43
experimenter what they experienced or did, but not how they did it. Products are
available and these can be used as an aid in the reconstruction of the process. As
to the reasons for behaviour, the evidence suggests that introspective reports are
not generally a reliable guide to the stimuli influencing responses. Subjects may
be able to report strategies and goals, and may sometimes be correct about the
causes of their behaviour, but these judgments have the form of inferences and are
not the result of privileged, direct access.
Finally, verbal reports are themselves behavioural responses. They provide data
and are themselves in need of explanation. With the excesses of introspectionism
and behaviourism in the past, a start can be made on their investigation. They can
indeed be reinstated as part of the subject matter of psychology.

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5 The possibility of a
science of experience
An examination of some
conceptual problems facing the
study of consciousness

Abstract
This paper addresses some of the chief conceptual problems associated with the
study of conscious experience. (1) Conceptual confusion and lack of clarity of the
term ‘consciousness’ itself, including doubts as to whether it constitutes a natural
kind, and confusion between different types. (2) Privacy: the claim that conscious
experience cannot be studied scientifically on account of its subjectivity. The
distinction between subjective and objective is re-examined and the universally
inferential nature of scientific statements stressed. Methods for the study of pain
are examined in detail, exemplifying the objectification of a prototypically
subjective experience. (3) Epiphenomenalism: the view that an adequate account
of mental life can be given without reference to consciousness because the latter
plays no causal role in the control of behaviour. The primacy of conscious
experience is stressed as is its centrality to mental health. It is concluded that the
study of conscious experience is both possible, even if from a third person
perspective and necessary, on account of its importance for psychological well-
being.

Conceptual confusion
It has frequently been alleged that consciousness does not constitute a natural kind
(i.e. a coherent category with defining features that could play an explanatory role
in scientific theory) and therefore cannot form part of the ontology of science.
Johnson-Laird (1983) deems it a pre-theoretic term; Block (1994) calls it a ‘cluster’
concept. Churchland (1983) and Valentine (1995) adduce evidence that it cross-
classifies such processes as perception, memory and thinking (which can all occur
without consciousness and so cannot be criterial of it).
Such a view is reinforced by the fact that it is impossible to give a non-circular
definition. Güzeldere (1995), in a recent article, recounts his experience with the
Oxford English Dictionary: consciousness is defined as ‘the state or faculty of being
conscious’; conscious as ‘having internal perceptions or consciousness’; percep-
tion as ‘to become aware or conscious of’; awareness as ‘the quality or state of
being aware; consciousness’. And so we come full circle. The best that can be done
48 Philosophy
is to give synonyms or try pointing out examples, though even the latter may be
problematic in this case: since the critical features are typically not observable, it
will not be clear what it is that is being pointed at. However, the problem of
circularity is not confined to consciousness. The attempt to provide a non-circular
definition is premised on the assumption that consciousness is a natural kind. It
may be that consciousness is a basic or primitive term, such as energy in physics
or perhaps stimulus, response and reinforcement in psychology, that can be
explicated in terms of relationships to other terms but that cannot itself be analysed
into more fundamental components (see Velmans, 1996). Alternatively, conscious-
ness may be viewed as a term not to be defined but a construct to be traced through
its uses.
A further problem is that different interpretations of the term have been conflated
in the literature, notably primary sensory/perceptual awareness (attributable to
non-human animals) and reflective self-consciousness (generally considered to be
the prerogative of humans, though some would allow that higher primates have
limited conceptions of the self if not verbally encoded, e.g. Gallup, 1977). A certain
species chauvinism pervades much of the literature, whereby consciousness is
identified exclusively with reflective self-consciousness. Sensory/perceptual
awareness fits more easily within the paradigms of the natural sciences; self-
reflective consciousness falls better within the social sciences, which assume that
intentionality and rationality are givens of the human condition rather than
achievements, and allow that what is studied as consciousness may be a function
of time and culture. The main body of this paper (as also Velmans, 1999) is
concerned with sensory/perceptual awareness; self-reflective consciousness is
considered below, and in Marks (1999) and Henry (1999).
One widespread and currently debated distinction is between phenomenal
consciousness (what it is like to be or to experience something) on the one hand
and computational, functional information-processing consciousness (a scientific
account in objective terms) on the other. What is currently dubbed the ‘hard
problem’ of consciousness (see Shear, 1995; 1996), alias the mind–body problem,
is usually formulated in these terms, i.e. as the problem of how to give a principled
account of the connection between subjective experience and objective, scientific
accounts. Huxley (1866) stated the problem as “How is it that anything so
remarkable as a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous
tissue?” and Lockwood (1989) gives it as follows: “The most puzzling thing about
consciousness is the fact that it exists. There is, on the face of it, absolutely nothing
in the laws of physics and chemistry, as currently understood, that is capable of
accounting for the extraordinary capacity of that lump of matter that we call the
brain to sustain ‘inner life’”. It is important to be clear about the ways in which the
hard problem can and cannot be solved. This is discussed in the following section.

Privacy
There is a fundamental distinction between first person (internalist) and third
person (externalist) perspectives: what it is like to experience or be something as
 The possibility of a science of experience 49
opposed to giving a scientific account of it. Contrast the mother’s and the male
gynaecologist’s knowledge of childbirth, or the experience of colour perception
with a neurophysiological account of it. For anyone who has one, a headache is
not equivalent merely to dilation of blood vessels or a disposition to take aspirin.
The true story of how a person’s brain works does not capture what it is like to be
that person. The alleged mystery of consciousness has its source in biological facts
that underwrite different kinds of epistemic access we have to brain facts on the
one hand and what it is like to be each of us on the other (Flanagan, 1991).
Epistemologically there is an irresolvable duality between subjective and objective
perspectives. In this sense the gap cannot be closed.
However, the fact of the matter is that we go on studying and talking about
conscious experience. Scientific statements are objective, public, general and
inferential but they are based on observations that are subjective, private and
particular experiences. Thus, so-called objectivity is at root a matter of inter-
subjectivity—of reaching public agreement about private observations. There are
two senses of conscious experience: as an epistemological perspective and as a
theoretical construct, which are frequently overlooked and conflated. Phenomenal
experience can enter into psychological theory as a construct, even though the
division between first- and third-person perspectives remains inviolate. “Scientists
need have no more difficulty in principle agreeing on observations about conscious
experiences than they do in agreeing about meter readings: witness the whole of
psychophysics” (Gray, 1995). It is only in the realm of constructs that the hard
problem can be solved, or the explanatory gap bridged. A scientific theory of
consciousness will not itself experience any more than a chemical theory is itself
expected to fizz (Boden,1979).The issue of first- and third-person perspectives has
been extensively discussed by Velmans (e.g. 1993), who argues that they are
mutually irreducible but complementary and that a complete psychology requires
both. If I understand it correctly, this extends the duality inherent in epistemic
access to the realm of scientific theory. Epistemic duality is acceptable but
theoretically duality is objectionable on the grounds of parsimony and coherence:
one account of the world is preferred to two.
The received view is that introspection fell into disrepute as a method in
psychology on account of its alleged subjectivity, even if in fact the real reason was
its lack of fruitfulness. There were problems in deciding between rival views: the
members of one school claimed that thinking consisted of images while those of
another that imageless thought was a reality; there appeared to be no recognized
method for resolving the disagreement. But a principled account of the disagree-
ment could be given, for instance, by taking into account the circumstances of the
reports and the specific instructions given, e.g. to avoid the stimulus error or to
report what was experienced directly.
The important point in the present context is that there is usually public evidence
for ‘private’ mental states, in the form of verbal reports, behavioural data or
neurophysiological indices.
50 Philosophy
Verbal reports
Verbal reports may be given on the quality or content of experience (e.g. ratings
of the vividness of imagery (see Marks, 1999), or dream reports). A number of
studies have shown that verbal reports may provide more discriminative measures
than physiological indices. Dubuisson and Melzack (1976) found that pain
syndromes could be accurately predicted on the basis of pain descriptors from the
McGill pain questionnaire, and Leavitt and Garron (1980) found that functional
pain disorders could be distinguished from organic ones in this way (see also
Leavitt,1991). Thayer (1970) argued that self-report scales provided a more
integrative and representative estimation of general states of bodily activation than
did four physiological measures, which intercorrelated poorly. Alternatively,
verbal reports may be correlated with behavioural data, e.g. reaction times (as in
Cooper & Shepard’s (1973) image rotation experiments, but see Marks,1999, for
problems with the interpretation of these data) or skilled perceptual motor per-
formance (see Isaac & Marks’ (1994) review of work on the Vividness of Visual
Imagery Questionnaire).

Behavioural data
With sufficient ingenuity in experimental design, behavioural data can be
employed to make inferences about phenomenal experience. One example is the
interference paradigm (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Binet, 1894; Brooks, 1968). By
observing differences in performance as a function of input or output modality,
inferences can be drawn as to the processing medium (e.g. verbal-acoustic vs.
visuo-spatial). Another example is the recent, elegant investigation of the nature
of the experience of blindsight in monkeys by Cowey and Stoerig (1995; see also
Cowey & Stoerig, 1997). In the first part of the experiment monkeys with lesions
in their primary visual cortex were trained to detect, localize and distinguish
between visual stimuli presented within their visual field defects. They showed
excellent detection in tasks where a visual stimulus was presented on every trial,
albeit at different positions, sometimes in the normal field and sometimes in the
lesioned, blind field. They were then trained to respond differentially to the
presence or absence of a stimulus in the normal field in a signal-detection task in
which half the trials were blank trials with no visual stimulus. On critical probe
trials, they classified visual stimuli presented in the field defect as blank trials,
demonstrating, like human patients, blindsight rather than degraded real vision.
The conclusion is that blindsight is likely to be experienced as similar in both
species, a finding that is helpful in determining the neuronal basis of phenomenal
vision. Thus, by judicious arrangement of experimental conditions, animals can
be induced to indicate what they are experiencing. (An older example is the use of
conditioning to elucidate colour vision in pigeons, e.g. Blough, 1958.)
 The possibility of a science of experience 51
Neurophysiological indices
The third possibility is physiological indices (e.g. electrophysiological recording
or brain imaging). Farah, who has demonstrated that similar brain regions are
involved in the processing of visual imagery and visual perception (Farah, Perovet,
Gonon & Giard,1988), has argued for the superiority of such measures on the
grounds that they are less susceptible to alternative explanations in terms of demand
characteristics and experimenter bias effects (i.e. the fact that experimental results
may be influenced by the beliefs and expectations of subjects or experimenters),
to which behavioural experiments in cognitive psychology are prone (Farah,1988).

Pain
The measurement of pain provides a particularly good example of the variety of
methods that are available for objectifying a prototypical, subjective experience.
The complexity and difficulty of the area have attracted a substantial body of
research. Pain is multidimensional, the most commonly measured dimensions
being intensity and affective quality (Bradley, 1993). Ventafridda et al. (1983) have
developed a composite measure of intensity and duration. McGuire (1992) lists
six dimensions: physiological, sensory, affective, cognitive, behavioural and
sociocultural. Its measurement in children poses a particular challenge (Erickson,
1990; Lehmann, Mendebba & De Angelis, 1990). The majority of the methods
currently in use are self-report, but this includes considerable variety (DeConno et
al., 1994). Rating scales may be psychophysical (cf. the employment of signal
detection theory to measure pain thresholds by Irwin et al., 1994), numerical (e.g.
Jensen, Turner & Romano, 1994, have found 10- or 21-point scales provide
sufficient discrimination for chronic pain patients to describe the intensity of their
pain), verbal (Okazaki et al., 1990) or visual analogue (Gift, 1989). A number of
pain questionnaires are in use, notably the McGill pain questionnaire (Melzack,
1975). Leavitt (1991) has found that the Low Back Pain Symptoms Checklist can
distinguish patients with low back pain from simulators, and that questionnaire
scores correlate with duration of disablement (a behavioural measure) and organic
pathology (a physiological index). In general, visual analogue scales have been
found to be superior to category scales and composite measures to single ones
(Bradley, 1993). Jensen and McFarland (1993) showed that 12 ratings across 4 days
provided a more reliable measure than did a single estimate. Ely (1992) has
obtained meaningful results with children by incorporating picture drawing in a
semi-structured interview, children being asked to draw pictures of their pain and
what it looked like as well as of pain experiences.
Self-report measures can be validated by behavioural indices: observer ratings
(e.g. Schneider & LoBiondo-Wood, 1992, found that children’s reports correlated
well with parental observations but not with nurses’ observations), activity levels
or overt motor behaviour. Taniguchi and Satow (1991) employed a plate-pushing
task to measure wrist pain.
Finally, psychophysiological measures may be employed, e.g. to assess the role
of the immune system in mediating the relation between both psychological and
52 Philosophy
environmental variables and the experience of pain (Bradley, 1993). McIntosh,
VanVeen and Brameyer (1993) explored variability in heart rate and in respiration
rate, and chemical constituents of blood as pain indices.
Following this review of the variety of methods (self-report, behavioural and
physiological) which can be used in the investigation of subjective phenomena,
consideration is now given below to the third conceptual problem facing the study
of conscious experience, that of epiphenomenalism.

Epiphenomenalism
Computational functionalism, the philosophy underpinning cognitive psychology,
holds to what Block (1994) calls conscious inessentialism, the view that an ade-
quate account of mental life can be given without recourse to consciousness.
Descartes’s view that mental life is quintessentially conscious is now almost
universally rejected. Perception, memory, thinking and judgment can all occur
without consciousness (Velmans, 1991). Velmans (1999) argues that conscious-
ness is the result of, rather than causally involved in, perceptual processing. This
view is also consistent with the spirit of artificial intelligence, which simulates if
not replicates mentality in machines. According to epiphenomenalism, conscious-
ness, when it does occur, plays no causal role in the control of behaviour.
However, these considerations have to be reconciled with the fact that, from the
point of view of subjective experience—particularly self-reflective conscious-
ness— “consciousness is the most important part of our existence” (Gray, 1995).
If psychology is to do justice to the range of phenomena within its remit, i.e.
experience and behaviour, and to make a contribution to the fundamental problems
of the human condition, these central issues must be recognized and faced. Even
if consciousness is epiphenomenal, the determinants of conscious experience can
be studied, e.g. conditions conducive to depression and elation. Others will wish
to argue that consciousness is causally efficacious. Marks (1999) claims that the
primary function of consciousness is the mental rehearsal of goal-directed action
through the experimental manipulation of perceptual-motor imagery under the
control of schemata and environmental cues, which serves the function of enhanc-
ing the adaptive competence of the organism. He adduces evidence consistent with
this position: vividness of mental imagery is strongly associated with those
performances most likely to benefit from mental practice. Henry (1999), in
reviewing methods for inducing personal change, likewise stresses the role of self-
reflection in transforming consciousness and promoting well-being.

Summary and conclusions

In this paper three problems sometimes perceived as obstacles to the scientific
investigation of conscious experience have been addressed: (1) multiplicity of
meanings and absence of natural categories; (2) privacy; and (3) epiphenomenalism
or lack of causal efficacy.
 The possibility of a science of experience 53
In relation to the first, it is argued that it is permissible to have, as terms or topics
of investigation in science, those that cannot themselves be defined analytically or
unequivocally, but that it is necessary to bear in mind the multiplicity of meanings
when the word ‘consciousness’ is used.
In relation to privacy, the sense in which consciousness is necessarily private—
as first person experience or epistemological perspective—was distinguished from
the sense in which it can become public—as a theoretical construct in scientific
discourse. Statements concerning conscious experience as a construct are neces-
sarily inferential but self-report, behavioural and physiological measures can all
be employed: the judicious arrangement of experimental conditions enables strong
inferences to be drawn.
In relation to the third, it was observed that epiphenomenalism is controversial.
The position taken here is that it is essential to study conscious experience even if
epiphenomenalism is true because of its importance to subjective well-being and
relevance to mental health (see the extensive discussion in Henry, 1999).
The conclusion here is that not only is it possible to study conscious experience,
but also that it is necessary to do so.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Ullin Place for drawing my attention to the article by Cowey &
Stoerig (1995) and to Jane Henry, David Marks, John Pickering, Richard Stevens,
Max Velmans and the editor and reviewers for helpful comments on earlier
versions of this paper.

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6 Dissociation and the
delimitation of consciousness
Implications of
neuropsychological phenomena
for philosophical conceptions of
consciousness

Abstract
Pathological phenomena of blindsight, anosognosia, amnesia, prosopagnosia and
commissurotomy are examined together with parallel ‘normal’ phenomena:
subliminal perception, anaesthesia, implicit memory and thought, hypnosis and
the physiological basis of the control of voluntary action. These examples of
dissociation have implications for the integrity and validity of consciousness. Not
only do unconscious processes influence and determine behaviour: complex
processes such as perception, memory and judgement can occur independently of
consciousness which appears to cross-classify them as Churchland (1983)
surmised. It is concluded that there is now overwhelming evidence to refute the
claim that consciousness is a transparent, unified, coherent system that plays an
important role in the control of behaviour. The implication is that folk-psycho-
logical concepts require overhaul. Theoretical accounts of the relation between
conscious and non-conscious processes are discussed.

Introduction
There are two main questions concerning consciousness (Gray, 1971; Valentine,
1992): its nature (which may be treated descriptively or mechanistically, the latter
at a physiological or physical level); and its function, specifically its evolution and
relation to behaviour. Since most contributors to this conference will be dealing
with the former, I shall focus on the latter.
Consciousness is a pre-theoretical term (Johnson-Laird, 1983): the trouble with
it is not its privacy but rather the absence of a theory linking phenomenological,
behavioural and neurophysiological data (Gray, 1971). Churchland (1983) doubts
whether conscious states constitute a natural kind. They may be one relatively
unimportant sub-system within the brain, or may even cross-classify what we
designate as subsystems. The important difference may turn out to be between
representational and non-representational rather than conscious and non-conscious
states. It is her belief that the integrity of the traditional conception of consciousness
is threatened, particularly with respect to: the alleged transparency of the mental
(that we automatically know that of which we are aware), the supposed unity of
 Dissociation and delimitation of consciousness 57
consciousness and the self, and the allegedly special relation thought to obtain
between language and consciousness.
There is now overwhelming evidence to invalidate the concept of consciousness
as a transparent, unified, coherent system that plays an important role in the control
of behaviour. Although much of this evidence comes from the consideration of
pathological cases, parallel phenomena can be demonstrated in ‘normals’. Many
though not all of the phenomena are well-known but their consequences have
not been sufficiently acknowledged. Folk psychology has remained relatively
impervious to the implications.
The first issue with which we are faced in a consideration of consciousness
is its definition, in particular an operational definition. I shall take phenomenal
awareness as the central meaning. Shallice (1988) has suggested that consciousness
is linked with sub-systems concerned with the voluntary control of behaviour,
episodic memory and language. Alternative candidates for operational definitions
might be in terms of: a state of arousal, sensation and perception, knowledge (only
declarative?), type of access, or first person as opposed to third person report.

Implicit perception
The phenomenon of blindsight (Weiskrantz, 1986) demonstrates the independence
of discrimination and awareness. Hemianopic patients, with damage to the occipital
lobe, are blind in part of their visual field when tested by conventional perimetric
analysis and verbal report but can nevertheless make discriminations significantly
above chance in a forced-choice situation. Thus, they may say that they have no
experience of seeing but, if forced to guess, correctly point to an ‘invisible’
stimulus, and distinguish horizontal from vertical or in some cases between red and
green. This residual capacity has been attributed to a midbrain as distinct from the
cortical visual system. Weiskrantz argues that the distinction is not between verbal
and non-verbal responding but between ‘monitoring’ and ‘reacting’.
In ‘normals’ subliminal perception has been convincingly demonstrated by
Marcel (1983). Subjects are able to make reliable semantic judgements about words
in conditions that prevent their detection (tachistoscopic presentation followed by
a backward pattern mask): people can thus make decisions about the meaning of
words that they report being unable to see. In other experiments, performance in
a lexical decision task was facilitated by primes that were not readily detectable.
It appears that meaning analysis is performed on stimuli outside conscious aware-
ness. It may be concluded that perception is possible without awareness.
Zihl and von Cramon (1980) and Marcel (1993) have reported dissociation
between different response modes. Discriminability appears to be dependent on
response mode in both normal and blindsight subjects asked to determine whether
or not a light follows a click. Two effects are reliably found: 1. Detection accuracy
(the ratio of hits to false alarms) is greater when people are asked to guess
than when they are asked to report. This effect, though unsurprising to psycholo-
gists familiar with the early literature on psychophysical judgements, is surely
counter-intuitive: one would expect people to be more accurate when reporting
58 Philosophy
than when guessing. 2. There is a significant effect of response mode in the
reporting but not the guessing condition: accuracy is greatest when the decision is
indicated by an eyeblink, intermediate when indicated by a button press, and least
accurate when verbally reported. Responses may be contradictory in cases where
decisions are made about the same stimulus by different methods. Thus, someone
may in effect say ‘yes’ with their eye and ‘no’ with their finger, or ‘yes’ with their
finger and ‘no’ with their mouth! How is this to be interpreted? Does experience
depend on response mode? Is it a case of differential access to the same experience
or representation, or a case of multiple representations? (See Marcel, 1993, for
discussion.) There appears to be a contradiction in that people are both aware and
unaware, or aware in one sense but not in another.
Brain-damaged patients may be aware or unaware of their impairment. In
anosognosia, they are unaware of deficits in e.g. seeing, remembering, com-
municating or moving: they are unaware of being unaware. Bisiach and Geminiani
(1991) have drawn attention to double dissociation between verbal and behavioural
awareness in cases of left-sided hemiplegia and hemianopia resulting from right
parietal lesions. Such patients may be verbally aware but behaviourally unaware,
e.g. they may complain of their disorder but the next minute ask to have their
knitting needles or try to get up. Conversely, they may be verbally unaware but
behaviourally aware: apparently unaware of their plegia in discussion but not
attempting, say, bilaterally coordinated movements.
Tegner and Marcel (see Marcel, 1993) have found interesting discrepancies
between first- and third-person accounts in such patients. For example, if asked to
rate their capacity to perform a bimanual task, they may give a rating of 8 on a 10-
point scale even though they have, say, complete hemianopia or hemianaesthesia;
however, if asked by a researcher: “If I were in your state, how well would I be
able to do it?” they may give a rating of zero. Similar results can be obtained by
adopting a confidential attitude and encouraging them by asking e.g. “Is your arm
ever naughty? Does it ever not do what you want?” The reply may be: “Oh yes!
In fact, I’m going to hit it next time if it doesn’t do what I want.” It is important to
distinguish true anosognosia from defensive denial.
There have been many demonstrations of implicit perception and memory under
anaesthesia but also failures to replicate. Levinson (1965) found that most (8/10)
of a group of patients, to whom alarming words were spoken while they were
anaesthetised, subsequently showed anxiety or were able to recall them under
hypnosis. Evans and Richardson (1988) found that patients undergoing hysterec-
tomy, played positive information on tape during the operation, showed better
recovery rates than those played neutral tapes. Physiological studies have shown
that the initial stages of auditory evoked potentials are preserved under anaesthesia;
only the later stages associated with conscious identification are destroyed (e.g.
Thornton et al., 1983). Recently, Andrade (1994) has presented preliminary data
to suggest that the coherent frequency of auditory evoked potentials may be
employed as a more accurate index of depth of anaesthesia and so may help to
disambiguate previous results and determine the exact depth of anaesthesia that
can sustain implicit learning.
 Dissociation and delimitation of consciousness 59
Evans and Marcel (see Marcel, 1993) have observed dissociations between first-
and third-person accounts in patients undergoing diagnostic gynaecological
operations with light anaesthesia but no muscle relaxant (because it would interfere
with the medical diagnostic process). In this state patients are unconscious but can
speak. About fifty percent respond to their name, and acknowledge and correctly
locate pain. Others appear to have a pain ‘they’ don’t know about. Is this possible?
They may deny that they have a pain, but when asked (using the Hilgard technique)
whether there is any part of them that knows whether they are in pain, about 20
percent reply “oh yes, she’s got a pain in her chest/groin”. Is it possible to have
sensation without awareness? (Cf. Nelkin, 1989.) Marcel suggests that another case
is that of habituation to clothing – we are only aware of the pressure of clothes on
our body if our attention is drawn to it. Or would we deny that this is a sensation
before it is drawn to our attention?

Implicit memory and thought

Implicit memory refers to some change in behaviour as a result of past experience
without the subject having any conscious recollection of the learning experience
in question. (This does not of course preclude being conscious at the time of the
original learning.)
Amnesic patients frequently show evidence of having learned some task, e.g.
mirror drawing (Cohen & Squire, 1980) or even computer programming (Glisky
et al., 1986), in the absence of ability to recall anything about the prior learning
experience, e.g. they may deny ever having seen the apparatus involved. This was
originally interpreted as evidence of procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’) in the
absence of declarative knowledge (‘knowing that’). However, since it is now clear
that implicit learning is not restricted to procedural knowledge, the term implicit
memory (in contrast to explicit memory: intentional, verbal recall or recognition)
is preferred (Schacter, 1987).
A similar phenomenon occurs in prosopagnosia, a disorder of face recognition,
in which patients are unable to recognise their relatives or name photographs of
famous people but indirect evidence shows that recognition in some sense has taken
place. For example, one such patient showed the ‘normal’ interference effect in
taking longer to decide e.g. whether Mick Jagger was a pop star or a politician,
when simultaneously presented with a photograph of a politician (De Haan, Young
& Newcombe, 1987). The problem is not that the patient doesn’t recognise the
face but that he doesn’t recognise that he has recognised it! Alternatively, such
patients may show differential electrodermal or evoked potential responses to
familiar compared with unfamiliar faces (Tranel & Damasio, 1985; Renault et al.,
1989).
Parallel effects can be demonstrated in normals. For example, significant sav-
ings in relearning paired-associates may be shown by subjects unable to recall or
recognise them from a previous learning experience (Nelson, 1978). Repetition
priming effects have been demonstrated in lexical decision, word-identification and
stem-completion tasks (see Schacter, 1987, for a review).
60 Philosophy
Implicit thought is demonstrated by incubation, intuition and insight. People
may be able to distinguish soluble from insoluble problems without actually having
solved them (Bowers, 1987). Similar phenomena are reported by mathematicians
who frequently report that they have arrived at the solution to a problem but have
yet to formulate the proof.
These examples demonstrate the effect of non-conscious processing on sub-
sequent behaviour; and the possibility of complex processes being performed
outside conscious awareness. As Lashley (1956, p. 4) once remarked: “No activity
of mind is ever conscious.”
In hypnosis, susceptible persons may have their perceptions or memories altered
in accordance with instructions from the hypnotist. Thus, they do not perceive or
remember that which they are instructed that they will not perceive or remember.
In posthypnotic suggestion the subject carries out instructions given during
hypnosis after returning to the normal, waking state, rationalising the act as they
do so. Under reversibility cues they may recall what was suppressed while in the
hypnotic state. In hypnotic analgaesia there may be a dissociation between oral
and written reports of the intensity of pain (Hilgard, 1986).
There are two rival accounts of what is going on in hypnosis. According to one
school (Spanos et al., 1988), the effects can be explained in terms of social
compliance and instructional demands: the subject just agrees to go along with the
hypnotist and obey instructions. According to the other school (Hilgard, 1986), a
real dissociation takes place. The subject enters a trance that is an altered state of
consciousness and what is manipulated is the mental state rather than merely
behaviour. Physiological evidence suggests that the latter view may be correct:
the early component of the evoked response (characteristic of preattentive sensory
analysis) is unaffected whereas the later P300 component (associated with
conscious identification and subsequent interpretation) is suppressed (Spiegel et
al., 1985).

Commissurotomy
A treatment for epilepsy developed in the sixties (Sperry et al., 1969) involves
cutting the corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibres that connects the two cerebral
hemispheres. This results in structural and functional disconnection between the
left hemisphere (responsible for sensation and motor control on the right side of
the body, and language) and the right hemisphere (responsible for sensation and
motor control on the left side of the body). When presented with composite pictures
(one to the right and one to the left hemisphere) and subsequently asked to identify
these, such patients will name the one presented to the left hemisphere, but point
with the left hand to the one presented to the right hemisphere. They are unable to
decide whether stimuli presented to the two visual half-fields (and therefore
different hemispheres) are the same or different. This led Nagel (1971) to conclude
that there is no single number of minds that such patients can be considered to have:
every solution leads to paradox. Most of the evidence is consistent with the view
that there are multiple selves (mental processes are ‘modular’). Particularly
 Dissociation and delimitation of consciousness 61
interesting are accounts given by the left hemisphere of the right hemisphere’s
behaviour. For example, when presented with a chicken claw to the left hemisphere
and a snow scene to the right and asked to select a picture related to the one
presented from an array, one patient ‘correctly’ pointed to a chicken with the right
hand and a shovel with the left; but when asked to explain his selection, said: “I
saw a claw and I picked a chicken, and you have to clean out the chicken shed
with a shovel.” The left hemisphere saw the chicken claw but not the snow scene;
it saw the right hand point to the chicken and the left hand point to the shovel. It
did not know the reason for the latter but invented one (Gazzaniga & LeDoux,
1978). This is one striking example of much evidence that suggests that the verbal,
conscious self, resident in the left hemisphere, constructs a consistent interpretation
to make sense of the information available to it. ‘Reality’ (whether in the dream
or the waking world) is fabricated. Our sense of continuity and control is illusory.
As Dennett once remarked, consciousness is its own user illusion, see Dennett
(1991).
Other studies reveal interesting discrepancies between the more ‘cognitive’ left
hemisphere and ‘emotional’ right. For example, patients with the anterior com-
missure intact may blush to embarrassing words presented to the right hemisphere
but be unable to explain their reaction (e.g. one patient laughed when presented
with a picture of a nude woman but when asked to explain her behaviour said
“That’s a funny machine”). Or they may give different ratings with each hemi-
sphere, e.g. of liking for Nixon or God, or conflicting answers to questions e.g.
about job preferences.
The suggestion is that these phenomena simply exaggerate a split inherent in
the normal case. The reasons for our behaviour and emotional states are often
inaccessible to conscious awareness but we do not admit this and concoct
explanations based on observation and plausibility. Recent research suggests that
Freud was right in this regard but that he understated the case (considering only
the orectic and not the noetic – or cognitive – unconscious).
Other examples of dissociation are provided by conversion hysteria, fugue states,
multiple personality and sleep, which cannot be discussed here.

The illusion of conscious control

Libet’s (1985) experiments on the temporal relationship between the conscious will
to act and events in the brain demonstrate that the brain begins the process of
moving before the person knows about it. Spontaneous acts begin before we are
aware that we have ‘decided’ to act. Movements are initiated unconsciously: ‘We’
don’t decide. (Or do we? It depends who we think ‘we’ are.) People were asked to
perform a simple movement such as flexing their finger when they felt like it, and
to indicate where on a clock face a moving dot was when they experienced the
decision to act. Results showed that the electrophysiological readiness potential
preceded the electromyograph (the recording of electrical activity in the muscles)
by about 500 ms but that it also preceded the conscious intention to perform the
act (as given by the clock measure) by about 350 ms.
62 Philosophy
An external stimulus produces an evoked potential within a few ms. However,
in previous experiments Libet et al. (1979) found that electrical stimulation of the
brain had to last about 500 ms before it was consciously perceived (the requirement
of ‘neuronal adequacy’). The interesting thing is that this perception is referred
backwards – and interpreted as occurring at the time of the evoked potential, a few
ms after the occurrence of the actual event. The evidence for this is that stimulation
of the hand was felt as occurring before a cortically induced sensation even if the
latter occurred first. So, we aren’t consciously aware of events at the time they
happen, but we think we are.
The delay in conscious recognition may be seen as a filter (Ornstein, 1991). It
is not necessary to know about everything: we can and do react to many things
unconsciously. A ‘squadron of simpletons’ is more efficient than having one
system trying to control everything.

Conclusions and theoretical considerations

Discrimination, perception, memory, thinking, judgment and problem-solving can
all occur outside conscious awareness. Thus, they cannot be criterial of conscious-
ness, which cross-classifies them as Churchland (1983) surmised. Consciousness
appears to be tangentially involved at a late stage, representing the results of
processing rather than the processing itself.
Dissociations occur in both normal and pathological conditions that threaten the
integrity, validity and transparency of consciousness. We may be both aware and
unaware; or aware in one sense but not in another. Different, contradictory forms
of knowledge threaten Quine’s notion of a full, inferential, integrated unified
consciousness. In particular, explicit, declarative, introspective, verbal knowledge
is frequently disparate from emotional, pragmatic, bodily, implicit knowledge.
Nor does consciousness control behaviour, which is determined non-con-
sciously. Consciousness may be unified and coherent within itself but it is based
on an extremely small portion of the total picture. We are systematically misled
by the limited perspective of consciousness. Because we are only aware of one
consciousness, it is difficult to throw off the illusion of unity. Because we are aware
of alternative courses of action, prospectively and retrospectively, and contin-
gencies between our behaviour and the environment, we falsely believe that
conscious processes determine behaviour.
Theories of the relation between conscious and non-conscious processes need
to consider both the determinants of non-consciousness and the conditions of
retrievability into consciousness. Information may be non-conscious innately, or
as a result of automation through repetition. Material may never have been
conscious, perhaps because it was presented in degraded conditions (as in sub-
liminal perception), or may once have been conscious with access subsequently
lost, either temporarily (as in the case of hypnosis) or permanently (as in the case
of amnesia). Finally, it may be actively repressed e.g. because it is threatening.
With regard to conditions of retrievability: some material may never be retrievable,
some may be with the use of special techniques such as hypnosis or dream analysis,
 Dissociation and delimitation of consciousness 63
and other (preconscious) material may be easily retrievable. Kihlstrom and Tobias
(1991) distinguish the ‘unconscious proper’ (automatic processes, requiring no
attentional capacity, not retrievable under any circumstances), ‘preconscious’
processes, partially activated, typical of presentation in degraded conditions, and
‘subconscious’ processes – theoretically the most interesting – where material is
highly activated, to a degree normally sufficient for consciousness, but for some
reason it is not conscious: active suppression seems to be involved. This last
category indicates that high activation, though necessary, is not a sufficient
condition for consciousness.
Finally, many have remarked on the close connection between conscious
recollection and the self. Claparède (1911/1951), describing the amnesic syndrome,
wrote: “If one examines the behaviour of such a patient, one finds that everything
happens as though the various events of life, however well associated with each
other in the mind, were incapable of integration with the me itself.” (p. 71). Such
patients frequently complain of having only just woken up. Kihlstrom’s (1984,
1987) theory is that conscious awareness requires a link to be formed between
representations of the event and/or the context and of the self. In the cognitive
unconscious, either the link is not forged in the first place, or it is subsequently
lost. Lancaster (1991) has proposed a similar ‘I-tag’ theory: events are encoded in
memory together with an ‘I-tag’, a personal connection or reference to the ‘I’ that
actually experienced the event; but ‘I’ is always shifting, in a state of flux.
Subsequent conscious recollection requires the making of a connection between
the current ‘I’ state and the ‘I-tag’ relevant to the to-be-recalled event. In cases
of amnesia, this connection cannot be made because access to this ‘I-tag’ has
been lost.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Mary Atkins for conducting a literature search and to Tony Marcel
for discussion of many of the issues, including unpublished data.

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7 Perception and action
in East and West

Abstract
Although studies in developmental psychology have led some psychologists to
postulate direct knowledge of an ecological self, the validity of such a concept has
been questioned by others. Both philosophers and scientists have exposed puzzles
that result from distinguishing between observer and observed. This has led some
to propose multiple selves, highlighted by the case of split-brain patients. A more
radical solution is the Eastern notion of anatman, the view that the personal self
is an illusion, a conclusion reached independently through logical argument by
several current philosophers. Recent analyses in artificial intelligence have also
dispensed with the notion of an executive. It is concluded that work in current
Western philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience accords with ancient
Eastern philosophy, in denying our everyday conception of the existence of a self
as perceiver and agent.

The ecological self

In a recent paper, Neisser (1988) distinguishes five kinds of self-knowledge: the
ecological, interpersonal, extended, private and conceptual selves. These differ in
their developmental histories, the accuracy with which we can know them, their
pathologies and their contribution to experience. I shall be concerned primarily
with the ecological self, as perceived with respect to the immediate physical
environment (“‘I’ am the person here in this place engaged in this activity”) and
with the conceptual self, which comprises a network of socially based assumptions
and theories about human nature in general and ourselves in particular. Indeed,
what I am particularly interested in might be called our conceptual ecological self,
specifically, our common belief that we are the recipients of perception and the
initiators of action. Although perception and action may be separated for the
purposes of exposition, this distinction is misleading, as Dewey (1896) pointed
out long ago and Gibson (1979) has convincingly argued.
Neisser maintains that the knowledge we have of our ecological self is direct and
veridical. Pathologies, such as phantom limbs and cases of neglect studied by
neuropsychologists (where a patient may be unresponsive to one side of the body)
 Perception and action in East and West 67
lend credence to this view. Experimental work on infants (see Butterworth, 1985)
has shown that the optical flow, e.g. ‘looming’ (the rapid expansion pattern
produced by approaching a surface), specifies the environment: it is from this that
the child develops the idea of the existence of a perceiving entity at a particular
location in the environment.
Other studies confirm that young children locate the self at the point of
observation. When their eyes are covered they will say that you cannot see them,
while allowing that you can see their head, hands or feet (Flavell, Shipstead &
Croft, 1980). The majority of adults also locate their normal centre of awareness
behind the eyes (Blackmore, 1987).
More detailed study is possible. Natsoulas and Dubanoski (1964) employed a
simple task to determine the locus and orientation of the perceiver. Reversible
letters such as ‘b’ and ‘d’ were drawn on the subject’s forehead. A ‘b’ interpreted
as a ‘b’ is indicative of an external locus of perception (the same as the experi-
menter’s); however, a ‘b’ interpreted as a ‘d’ (its mirror image) is indicative of an
internal locus of perception. An internal locus was less likely when this necessitated
a change in orientation, e.g. when the letter was drawn on the back of the head of
a subject facing forwards.
The existence of a bounded, articulated and controllable body is inferred not only
from what can be seen of it but from what it seems possible to do. The key concepts
are agency and coordinated movement. Limbs appear to be responsive to intentions
and their movements appear to be coordinated with perceptions. (Neisser argues
that this is a special case of the Gestalt notion of ‘common fate’, in which objects
that move together are taken as belonging to a single coherent unit.) Infants soon
learn to distinguish the consequences of their own actions from events of other
kinds (Bahrick & Watson, 1985).

The knower and the known

Despite these claims for direct and veridical knowledge of the ecological self,
others have been less sanguine. William James took a more reductionist view:
“This me is an empirical aggregate of things objectively known. The I which knows
them cannot itself be an aggregate, neither for psychological purposes need it be
considered to be an unchanging and metaphysical entity like the Soul, or a principle
like the Pure Ego, viewed as ‘out of time’. It is a Thought, at each moment different
from that of the last moment, but appropriative of the latter together with all that
the latter called its own. All the experiential facts find their place in this description,
unencumbered with any hypothesis save that of the existence of passing thoughts
or state of mind” (James, 1950, pp. 400–401).
Karl Pearson, viewing this from a spatial rather than a temporal, perspective,
remarked that: “The distinction between ourselves and the outside world is thus
only an arbitrary, if a practically convenient, division between one type of sense-
impression and another. The group of sense-impressions forming what I term
myself is only a small subdivision of the vast world of sense-impressions . . . the
limits of the group of sense-impressions which we term an individual cannot be
68 Philosophy
scientifically drawn” (Pearson, 1937, p. 60). He illustrates this with a sketch from
Ernst Mach of the visual sense-impressions forming the professor’s outside world
at particular instant when he was reclining on the sofa with his right eye closed.
Mach commented: “If I observe an element, A, within my field of vision, and
investigate its connection with another element, B, within the same field, I go out
of the domain of physics into that of physiology or psychology, if B, to use the
apposite expression that a friend of mind employed on seeing this drawing, passes
through my skin” (Mach, 1890, p. 60).
Sir Arthur Eddington agreed that the observer (whom he calls ‘Mr X’) could
not be delineated within the realm of physics: “Physics is not at all anxious to
pursue the question, What is Mr. X? It is not disposed to admit that its elaborate
structure of a physical universe is ‘The House that Mr. X built.’ It looks upon Mr.
X – and more particularly the part of Mr. X that knows – as a rather troublesome
tenant who at a late stage of the world’s history has come to inhabit a structure
which inorganic Nature has by slow evolutionary progress contrived to build. And
so it turns aside from the avenue leading to Mr. X – and beyond – and closes up
its cycle leaving him out in the cold” (Eddington, 1935, pp. 254–255).
This exclusion of the observer from the system of knowledge has received
considerable philosophic and scientific attention since Gödel (1931) published his
incompleteness theorem: All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory
include undecidable propositions that can never be proved or disproved. The proof
of the theorem depends on a self-referential mathematical statement. In a
remarkable popularisation, Hofstadter (1979) employs analogies in art, music and
literature to illuminate the ideas underlying Gödel’s theorem, particularly that of
paradoxical self-reference, which he calls a “strange loop”. Epimenides’ liar’s
paradox provides a verbal example. The statement ‘All Cretans are liars’ is
undecidable: if true, it is false; if false, it is true. The argument carried to its logical
conclusion denies its premises. Many beautiful visual examples of strange loops
are provided by Escher’s drawings and woodcuts. Recursion is illustrated by the
picture where each hand is found to be drawing the other; (here each procedure
calls the other but not itself). The Waterfall illustrates how, by continuously moving
upwards or downwards through the levels of some hierarchical system, we
unexpectedly find ourselves back where we started. Bach’s enharmonic cycle
provides a musical parallel. Perhaps the most striking example of all is the Picture
Gallery, which is a picture of a picture (gallery? town? young man?) that contains
itself.

Multiple selves
A consideration of other puzzles of the self has led some to the conclusion that
we consist of multiple selves. There have been many types of evidence for
multiple selves, ranging from self-deception and weakness of will considered
by philosophers to modularity and multiple personality studied by psychologists.
These selves may be independent or interactive, cooperative or conflicting. One
of the most discussed cases is that of split-brain patients. Nagel (1971), after careful
 Perception and action in East and West 69
consideration, concludes that there is no whole number of individual minds that
they can be said not have. In normal life their behaviour is integrated and people
who know them regard them as single individuals. However, experimental
manipulations (viz. segregated presentation of material to the two hemispheres)
produces dissociations. Patients are unable to tell whether two spots in opposite
visual half-fields are the same or different in colour; the left hemisphere is unable
to verbalize information accessible only to the right; conflicting responses may be
produced where each hemisphere is in possession of different information; and
patients can simultaneously attend to two incompatible tasks. These results pose
difficulties for the ordinary idea of a single person as a subject of experience
and action, and force us to conclude that the existence of such a subject is not
required for the attribution of conscious, significant mental activity. Nagel argues,
moreover, that consideration of these very unusual cases should cause us to be
sceptical about the concept of a single subject of consciousness as it applies to
ourselves: “lack of interaction in the domain of visual experience and conscious
intention threatens assumptions about the unity of consciousness which are basic
to our understanding of another individual as a person” (Nagel, 1971, p. 407). We
consider ourselves as paradigms of psychological unity but this appears to be an
illusion; in fact all we have is functional integration, eroded in different ways and
to different degrees.

Buddhism
Multiple selves, taken to their logical conclusion, lead to the dissolution of the
self, or the Eastern concept of ‘no-self’ (in Sanskrit ‘anatman’). According to
Buddhism, the human being at any given moment is made up of elements
(‘dharma’). Some of these constitute the body; others are mental states, of which
one is believing in an enduring self, the substance underlying changing mental
states and the active centre of decision making. It is an illusory belief but one that
is very difficult to shake off. “What we call ego, self, soul, personality, etc.,
are merely conventional terms not referring to any real independent entity . . .
There is only to be found this psychological process of existence changing from
moment to moment” (Nyanatiloka, quoted in Collins, 1982, p. 5). “Everything is
simply dharmas, and relations between dharmas. The self does not exist” (Rahula,
quoted in Collins, 1982, p. 4). Various arguments for this view are adduced in the
Theravada literature (Collins, 1982): (1) The fact of impermanence: how could a
continuing self have contradictory attributes at different times? (2) There is no self
to be found apart from experience. (3) Our lack of control over the changing nature
of things. (4) ‘Dependent origination’ (in modern parlance, determinism) – all
events are causally conditioned; there are no ‘free’ agents.
Buddhism offers three doctrines with respect to the self (Elster, 1986): (1) A
theoretical critique of the notion of an enduring self, together with a constructive
analysis of the actual unity and continuity of the person, which is merely a property
of the causal chains that link together successive mental states. (2) An account of
the emergence of the illusory belief in the self: the difficulty of treating oneself as
70 Philosophy
causally determined leads almost irresistibly to the notion of a free agent as an
active decision maker. (3) A way of overcoming this illusion, which generates
much unhappiness, through study and meditation. The false belief in a personal
self leads to attachment, deemed to be the root of all suffering. Whereas
psychoanalysis aims to replace id by ego, the goal of Buddhism is to replace ego
by pure consciousness.
Derek Parfitt (1984), in his book Reasons and Persons, having considered
various imaginary cases such as teletransportation, comes to a neo-Buddhist
‘impersonal view’, in which persons are not fundamental; the unity of an individual
life and the boundaries between lives are de-emphasized. The unity of con-
sciousness or of a whole life cannot be explained by claiming that different
experiences are had by the same person; this claim depends on the false belief that
we are separately existing entities, apart from our brains and bodies and experi-
ences. Rather, they must be explained by describing the relations between these
experiences and their relations to the person’s brain. Our identity over time
involves only a relation of psychological connectedness and/or psychological
continuity. He also holds that it is intellectually, if not emotionally, possible to
accept this conclusion and that, once accepted, it has implications for our lives,
being likely to alter attitudes towards ageing and death (which become less
disturbing) and views on rationality and morality (e.g. acting in self-interest makes
less sense).

Universalism
Arnold Zuboff (1990) has reached the conclusion that there is no division between
self and others, by a non-mystical route. His thesis, which he calls universalism,
is that we are all one person: there is only one self. He argues that all experiences
possess the abstract quality of immediacy or internality, of being this, here, now,
mine. This is the necessary criterion of identity for both experience and its subject.
According to him, all other specific conditions of our existence are accidental rather
than necessary. The view that there are distinct people or consciousnesses is a
metaphysical mistake that we are deluded into by the limited access that each
nervous system has. It is like having access to only one red object and mistakenly
believing that it constitutes redness.
He puts forward both conceptual and statistical arguments for his view. The first
set concern puzzles of personal identity which lead to demonstrations that our
ordinary view is incoherent. He begins by pointing out that personal identity or
existence is not altered by slight changes to one’s physical or mental constitution;
it is an all-or-none matter rather than changing by degree. One could change a few
cells or a few memories without suffering any corresponding alteration in one’s
identity or existence. In the classic puzzle case of split-brain patients, wherein does
the self lie? Is the person to be identified with the left hemisphere, the right
hemisphere, with both or with neither? None of these answers is satisfactory. He
can’t be in both because they may be having incompatible experiences. He can’t
be in neither, nor only one of them, because each can equally lay claim to be him:
 Perception and action in East and West 71
if he suffered a stroke and lost the function of one hemisphere, we wouldn’t say
that he had ceased to exist. We appear to have the contradictory situation where
the original person is to be identified with the right hemisphere and with the left
hemisphere but these cannot be identified with each other. Zuboff’s solution is that
one person can have simultaneous non-integrated experiential contents. Similar
problems for the concept of a personal self also arise in cases of multiple per-
sonality and neurophysiological disconnection syndromes of various kinds.
The statistical argument consists of demonstrating that the probability of your
existing is absurdly remote on the ordinary view. You could have failed to come
into existence if the conditions hadn’t been right. It is much more likely that the
particular atoms necessary for you were scattered somewhere else in the universe
rather than collecting just where they were needed if you were to be formed. The
odds of you resulting from the conception that begat you, rather than from any of
the potential brothers or sisters that would have resulted if one of the other sperms
competing for the egg had won, is at a conservative estimate 200 million to one.
Since similar conditions apply to your parents, the situation becomes increasingly
improbable. On Zuboff’s view any of these potential people would have been you,
so no special luck was needed. You could have existed whatever happened, so the
absurdity disappears.

No-self in philosophy, artificial intelligence and neuroscience

Daniel Dennett (1979) claims that artificial intelligence has suggested a way of
solving Hume’s problem. Hume concluded that the self was merely a bundle of
impressions and ideas attempting to pull themselves up by associationist boot-
straps. The dilemma can be stated as follows: It is claimed that the only psychology
that could succeed in explaining the complexities of human activity must posit
internal representations. This is the majority view, until recently rejected only by
radical behaviourists. However, nothing is intrinsically a representation of any-
thing: something is a representation only for or to someone (cf. the Picture Gallery).
A representation requires a user or interpreter who is external to it. But the positing
of homunculi leads to circularity or infinite regress. Dennett’s claim is that data
structures are representations that can understand themselves. Homunculi are only
bogeymen, he suggests, if they duplicate completely the talents they are brought
in to explain. Progress can be achieved by getting a team or committee of relatively
ignorant, narrow-minded, blind homunculi to produce the intelligent behaviour of
the whole: ‘fancy’ homunculi can be discharged from the scheme by organizing
armies of idiots to do the work. At the end of the treatment, however, Dennett
makes the rather disarming statement that either (a) artificial intelligence structures
are self-understanding representations, or (b) they are not really internal repre-
sentations at all, and if the latter is the case perhaps psychology doesn’t need
internal representations. This of course is the view of Gibsonians (who espouse a
‘direct’ theory of perception) and the neural net theorisers.
Recently, great interest has been generated by a rival to the traditional approach
to artificial intelligence, premised on Kenneth Craik’s belief that “thought parallels
72 Philosophy
reality through symbolism”. (See Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1988, for a historical
treatment of these rival philosophers.) One of the exciting features of ‘parallel
distributed processing’ is that there is no executive or overseer: all of the processing
is carried out by the units in the network. Indeed, storage and processing are not
separated. Knowledge is built into the processor itself rather than being directly
accessible to interpretation by some separate processor. It is implicit rather than
explicit, stored in the connections rather than the units. The difference between
the two approaches is represented graphically in Feldman & Ballard’s (1982)
illustration of what happens when, on seeing an apple, it is declared ‘wormy’. In
the conventional case, symbolic encoding and decoding are required; in the neural
net, information is transferred directly through the pattern of connections. The
validity of the neural network approach, in particular the issue of whether it ignores
distinctions important for the description of intelligent behaviour, such as symbolic
relations and functional specialisation of modules, is still a matter of controversy
(Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988; Phillips, 1988). In my view these controversies can be
solved by an appeal to different levels of description.
Western thought has overemphasized perception. I should like to finish with a
word about action. According to Libet’s (1985) work, unconscious cerebral
initiation of a spontaneous voluntary act precedes the conscious intention by
300–400 ms. The main negative shift of the electrophysiological readiness
potential occurs about 550 ms prior to the act, whereas the conscious intention
occurs about 22 ms prior to it. However, subjects can veto performance for a
100–200 ms period before a prearranged time to act and it is possible that conscious
activation is necessary for the occurrence of the final motor output. Thus, it appears
that the role of conscious will is ‘permissively’ to permit or prevent the motor
implementation of an act that arose unconsciously: its function is one of selection
and control rather than initiation. In the words of the Bhagavad Gita: “Action is
the product of the qualities inherent in Nature. It is only the ignorant man who,
misled by personal egotism, says: ‘I am the doer’” (Chapter 3, 27th sutra).
I have considered some of our conceptions of the self as a knower and doer,
their origins and problems. Hofstadter & Dennett (1981) claim that “it will take a
radical rethinking of the issues before people can be expected to reach a consen-
sus about the meaning of the word ‘I’”. I have argued that philosophers and
neuroscientists have already reached a consensus: the concept of a unifying and
continuing personal self is neither coherent nor supported by the evidence.

References
Bahrick, L. E. & Watson, J. S. (1985). Detection of intermodal proprioceptive-visual
contingency as a potential basis of self-perception in infancy. Developmental
Psychology, 21, 963–973.
Blackmore, S. (1987). Where am I? Perspectives in imagery and the out-of-body experience.
Journal of Mental Imagery, 11, 53–66.
Butterworth, G. (1985). Self-perception in infancy. Paper presented at a meeting of the New
England Node of the MacArthur Network, Harvard University.
 Perception and action in East and West 73
Collins, S. (1982). Selfless persons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dennett, D. C. (1979). Artificial intelligence as philosophy and psychology. In M. Ringle
(Ed.) Philosophical perspectives in artificial intelligence (pp. 57–78). New York:
Humanities Press.
Dewey, J. (1896). The reflex arc in psychology. Psychological Review, 3, 357–370.
Dreyfus, H. L., & Dreyfus, S. E. (1988). Making a mind versus modeling the brain: Artificial
intelligence back at a branchpoint. Daedalus, March, 15–43.
Eddington, A. (1935). The nature of the physical world. London: Dent. Everyman’s Library.
(Originally published 1928.)
Elster, J. (Ed.) (1986). Introduction. In The multiple self. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Feldman, J. A. & Ballard, D. H. (1982). Connectionist models and their properties. Cognitive
Science, 6, 205–254.
Flavell, J. H., Shipstead, S. G. & Croft, K. (1980). What young children think you see when
their eyes are closed. Cognition, 8, 369–387.
Fodor, J. A. & Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1988). Connectionism and cognitive architecture: a critical
analysis. Cognition, 28, 1–71.
Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston, Mass:
Houghton-Mifflin.
Gödel, K. (1931). Uber Formal Unentscheidebare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und
Verwandter Systeme, I. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik, 38, 173–198.
Hofstadter, D. R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. New York: Basic
Books.
Hofstadter, J. R. & Dennett, D. C. (1981). The mind’s ‘I’. New York: Basic Books.
James, W. (1950). The principles of psychology. New York: Dover. (Originally published
1890.)
Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary
action. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 8, 529–566.
Mach, E. (1890). The analysis of sensation. The Monist, 1, 48–68.
Nagel, T. (1971). Brain bisection and the unity of consciousness. Synthese, 22, 396–413.
Natsoulas, T. & Dubanoski, R. A. (1964). Inferring the locus and orientation of the perceiver
from responses to stimulation of the skin. American Journal of Psychology, 7, 281–285.
Neisser, U. (1988). Five kinds of self-knowledge. Philosophical Psychology, 1, 35–59.
Parfitt, D. (1984). Reasons and persons. Oxford: Clarendon.
Pearson, K. (1937). The grammar of science. London: Dent. Everyman’s Library.
(Originally published 1892.)
Phillips, W. A. (1988). Brainy minds. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 40,
389–405.
Zuboff, A. (1990). One self: the logic of experience. Inquiry, 33: 39–68.
8 Metaphysics

METAPHYSICS is the branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature

of reality. Its name derives from Aristotle’s treatment of the subject, which came
after (Greek ‘meta’) that of physics. It typically involves reference to that which
is not directly observable. In this sense it is opposed to positivistic science.
However, it is now generally accepted that all branches of science employ
concepts (such as atoms) that do not refer directly to observable entities, and are
concerned to explain phenomena by reference to underlying processes.
Psychology is no more the study of behavior per se than is physics the study of
meter-reading. Theories differ on (a) whether these concepts are regarded as real,
existing entities (‘realism’) or merely useful tools to aid prediction (‘instru-
mentalism’); and (b) how closely related to observables they must be. For
example, neo-behaviorists distinguished between intervening variables, whose
meaning was entirely reducible to observations, and hypothetical constructs
which contained surplus meaning over and above observation statements. For
example, the meaning of the concept ‘hunger’ might be entirely reducible to its
operational definition in terms of hours of food deprivation or refer to some
additional internal state.

Ontological, epistemological and conceptual issues

In discussing the philosophical underpinnings of psychological theories, it is
important to distinguish ontological, epistemological and conceptual issues, which
are often intermixed. A particular position, such as behaviorism, typically exists
in a variety of forms, though these may tend to co-occur.
Ontology is the study of being, or what can be said to exist. According to
‘monism’, there is only one fundamental reality. ‘Dualism’ posits the existence of
two distinct realms, typically mental and physical. Others have argued for a third
realm of abstract ideas. (For Plato, these were ideal forms; for the philosopher of
science Karl Popper, they were cultural objects, such as numbers, theories and
books.) Somewhat analogously, psychology has different areas of study or subject-
matters: conscious experience, behavior and neurophysiology. Different theoretical
positions can be distinguished in terms of their focus of attention (e.g. phenom-
enology, behaviorism, and neuroscience).
 Metaphysics 75
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with methods of acquiring
knowledge. Different psychological positions may be distinguished according to
the methods adopted, e.g. introspection, behavioral analysis, and neurophysiology.
Conceptual issues are concerned with theoretical analysis – the language used
to describe and explain observations. The American philosopher of mind Daniel
Dennett has distinguished three theoretical stances or different levels of analysis;
and argued that which is selected is a pragmatic matter. On the ‘physical stance’,
a piece of behavior may be explained by reference to the physical constitution of
the organism (e.g. explaining visual perception by reference to the structure of the
eye and the brain). This type of explanation has been particularly useful in cases
of malfunction. (E.g. neuropsychologists explain behavioral dysfunction by
reference to brain damage; psychopathological disorders, such as schizophrenia,
depression and Alzheimer’s disease, may be explained in terms of brain chemistry.)
On the ‘design stance’, processes are explained by reference to a computational
program or algorithm capable of generating the behavior. This approach is
exemplified by cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence, whether of the
traditional symbolic, or connectionist kind. On the ‘intentional stance’, behavior
is explained by invoking mental states such as beliefs, desires and reasons. The
desire might be to have a cup of tea and the belief that boiling a kettle of water is
a way of achieving this; these allow the inference that boiling a kettle of water is
a reasonable thing to do in the circumstances. The explanation (‘justification’ or
‘rationalization’) shows why it was reasonable for the agent to perform the action,
given certain beliefs and desires. This approach is apparent in the 19th-century
German tradition of Verstehen and hermeneutics, which argued that the social
sciences should pursue empathic understanding rather than the causal prediction
of the physical sciences; and ‘folk psychology’ – everyday, common-sense,
implicit knowledge which enables the prediction and/or explanation of the behavior
of others (and ourselves) by understanding the mental states involved. It is common
in much of social and personality psychology, including psychoanalysis (where
reasons can be unconscious).

The mind-body problem

The fundamental problem for the philosophy of psychology is that of the relation
of the mental to the physical. The 19th-century German philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer described it as the world knot, insoluble by us, a view shared by the
contemporary English philosopher Colin McGinn. The problem is that the two
realms appear to be distinctly different but closely related. Mental phenomena
consist of sensations; and ‘propositional attitudes’, such as thoughts, beliefs, and
desires, which have contents. Physical phenomena have properties such as mass
and energy.
A number of features have been suggested as distinguishing the mental and the
physical.
The qualitative character of phenomenal experience (what philosophers call
‘qualia’) has been held by many to be distinctive of the mental. Properties such as
76 Philosophy
the redness of vermilion or the sweetness of sugar seem irreducible and distinct
from physical properties.
Mental states are thought of as private or subjective whereas physical phe-
nomena are public or objective (or at least inter-subjective). There is an episte-
mological difference between the knowledge one has of one’s own mental states
(e.g. pain) and that of someone else’s.
Franz Brentano, the late 19th-century Austrian philosopher, considered inten-
tionality to be the mark of mental. This refers to the directedness or content of
propositional attitudes: beliefs and desires are about things, though these may not
exist objectively (‘intensional inexistence’). Hoping or imagining necessarily
involves hoping for or imagining something, even though this may never exist.
Cognitive psychologists, adopting the computational model of mind, see this as a
way of dealing with representation and meaning.
René Descartes, the 17th-century French philosopher and famous dualist,
suggested two further distinguishing criteria. He argued that spatial extension was
distinctive of the physical realm (‘res extensa’), whereas thinking was charac-
teristic of the mental (‘res cogitans’).
He also believed that the physical realm was subject to, or explicable in terms
of, the deterministic laws of the physical or natural sciences; whereas mental
phenomena were ‘free’, which would rule out psychological science.

Dualism
Dualism is the common-sense view that there are two distinct realms of mental
and physical phenomena. This poses the problem of the relationship between them.
There have been many suggestions as to what this might be.
No-one has suggested that mental and physical phenomena are not at least co-
incidental. The weakest relation is therefore one of correlation, or psychophysical
parallelism (e.g. two isolated causal systems, as suggested by the 17th-century
German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz). The problem for such a view is to explain
the apparently fortuitous synchronization between mental and physical events.
Leibniz postulated a ‘pre-established harmony’ and was ridiculed by the French
18th-century writer Voltaire; Leibniz’s contemporary, Nicolas Malebranche, relied
on divine intervention. Experiments in physiological psychology that aim merely
to localize a function exemplify this approach.
René Descartes suggested causal interaction. This accords with the common-
sense view that mental causes can have physical effects (e.g. stress causes ulcers,
embarrassment causes blushing, thoughts and desires cause actions), and physical
causes can have mental effects (e.g. a kick on the shins hurts; visual experiences
appear to be the result of physical stimuli). The problems with this view are how
there can be causal interaction between two substances defined as distinctly
different; Descartes defined mind as non-spatial and non-deterministic but causa-
tion depends on physical contiguity and deterministic laws. (His suggestions about
the pineal gland, as the place where the interaction was supposed to take place,
 Metaphysics 77
localize rather than solve the problem.) Furthermore, if the physical cause is
sufficient to explain a piece of behavior, how can a mental cause be necessary?
A position that postulates one-way causal interaction is that of epiphenom-
enalism. While attributing reality to mental states, it refuses to allow them causal
efficacy. Mental processes are non-causal by-products of physical processes; they
are caused by but do not themselves cause physical events. A famous exponent of
this view was the 19th-century English scientist, T. H. Huxley, who argued that
consciousness was like the whistle of a steam-engine, a spin-off that had no effect
on the working of the machine. Radical behaviorism, which claims that behavior
can be explained without recourse to mental events or processes, is such a view.
Demonstrations by the American psychophysiologist Benjamin Libet, that
electrophysiological responses precede the reported conscious intention to perform
a voluntary action, tend to lend credence to such a view. Conscious experience is
often the result rather than the cause of behavior. On the other hand, the position
is counter-intuitive, and untestable: the exclusive efficacy of mental events cannot
be demonstrated, since they are always accompanied by physical ones.

Monism
Monism is the view that there is only one basic stuff in the universe. There are two
basic forms: idealism and materialism.
Idealism attributes primacy to the mental: the universe is viewed as basically
mental. It has existed in many forms. The early 18th-century Irish philosopher
George Berkeley put forward the doctrine of ‘immaterialism’, according to which
the external world (and physical reality) did not exist: physical objects were merely
ideas in our minds. (The Scottish philosopher David Hume took the doctrine one
step further, in arguing that our minds were merely bundles of sensations and
ideas.) The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant expounded trans-
cendental idealism: space and time were forms of intuition imposed on reality by
the mind.
Transpersonal psychology (‘fourth force’ psychology – behaviorism, psycho-
analysis, and humanistic psychology being first, second, and third forces respec-
tively) aims to study aspects of the psyche or cosmos beyond the personal, ego or
individual, such as spirituality and mystical experiences. It might be considered
an example of ontological idealism (or dualism) if it posits a transcendental realm;
or epistemological idealism, insofar as it employs the methods of intuition and
contemplation.
Current cognitive psychology reflects idealism, in its central claim that reality
is dependent on the mind, in contrast to ‘realism’ according to which reality is
mind-independent. Idealism underpins the representational theory of mind,
advanced by the American philosopher Jerry Fodor, and the ‘constructivism’ of
cognitive psychologists such as Jerome Bruner, Richard Gregory, and Ulric
Neisser, who maintain that cognition is an active, constructive process, in contrast
to the ‘realism’ of the followers of the American psychologist J. J. Gibson. For the
former group, perception is a top-down, inferential process, involving hypothesis-
78 Philosophy
testing and the utilization of past knowledge; for the latter group perception is
‘direct’ and bottom-up, a matter of picking up information from the rich sensory
array. For the ‘constructivists’, information is largely in the head (mind/brain) and
perception is error-prone: witness ambiguous figures and visual illusions. For the
‘direct realists’, information is largely in the dynamic environment: the ambient
array specifies not only objects but actions they afford us.
The alternative monist position is materialism or physicalism (the two positions
are closely related and the terms are sometimes used interchangeably), which
asserts the primacy of the physical. The ontological claim is that everything that
exists consists of matter (we may note that our view of what matter is has changed
radically in recent times). The conceptual claim is that everything can be explained
in terms of the concepts and laws of physics, however currently conceived. The
thesis dates back to the pre-Socratic Greek atomist Democritus, and to Lucretius
in the first century B.C. Other notable exponents were Thomas Hobbes and Pierre
Gassendi in the 17th century. Materialism has been extremely popular amongst
scientists but has problems accounting for subjectivity and the qualitative character
of the mental.
There have been two notable attempts to eliminate mental concepts in favour of
physical ones. Mental states have been defined as equivalent in meaning to, and
thus theoretically reducible to, or replaceable by, descriptions in terms of behavior
(‘behaviorism’), or neurophysiology (‘eliminative materialism’).
Behaviorism exists in a variety of forms. In psychology it is primarily an
epistemological doctrine, motivated by positivism and a desire for scientific
respectability, and put forward originally in 1913 by the American psychologist
J. B. Watson. He prescribed that only objective methods and publicly observable
data should be admitted (‘methodological behaviorism’). The subject matter of
psychology was restricted to behavior, or existence denied to mental states
(‘metaphysical’ or ‘eliminativist behaviorism’). Concepts were to be restricted to
those that could be operationalized: mentalistic explanations were considered
unnecessary (B. F. Skinner’s ‘radical behaviorism’) or equivalent in meaning to
behavioral or dispositional statements (‘analytical’ or ‘logical behaviorism’). It
proved difficult to carry out these dispositional analyses, and impossible to explain
even relatively simple behavior adequately without recourse to mental states (hence
the rise of ‘cognitivism’ and ‘functionalism’).
Eliminative materialism in its current form has been championed by the American
philosopher Paul Churchland, who recommends that common-sense ‘folk psy-
chological’ concepts should be replaced by neurobiological ones, on the grounds
that the latter are defective as accounts of behavior. It would require a radical
revision of our common sense notions. This is an extreme reductionist theory which
appears to ignore and discount the possibility of a scientific psychology.

Ontological monism but conceptual dualism

In recent times the focus of the debate has shifted from ontological discussion about
the nature of reality to the conceptual issue of how best to describe the relationship
 Metaphysics 79
between mental and physical phenomena. Most current theorists adopt some form
of ontological monism (generally materialism) but allow conceptual or theoretical
dualism; so the same event or process may be described in different ways.
An old version of this position is the double aspect view, espoused by the 17th
century Portuguese philosopher Benedict Spinoza, according to whom mental and
physical were two aspects of an underlying, essentially unknowable, neutral
substance.
The most popular current views are some form of identity, which holds that the
relation between mental and physical is one of constitution.
Mind-brain identity theory claims that mental events are contingently identical
to brain states. Mental properties are different in meaning from physical properties
but, as a matter of empirical discovery, mental states are found to be identifiable
with brain states. The theory was originally motivated by the work of the Canadian
neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield, who elicited autobiographical memories and other
behavioral responses by stimulating specific regions of the cortex. One advantage
is that, since mental states are identical to brain states, they can be genuinely causal.
The truth of the theory depends on the successful demonstration of psychophysical
correlations. It is more plausible when applied to sensations than propositional
attitudes. The theory is usually considered to be a case of type-identity. Thus every
instance of a given mental state (e.g. seeing the colour green) is claimed to be
identical with a specified brain state (e.g. a particular pattern of neural activity in
the brain). An objection raised is that this does not allow ‘multiple’ or ‘variable
realizability’: the possibility that the same mental state may be realized differently
in different individuals or species (e.g. binocular disparity is realized by different
structures in the owl and the cat). It also rules out strong artificial intelligence,
which attributes mental states to appropriately programmed computers.
Token identity allows multiple realizability. Each instance of a mental state is
said to be identical with, in the sense of realized in, some physical state, but there
may be no general laws relating types or classes of mental and physical states. On
this view, the relation between mental and physical is termed ‘supervenience’. The
mental is dependent on or determined by the physical: any physical change or
difference must be reflected in a mental change or difference (but the opposite is
not necessarily the case). (Supervenience clarifies physicalism while avoiding a
precise specification.) Some have doubted whether it is sufficiently powerful to
provide mental causation; and there have been problems providing a physical
account of intentionality. The main examples of token identity theories are
anomalous monism and functionalism.
Anomalous monism is a doctrine put forward by the American philosopher of
mind (formerly a psychologist) Donald Davidson. According to him, laws only
apply to events described in a particular way, relative to a particular, conceptual
framework. He claims that there are causal laws pertaining to events described
physically (and because mental events are identical to physical events, they can be
causes) but there are no laws pertaining to events described psychologically
(psychology is anomalous, i.e. lacking in laws). This is because he believes that
psychological descriptions are to be given in terms of reasons, desires and beliefs,
80 Philosophy
which involve a radically different conceptual framework. Thus, there can be no
psychological or psychophysical laws. But note that this depends on a particular,
highly contentious, interpretation of the nature of psychological events, as
propositional attitudes.
Functionalism is the dominant paradigm and the philosophy underlying current
cognitive psychology. On this view, mental states are defined in terms of their
causal role, in relation to environmental stimuli (‘input’), other mental states and
behavioral responses (‘output’). For example, a pain might be defined as the state
that results from tissue damage, gives rise to distress and produces attempts to
escape it. Description is at the abstract level of process (the ‘design stance’).
Psychology is autonomous with respect to physiology, since mental states are
independent of any particular physical embodiment. Functionalism underlies the
computational and representational theories of mind, on which cognition consists
of computation: mental processes are operations performed on representations,
and can be modelled by the manipulation of abstract symbols according to formal
rules in a digital computer. The pursuit of artificial intelligence is encouraged.
Functionalism has difficulty in accounting for the qualitative character of mental
life, since it seems possible to imagine different, functionally indistinguishable,
mental states. Whether or not it can account for intentionality and meaning is the
subject of current controversy.

Bibliography
Churchland, P. M. (1988). Matter and consciousness: A contemporary introduction to the
philosophy of mind (rev. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
(A clear, succinct and sound account of positions on the mind-body problem: dualism,
varieties of behaviorism, materialism, functionalism; and discussion of folk
psychology, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, with suggestions for further
reading.)
Fodor, J. A. (1981). The mind-body problem. Scientific American, 244, (1), 124–132.
(Accessible account of functionalism, by one of its chief exponents, tracing the progression
from dualism, radical and logical behaviorism, and identity theory, together with a
critical evaluation.)
Guttenplan, S. (Ed.). (1994). A companion to the philosophy of mind. Oxford: Blackwell.
(A lengthy orienting essay precedes substantial entries on specific topics, as well as self-
profiles by leading philosophers of mind. In some cases two entries are provided on
the same topic to illustrate different points of view.)
Honderich, T. (1995). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(Brief entries on topics and persons in philosophy. The entries on idealism, the mind-body
problem and mental reductionism are particularly recommended.)
Horgan, T. (1994). Physicalism (1). In S. Guttenplan (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy
of mind (pp. 471–479). Oxford: Blackwell.
(Thorough and comprehensive account of various forms of reductive and non-reductive
physicalism, including supervenience, functionalism, identity theory, and eliminativism).
Kim, J. (1994). Supervenience. In S. Guttenplan (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy of
mind (pp. 575–582). Oxford: Blackwell. (Detailed explication of different forms of
supervenience by the philosopher largely responsible for its development.)
 Metaphysics 81
Kim, J. & Sosa, E. (Eds.). (1995). A companion to metaphysics. Oxford: Blackwell.
(Contains entries on several of the positions and terms discussed above.)
Loewer, B. (1995). Mind-body problem. In J. Kim & E. Sosa (Eds.), A companion to
metaphysics (pp. 579–580). Oxford: Blackwell.
(Overview and classification of positions on the mind-body problem.)
Lycan, W. (1994). Functionalism (1). In S. Guttenplan (Ed.), A companion to the philosophy
of mind (pp. 317–323). Oxford: Blackwell.
(Good and useful account of functionalism, including its history, varieties and critique, by
one of the most sophisticated exponents of the position.)
Lycan, W. (1996). Philosophy of mind. In N. Bunnin & E. P. Tsui-James (Eds.), The
Blackwell companion to philosophy (pp. 167–197). Oxford: Blackwell.
(Review article covering the main topics in the philosophy of mind, including dualism,
behaviorism, identity theory, varieties of functionalism, artificial intelligence and the
computational theory of mind, qualia, intentionality, eliminativism, and folk
psychology.)
O’Donohue, W. & Kitchener, R. F. (Eds.) (1996). The philosophy of psychology. London:
Sage.
(Collection of readings on the philosophy of psychology, including sections on behaviorism
and cognitive psychology.)
Valentine, E. R. (1992). Conceptual issues in psychology (2nd ed., rev.). London: Routledge.
(Comprehensive text on philosophical psychology and different theoretical approaches to
psychology.)
Von Eckhardt, B. (1994). Folk psychology (1). In S. Guttenplan (Ed.), A companion to the
philosophy of mind (pp. 300–307). Oxford: Blackwell.
(An excellent article on folk psychology, including a taxonomy of positions on its truth,
distinguished by giving due weight to scientific psychology.)
9 Mind-body problems
Distinguishing the soluble
from the insoluble

Abstract
Ontological, epistemological and theoretical versions of the mind-body problem
are distinguished. Block’s (1994) analysis of positions on the mind-body problem,
or ‘attitudes to the explanatory gap’, is described: that there is no gap, that there is
an unclosable gap, and that there is a closable gap. The thesis is advanced that
these positions are all correct but that each applies to a different version of the
problem. Thus, the correct position on the ontological problem is that there is no
gap (there is only one world); on the epistemological problem is that there is an
unclosable gap (there is an irresolvable duality); and on the theoretical problem
that there is a closable gap. On this view, the ontological problem is straight-
forwardly soluble, the epistemological problem is straightforwardly insoluble and
the theoretical problem is soluble but not straightforwardly. Attempts to solve the
theoretical or scientific problem are discussed. It is concluded that, contrary to
current opinion, the solution to this form of the hard problem is within our grasp,
and that approaches at the sub-atomic level offer most promise.

Introduction
The central problem in the philosophy of mind, which has attracted more atten-
tion than any other, is that of the relation between phenomenal and functional
consciousness, the mind-body or mind-brain problem, i.e. the relation between
phenomenal experience (qualia, what it is like to be something or someone, a
phrase due originally to Brian Farrell – not Thomas Nagel), on the one hand, and
physical, functional accounts, on the other: the relation between subjective and
objective perspectives, or first person and third person accounts. Huxley (1866, p.
193) stated the problem as follows: “How it is that anything so remarkable as a
state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue is just as
unaccountable as the appearance of Djinn when Aladdin rubbed his lamp”.
Lockwood (1989, p. 1) states it thus: “The most puzzling thing about consciousness
(or awareness or sentience) . . . is the fact that it exists at all. There is on the face
of it absolutely nothing in the laws of physics and chemistry, as currently
understood, that is capable of accounting for the extraordinary capacity of that lump
of matter that we call the brain . . . to sustain ‘inner life’.” This age-old problem
 Distinguishing the soluble from the insoluble 83
has been given many labels. Jackendoff (1987) speaks of the mind-mind problem,
Flanagan (1991) of experiential and informational sensitivity, Block (1995) of
phenomenal and access consciousness (a slightly different distinction). Currently
fashionable are the ‘explanatory gap’, coined by Levine (1983) and the ‘hard
question’: how to give a principled account of the connection between subjective
experience and objective scientific accounts of behavioural and neurophysiological
processes.

Ontological, epistemological and theoretical problems

Ontology is the branch of philosophy that deals with being or existence. It considers
the nature and conditions of existence, what can be said to exist. The mind-body
problem was traditionally formulated in these terms. What kinds of being are there
in the universe? Thus monism posits the existence of physical, mental or ‘neutral’
realms; dualism claims that both physical and mental realms exist. In some cases,
in what might be called ‘trialism’, a third realm is postulated, e.g., Plato’s ideal
forms or Popper’s third world of cultural objects.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the methodology for
knowledge acquisition. It considers the conditions for knowledge and truth.
What I am calling the theoretical problem here falls within the philosophy of
science and concerns the appropriate language for describing and explaining
observations. Thus, for example, Dennett (1971) distinguishes physical, design and
intentional stances to refer to different theoretical stances or levels of analysis or
explanation, i.e., explaining something by reference to its physical constitution,
by reference to a computational program or algorithm capable of generating the
behaviour in question, or by invoking mental states such as beliefs, desires and
reasons, respectively.
Applying this analysis to the mind-body problem, the ontological problem is
concerned with whether it is appropriate to postulate mental and physical realms
of existence; the epistemological problem is concerned with the relation between
subjective and objective modes of knowing, and the theoretical problem is con-
cerned with the appropriate language for describing mental and physical phenom-
ena and any relations postulated as existing between them.

Attitudes to the explanatory gap

Block (1994) has outlined positions on the mind-body problem or three attitudes
to the explanatory gap.

(1) The view that there is no gap – consciousness doesn’t exist in the sense
intended, so there is nothing for there to be a gap between, e.g. eliminative
materialism (Churchland, 1983; Dennett, 1988; Rey, 1983) [Eliminativism].
In this case, there is no problem to be solved.
(2) The view that there is an unclosable gap – there is a gap but the problem is
insoluble. This exists in a variety of versions according to the reason given:
84 Philosophy
(a) consciousness is transcendental rather than natural, so it is not explicable
in scientific terms (e.g. White, 1989) [‘Transcendentalism’]; (b1) “awareness
is an irreducible property of the activity of functionally entrained neuronal
assemblies and therefore is amenable to no further explanation” (Kinsbourne,
1993, p. 43) [Irreducibility]; (b2) an a priori analysis of the phenomenon to
be reduced (e.g. qualia) is required but cannot be given [Deflationist]; (c) there
are physical properties of the brain that explain consciousness but we cannot
know them, so the solution to the problem is closed to us (McGinn, 1991)
[New mysterianism].
(3) The view that there is a closable gap – there is a gap but the problem is soluble.
Again this view exists in a number of forms, according to the amount of
revision of our current concepts thought to be required: (a) currently we lack
the scientific concepts but the problem may become soluble in the future (e.g.
Nagel, 1974; Flanagan, 1992; Searle, 1992) [Naturalism]; (b) the problem
is not remarkable and is no different from other unsolved problems such as
the physical or functional basis of liquidity, inheritance or computation
[Reductionism].

My thesis
My thesis is that these three positions are all correct but that they apply to differ-
ent versions of the mind-body problem. In brief, ontologically, there is no gap;
epistemologically, there is an unclosable gap; theoretically, there is a closable
gap.
Ontologically, there is only one world. Traditional, materialist Western science
behaves as if this is the only world to be explained. However, quantum mechanics
shows this to be misguided, in that matter is just as puzzling as mind; indeed, it
could be argued that the physical world, Popper’s World 1, is the least knowable
of his three worlds (World 2 being the world of mental states and subjective
experiences, and World 3 products of the human mind – abstract cultural objects,
objective knowledge such as numbers, theories or books, which are governed by
normative principles such as the rules of logic; Popper & Eccles, 1977). If instead
we replace it with some neutral proto-stuff, such as Kantian noumena – things in
themselves as they really are, whether we can know them or not – then we can see
that there is only one world to be explained. In this sense mind-brain identity theory
and Churchland’s eliminative materialism are correct. As Tukiainen (1995), a
defender of the thesis, asks rhetorically, “How would an immaterial mind be any
better situated to feel the qualia than a physical brain?” (p. 173) and goes on: “The
broad picture is one where first-person and third-person ways of coming to know
about events in our heads are ways of coming to know about one and the same event
. . . They are the same objects under different descriptions” (p. 177). From this
perspective there is no gap. Searle (1984), as is well known, adopts the currently
unpopular dualist position of separate mental and physical realms but is then faced
with the contradictory consequences that physical processes are both identical to
and causally related to mental processes. Philosophers have generally held that
 Distinguishing the soluble from the insoluble 85
cause and effect must be independent and therefore cannot be identical. One cannot
have one’s cake and eat it.
But to return to monism, this ‘no-nonsense materialism’ is unaware of the
problems left unsolved. As Flanagan (1991, p. 342) remarks: “If mental processes
are identical to physical processes, how can it be that the true story of how my brain
works will not capture what it is like to be me? The alleged mystery of con-
sciousness has its source in biological facts which underwrite different kinds of
epistemic access we have to brain facts on the one hand and what it is like to be
each of us, on the other.”
Epistemically, dual aspect theory is true. This is a neo-Spinozistic view that
subjective and objective are two different perspectives and, more particularly,
that obscuring the distinction between them is to commit a Rylean category
error. Epistemologically, there is an irresolvable duality, an unclosable gap.
Headaches are not equivalent to dispositions to take aspirins. Blind neuro-
physiologists cannot experience colour vision, any more than male gynaecologists
can experience childbirth.
Theoretically, the gap is closable and the hard problem soluble: in the realm of
scientific discourse. Here the task is to give a principled account of the relation
between the phenomenal or subjective and the functional or objective. We can still
isolate specific properties that subserve first person experience even if we can’t
capture first person phenomenology third personally (Flanagan, 1991). It is
important to be clear about what is and what is not being done here. Scientific
theory can only relate inferred entities or concepts, not actual experience itself. A
scientific theory of conscious experience won’t itself experience in the same way
as a chemical theory is not itself expected to fizz (Boden, 1979). Flanagan believes
that it will be possible to give a naturalistic explanation of our inability to capture
the phenomenology of what it is like to be each one of us from the objective point
of view. At the end of this paper I shall indicate that this has already been achieved.

The theoretical problem

Is closing the gap a philosophical or a scientific problem? I believe that it is a
philosophical task to map out and clarify which problems can and which cannot
be solved, in the way I have attempted above; and, further, to specify what would
count as a solution to the soluble problem. What requirements have to be met? On
the other hand, I agree with Zeki (personal communication, 1996) that one good
experiment is worth a thousand fruitless speculations, and with Lockwood (1989)
that new ways of thinking are likely to be inspired by reflecting on empirical
discoveries.
It is generally agreed that closure of the gap, or the solution of the hard problem,
must involve more than ‘brute correlation’. A principled account of the relation
between phenomenal and functional features must be provided, perhaps taking the
form of some kind of theoretical isomorphism. Nagel (1993) demands that the
explanation be ‘transparent’. Opinion is divided as to whether it is just a matter of
providing more information of the same kind or whether a paradigmatic revolution
86 Philosophy
has to occur. It may be a matter of degree – like explanation – simply a matter of
providing more information of various kinds. This ambiguity is apparent in Gray’s
(1995) target article, where he is unsure of whether or not he has moved beyond
brute correlation and if so how or how far. Are people seeking a holy grail, a magic
formula, a philosopher’s stone? Is Kinsbourne (1995, p. 687) right when he asserts
that “To call for a paradigm shift to explain consciousness may be overkill”? On
the other hand, Lockwood (1989) believes that it is not just a matter of more
information of the same kind as we have already; rather, a drastic revision of our
customary way of looking at the world is required.
The following phenomenal features of consciousness need to be accounted for:

(1) Unity – the belongingness of diverse items within the perceptual field both to
the observer and to each other, the simultaneous integration of items both
within and between different sense modalities. An answer is required to
Schrödinger’s question: how can a single mind arise out of a population of
communicating individuals? Or to what is now known as the binding problem:
how are different qualities, known to be analysed in different regions, united
in awareness? Different attributes are analysed in spatially disparate areas of
the cortex, both inter-modally, e.g., the coincident qualia that result in the wasp
being seen, heard and felt as being in one and the same place; and intra-
modally, e.g. Zeki’s (1993) work establishing different areas for the analysis
of form, colour and motion in vision. The functional and anatomical
separability of these is demonstrated by specific visual agnosias: damage of
one area leads to loss of one attribute, e.g. damage to area V4 results in the
reduction of colour vision to black and white. What has to be accounted for is
the fact that we never have the experience of bad colour printing, where form
and colour don’t quite map onto each other.
(2) Privacy – the fact that consciousness is confined to the individual.
(3) The perception of time, both its apparent continuity and discreteness.
Psychological moments have a certain thickness or duration and overlap each
other. Apparent time is ‘smeared’ in relation to real time. We can perceive
change and motion.
(4) The contents of consciousness.

From brute correlation to transparency

40 Hz oscillations
Much interest has centred on the 40 Hz oscillations associated with regions of the
brain involved with conscious attention (Eckhorn et al., 1988; Gray & Singer, 1989;
Crick & Koch, 1990; Crick, 1994.) For example, Gray and Singer (1989) showed
that in areas 17 and 18 of the cat visual cortex the firing probability of neurons, in
response to the presentation of optimally aligned bars within their receptive field,
oscillates with a peak frequency of near 40 Hz. Groups of adjacent cortical neurons,
when activated appropriately, engage in cooperative interactions as postulated on
 Distinguishing the soluble from the insoluble 87
theoretical grounds, for example, by Edelman (1978). These interactions lead to
coherent and periodic patterns of activity, suggesting that the phase of the
oscillatory response may be used as a further dimension of coding in addition to
the amplitude and duration of the response. One role for this temporal code would
be to enable columns of cells in different parts of the cortex, representing different
parts of the visual field, to synchronize their respective activity patterns. Thus, the
oscillatory responses may provide a general mechanism by which activity patterns
in spatially separate regions of the cortex are temporally coordinated.
However, the account in terms of 40 Hz is generally thought not to be principled,
and in any case is too slow for unification. Mere synchronicity or simultaneity and
coherence do not provide a sufficient explanation of unity. “We may still ask how
the mere synchronicity and simultaneity of the oscillations throughout the [cortico-
collicular neuronal] group give rise to the unitary experienced object” (J. Valentine,
1995, p. 42; italics mine). No mechanism is given for translating synchronous
oscillations into unified experiences. “As phenomenologists, we desire to know
how it is that qualities analyzed in spatially discrete tissues are united in awareness.
Surely, mere synchronicity will not provide an explanation of that” (J. Valentine,
1995, p. 45; italics mine). Other examples of crude parallels to phenomenal features
in functional features are distributed processing and Pribram’s idea of global
(essentially quantum) large-scale coherent ‘holographic’ activity in the brain.
However, as Dennett (1984, p. 217) pointed out, some of the attraction of holism
is that it is “organic and fuzzy and warm and cuddly and mysterious”.

Neurophysiological theories
Two neuropsychological theories seek to account for many of the phenom-
enological features of conscious experiences by postulating specific neural and/or
psychological functions that might give rise to them.

John O’Keefe’s theory

John O’Keefe’s (1985) theory that consciousness is to be identified with activation
of the theta system, which organises neocortical and entorhinal inputs into the
hippocampus, and which synchronises all three structures for the construction,
correction and manipulation of maps of the environment, is based on observed
parallels between introspectively derived characteristics of consciousness and the
anatomy and physiology of the rat septo-hippocampal system. Unity or holism is
accounted for by distributed representation, in that the entire environment is
represented simultaneously across the whole surface and each neurone participates
in many different representations. The contents of the background fringe of
consciousness are thought to be provided by normal activation of the neocortical-
hippocampal system, whereas the foreground or selective attention component is
generated by mismatch signals produced in the hippocampus. External and internal
modes of controlling consciousness are mirrored by the two modes of activat-
ing the theta mechanisms, one driven from the brainstem, the other from the
88 Philosophy
hippocampus itself. The distinction between conscious and nonconscious behav-
iour is accounted for by that between flexible, hippocampal and rigid, non-
hippocampal control of the motor system. The multi-modality of consciousness is
accounted for by the integration of modality-specific sensory input from the neo-
cortex into a multi-modal spatial representation in the hippocampus. Finally, access
to long-term narrative memory is accounted for by the role of the hippocampus in
memory (particularly spatial memory).

Jeffery Gray’s theory

Jeffery Gray’s (1995) similar but independently developed neuropsychological
hypothesis is that the contents of consciousness consist of outputs of a (subicular)
comparator system that, on a moment-to-basis, compares the current state of the
organism’s perceptual world with a predicted state, together with feedback from
the comparator to those sets of neurons in perceptual systems that have just
provided input to the comparator in respect of the current process of comparison.
He claims that his hypothesis goes beyond brute correlation but falls far short of
Nagel’s standard of transparency. An empirical objection to both these theories is
that destruction of the hippocampus does not abolish consciousness.

Quantum physical accounts

Most of the interest in trying to provide physical accounts of phenomenal features
of consciousness has occurred in physics. The relevance of quantum physical
accounts for consciousness is controversial. Although the relation of accounts at
the neurophysiological and physical levels to accounts at the psychological level
remains problematical, it behoves philosophers of mind to become cognisant with
quantum physics. As early as 1931 Bohr speculated about the role of quantum
effects in the brain and Haldane (1963) explored exciting implications for temporal
phenomena. Many have canvassed the notion that a state of the brain exhibiting
quantum coherence might be the physical basis of consciousness.

Bose-Einstein condensation
The most popular hypothesis has been that Bose-Einstein condensation may
provide the unitary sense of self (Marshall, 1989; Lockwood, 1989; Zohar, 1990;
Zohar & Marshall, 1994). Frölich (1968) showed that, in systems of vibrating
electrically charged molecules (dipoles), beyond a certain threshold when incom-
ing energy reaches a critical value, any additional energy pumped into the system
causes molecules to vibrate in unison, producing so-called Bose-Einstein con-
densation, the most ordered form of condensed phase possible. There is large-scale
quantum synchronicity, quanta becoming coherent over macroscopic regions. Parts
become a whole in that they lose their individuality. Wave functions overlap,
resulting in indeterminate spatial location.
 Distinguishing the soluble from the insoluble 89
Ian Marshall (1989) was the first person to put forward the idea that Bose
condensation in such pumped phonon systems might be the basis of mental states
and processes. He argued that the collective and holistic character of Bose-
condensed oscillatory states might be the physical basis of consciousness, sug-
gesting that information might be encoded by appropriately adjusting amplitudes
(possibly the physical basis of intensity of sensation) and relative phase (possibly
the physical basis of quality of sensation). These ideas were popularised and
embedded in a much larger panpsychist theory by Danah Zohar (1990). More
recently and most popularly, Roger Penrose (1994) has also favoured the view that
a state of the brain exhibiting quantum coherence might be the physical basis of
consciousness (specifying microtubules as the locus of the effect – a dubious
hypothesis), again suggesting that this could account for the global nature of
consciousness: “The unity of a single mind can arise . . . only if there is some form
of quantum coherence extending across at least an appreciable part of the entire
brain” (Penrose, 1994, p. 372). In his case this is part of a wider theory concern-
ing the interplay between quantum and classical levels of activity (‘objective
reduction’).
Michael Lockwood (1989) summarises the case in favour thus: “Frölich’s Bose-
condensed oscillatory states certainly seem to fit the bill. They are indeed global,
with respect to the individual oscillators. Within such a system, information would
be non-localised, transcending the states of individual oscillators, in a sense even
stronger than that in which information could be said to be ‘distributed’ within a
neural network or a hologram. In phonon terminology, the coherence of these states
means that the associated phonons have sharply defined momenta, and hence, by
the uncertainty principle, highly indeterminate positions; the phonons, or more
strictly, their position wave function, are spread out over the area occupied by the
coherent state . . . They lend themselves to coherent superposition, with con-
structive and destructive interference in just the way that is required of computer
memory states” (p. 259). It must be acknowledged that this theory is at present
highly speculative. It is not known for certain whether mechanisms of the kind
Frölich proposed exist at all, let alone in the brain. On the other hand, despite what
Grush and Churchland (1995) refer to as “the rather breathtaking flimsiness of
the quantum-consciousness connection”, the very existence of a viable quantum
mechanical model of consciousness is already pregnant with far reaching philo-
sophical implications (Zohar, 1990). Furthermore, the convergence of different
approaches lends credibility to the hypothesis.

Fermi-Dirac statistics
Five years before the publication of Marshall’s article, a little known article by John
Valentine (1982; see also, Valentine, 1995) pursued the attempt to account for the
phenomenal features of consciousness by searching for parallel physical features.
In his view Fermi-Dirac statistics give a stronger sense of indistinguishability than
do Bose-Einstein. In the former case the particles are not only indistinguishable
but non-individuated. Two indistinguishable Bose-Einstein particles can be in the
90 Philosophy
same state; however, in the Fermi-Dirac case, there is a strong sense in which there
can be said to be only one particle. Thus the physical basis of consciousness is
postulated to lie in electrons, which are fermions to which Fermi-Dirac statistics
apply, rather than photons, which are bosons to which Bose-Einstein statistics
apply. It is argued that the unity of consciousness may be accounted for by the fact
that particular electrons in a bound state are indistinguishable and non-localisable.
The privacy of consciousness could be accounted for by the fact that electronic
events within separate quantum systems are independent of each other, since the
wave function comes to zero at the system’s boundaries. Such systems are isolated
in the sense that their electronic states are independent of changes in state of
neighbouring systems. Electrons in the space between the potential wells forming
quantum systems are ‘at infinity’ and do not form interacting systems themselves
or with others; it is only electrons trapped in a well that, through the exclusion
principle, are forced to do so. This would provide a solution to Flanagan’s problem,
of providing a naturalistic explanation of our inability to capture the phenom-
enology of what it is like to be each one of us from the objective point of view. In
agreement with Gray (1995), it is suggested that quantisation is physics’s way of
discretising time. The brain appears to be a system of variable electronic inter-
connexions that can only be altered quantally. Thus events occur in discrete packets
and extend in time. This could account for the ‘thickness’ or duration and
overlapping of psychological moments

Conclusions
Different versions of the mind-body problem were distinguished in an effort to
disentangle those that are soluble from those that are not. Various positions on
the problem or ‘attitudes to the explanatory gap’ (following Block, 1994) were
discussed. In particular, it was argued that ontologically, there is no gap and hence
no problem to be solved. Epistemically, there is an unclosable gap, an irresolvable
duality between subjective and objective, first person and third person perspectives.
In this sense the hard problem cannot be solved. From the point of view of scientific
theory, there is a soluble problem, that of providing a principled account of the
relation between phenomenal features of consciousness and functional accounts
in terms of behaviour, neurophysiology and physics. Various attempted solutions
were reviewed. Those constituting mere brute correlations were rejected in favour
of those offering parallels with phenomenal features of consciousness sufficiently
powerful to provide a transparent account. It was concluded that examples of the
latter are currently in existence, and hence the outlook for achieving a satisfactory
solution to this form of the hard problem is exceedingly promising.

Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this paper was published under the title ‘Popper’s three
worlds and attitudes to the explanatory gap’ in New Ideas in Psychology, 17, 31–39,
1999.
 Distinguishing the soluble from the insoluble 91
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10 Explanation

What are explanations?

There are as many causes of x as there are explanations of x. Consider how the cause
of death might have been set out by a physician as ‘multiple haemorrhage’, by the
barrister as ‘negligence on the part of the driver’, by a carriage-builder as ‘a defect
in brakeblock construction’, by a civic planner as ‘the presence of tall shrubbery at
that turning’.
(Hanson, 1958, p. 54)

Each of these suggests a different alternative or contrast class. This has led many
(e.g. van Fraassen, 1977, 1980) to conclude that explanation is pragmatic. The
stance taken is relative to the strategies of the person trying to explain and predict
behaviour (Dennett, 1971).
Explanations may be seen as answers to ‘why?’ questions (Scriven, 1962;
Bromberger, 1966, 1968). They are requests for information. “It is convenient to
regard an explanation as any answer to a why question that is accepted by the
questioner as making the event in question somehow more intelligible” (Boden,
1972). She goes on to define a scientific explanation as “an explanation that is
justified by reference to publicly observable facts, and which is rationally linked
to other, similar explanations in a reasonably systematic manner”. Some scientific
questions might better be regarded as answers to ‘how?’ questions. Given that
explanations are answers to questions of some sort, it seems reasonable to suggest
that there may be as many different types of answers as there are types of question,
and that the type of explanation adopted will depend on the following three factors:

1 Who asked the question. An answer will be related to the present state of
knowledge of the questioner. For example, an explanation of the motion of
the planets given to a child will be different from that given to an atomic
physicist.
2 What the question was aimed at. For what purpose is the knowledge required?
Are there practical implications? For example, one suspects that Skinner’s
option for explanations of behaviour in terms of environmental rather than
genetic factors may be motivated by possibilities of modification. Similarly,
94 Philosophy
which explanation of pathological behaviour is preferred may depend on
available treatments.
3 Who gave the answer. What are the personal biases of the theorist? The
existence of psychological factors in theorising is beyond doubt (see Coan,
1979; Caine, Wijesinghe & Winter, 1981).

Explanations must supply new information. Ultimately what is accepted is a matter

of subjective satisfaction as William James pointed out clearly in Pragmatism:

Our commerce with the systems reverts to the informal, to the instinctive
human reaction of satisfaction or dislike . . . We philosophers have to reckon
with such feelings on your part. In the last resort, I repeat, it will be by them
that all our philosophies shall ultimately be judged. The finally victorious way
of looking at things will be the most completely impressive to the normal run
of minds.
(James, 1907, p. 38)

In theory there is a wide choice; in practice there is less. In science, as we have

seen, certain kinds are preferred to others. The prototype has been a causal
explanation embedded in a hypothetico-deductive theory (see below). Whether
different types of explanation are possible or whether, for example, only causal
ones are acceptable is a much debated issue. Foss (1974) has put the case for
multiple explanations in psychology. One thing to be avoided is evaluating one
type of explanation from the viewpoint of another. Thus, it is inappropriate to reject
evolutionary functional explanations on the grounds that they are not causal: they
are not intended to be.
Deutsch (1960) has claimed that psychologists are confused about explanation:

There is no concord among psychologists about what the facts they have
accumulated are evidence for. This does not mean that they are merely in
disagreement about the edifice they wish to erect; they have not even decided
what constitutes a building. That is, not only do they disagree about the expla-
nation of their findings, but they are not clear what it would be to explain them.
(Deutsch, 1960, p. 1)

Below we shall distinguish and discuss the relative merits of seven different focal
types. For a somewhat different set, see Russell (1984, chapter 1).

Types of explanation

Description and classification

Preliminary to explanation is description and classification. Phenomena to be
explained must be identified and labelled. Whether classification as such can
ever count as explanatory is a controversial issue. In certain cases it is not. The
 Explanation 95
nominalist fallacy exposes the false belief that in naming something it has been
explained, instanced in the statement ‘Pigs are so called because they are such
dirty animals’ or the peasants mentioned by Vygotsky who, it is claimed, could
understand the discovery of the stars but expressed puzzled amazement at the
discovery of their names. An example from literature is Molière’s La Malade
Imaginaire, where he mocks the doctors who suggested that what makes opium
have its soporific effect is its virtus dormitiva, i.e. its soporific power. In psychology
a similar case is the use of the concept of instinct, criticised, for example, by Field
(1921). Nor is it clear that its successor, drive, has escaped the same fate. In these
cases the description may be tautologous. A classification becomes explanatory if
it conveys additional independent information. Consider the example: ‘Jane goes
to parties because she is an extravert’. This is not explanatory if party-going
behaviour is the only way of identifying an extravert, if going to parties is what it
means to be an extravert. If, however, extraversion has additional implications,
either behavioural, such as taking relatively more involuntary rest pauses in tapping
tasks, or physiological, such as greater cortical inhibition, then the circularity is
avoided and it is explanatory.
Ethologists stressed the importance of describing the behavioural repertoire of
an animal before proceeding to more theoretical accounts of the determinants of
behaviour. Examples of classificatory explanations in psychology, where events
are explained by reference to a class of events of which they are members, include
neo-behaviourist accounts in terms of drive reduction, and rule following in social
psychology (e.g. Goffman, 1959; Harré & Secord, 1972) or language. This last
provides an example of another type of description common in psychology, where
an attempt is made to characterise the competence underlying behaviour (e.g.
Chomsky, 1980). These accounts draw attention to important aspects of behaviour,
and classification is probably a necessary prerequisite for explanation. However,
they need to be supplemented by other types of information, which explain, for
example, how the behaviour developed and how it works in detail.

Correlational
A next step might be to establish associations between events, some form of
correlation; for example, between smoking and cancer, or weight and mental age
in the first few years of life.
The motivations for asserting a relation of contingency rather than causation may
be various. In philosophy Hume argued that there was no logical necessity involved
in cause, which could be reduced to contiguity.

We have no other notion of cause and effect but that of certain objects, which
have been always conjoined together, and which in all past instances have been
found inseparable. We cannot penetrate into the reason of the conjunction.
We only observe the thing in itself, and always find that from the constant
conjunction, the objects acquire a union in the imagination.
(Hume, 1739/1896, Book 1, Part III, Section VI)
96 Philosophy
In physics, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has suggested limits to determinacy.
In neurophysiology, Burns (1968) has claimed that there are stochastic processes
at the cellular level. In psychology, probability statements are the order of the day.
Probability implies determinism but one that is imperfectly known. Whether the
limits to knowledge are a function of the knower or of the known is an interesting
question for speculation.
One of the main proponents of this approach in psychology is Skinner, who
deems functional relations between stimuli and responses to be sufficient for
prediction and control. “I do not know why [food is reinforcing to a hungry animal]
. . . and I do not care” (Skinner, 1964).
Inductive generalisations which are merely empirical summaries of the evidence
can be distinguished from natural laws by their failure to accommodate counter-
factual conditions. Inductive generalisations are limited to the cases observed;
natural laws, however, apply to cases that have not been observed. The former have
the advantages of being closely related to the data but more powerful explanations
are required for most purposes.

Causal

The standard model of explanation in science is the deductive-nomological

(Hempel & Oppenheim, 1948), where an event is explained by being deduced as
an instance of a general law, e.g.

General law: Copper expands when heated.

Antecedent conditions: This bar is copper and it was heated.
Conclusion: This bar expanded.

The description of the phenomenon to be explained is given in the conclusion; the

explanation is contained in the general law together with the antecedent conditions.
However, there are a number of inadequacies in this as a general model of
explanation. For one thing, many laws are probabilistic rather than universally true,
and some events occur with low probability. There are a number of different types
of law, e.g. functional dependence and property attribution (see Nagel, 1961;
Cummins, 1983) but causal laws are an important subset. Functional laws e.g.
Bloch’s and the Weber-Fechner laws in psychophysics are cases of natural laws
but lack the temporal feature of causal laws. Whereas causal statements are
generally asymmetrical (the cause determines or explains the effect but not vice
versa), statements of functional dependence are often reversible.
Causal explanations explain a given event by reference to a past event. The
occurrence of an event B is explained as being the result of an antecedent event A
having occurred, A being a condition of B. They are equivalent to Aristotle’s
efficient causes, e.g. ‘the billiard ball moved because it was hit by the cue’. The
implication is that variation in A will produce variation in B. Given the antecedent,
it should be possible in principle to predict the consequent.
 Explanation 97
Although they are considered by many to be the preferred type of explanation
in science, there are a number of problems associated with them. Since they are
based on the deterministic assumption, there are doubts about their applicability
to some areas of science, e.g. quantum mechanics. There are many other types of
explanation in psychology; for example, evolutionary theory and psychoanalysis
are postdictive rather than predictive. Philosophers have found great difficulty in
giving them precise specification (Russell, 1913; van Fraassen, 1980). Essential
ingredients appear to be conditionality and relevance. However, it has not proved
possible to give an account of causation in terms of necessary and sufficient
conditions. Moreover, an account that is sufficiently precise to enable accurate
prediction is likely to be so complex as to be unique and probably useless in
practice. It is also difficult to explicate relevance. On the assumption that the world
is a net of interconnected events related to each other in a complex but systematic
way, Salmon (1978) suggests that causal explanation exhibits the salient features
in the causal network. Causal chains may be identified by a process of ‘screening
off’, i.e. by interrupting their effects (Salmon, 1984). However, what factors are
considered salient is dependent on the context (van Fraassen, 1980).
Hume suggested three conditions for inferring causality: contiguity, temporal
precedence and constant conjunction. He made the important observation that it is
a psychological rather than a logical inference. Cause cannot be observed directly
but organisms have a predisposition to seek contingencies, which presumably
serves an adaptive function. J. S. Mill also suggested three factors: temporal
precedence, relatedness and the elimination of alternative explanations. He pro-
posed three methods to help in establishing the last of these: the methods of agree-
ment (presence of the effect if the cause is present), difference (absence of the effect
in the absence of the cause) and concomitant variation.
It may be debated whether events are uniquely caused, or whether the same effect
can have different causes on different occasions. A case in the literature that might
be interpreted as a mistaken conclusion of unique causation is that of Watson
(1907), who successively eliminated sight, hearing and touch in rats. On finding
that learning was unimpaired for trained and untrained rats, he concluded that it
must be mediated kinaesthetically. However, in 1929 Lashley managed to
eliminate kinaesthesis surgically and, although their gait was awkward, his rats still
managed to learn mazes. The conclusion must be that rats will use any sense the
experimenter is generous enough to leave them with and/or that the critical factor
lies elsewhere, as Tolman and his followers argued.
A related question is that of multiple causation: can a particular effect have more
than one cause? A common occurrence in psychology is that of predisposing factors
and precipitating events. This has been documented for psychiatric disorders, e.g.
with respect to inherited and congenital factors in the aetiology of schizophrenia
(Mednick, 1970) and social factors in the development of depression (Brown &
Harris, 1978). Freud certainly considered the possibility of overdetermination: the
co-occurrence of two events each of which alone would have been sufficient to cause
the effect, for example, an instruction given in hypnosis to open a window after
returning to the normal waking state together with a stuffy atmosphere.
98 Philosophy
There are also problems in specifying the temporal relations between cause and
effect. (Indeed, this was one of the reasons that led Russell, 1913, to reject the
notion of cause.) Although common-sense notions and the testing of causal
hypotheses require the temporal precedence of cause in relation to effect, a
logically precise formulation requires their simultaneity: otherwise some other
factor could intervene to alter the course of events. In practice, psychologists vary
considerably in the length of delay tolerated between cause and effect (see
Brunswik’s notion of conceptual focus). Causes for behaviour may be sought in
the phylogenetic history of the species or the ontogenetic development of the
organism. Psychoanalysts seek causes for adult psychopathology in the early years
of life, in contrast to behaviour therapists who focus on current problems; learning
theorists may seek the causes of behaviour in past reinforcement contingencies,
whereas Gestaltists and field theorists concentrated on current factors. It is
sometimes thought that more detailed accounts can be obtained at lower levels of
explanation. This may be part of the reason why psychological explanations are
often considered softer than physiological, since they appear to tolerate more
unknown mediating factors between cause and effect.
Although causal explanations are commonly employed in science, in the mature
sciences they are often superseded by statements of functional relations, as Russell
(1913) noted. Thus, contrary to what might at first be supposed, that statements of
association are crude and possibly inaccurate formulations which later give way
to more powerful causal statements, rather the opposite is the case: causal state-
ments are essentially loose formulations of sequential regularities which precede
more precise mathematical statements of functional dependence.

Functional
A number of authors have drawn a major distinction between two different types
of explanation (those considered so far and the two that follow). Marx (1963)
contrasts ‘constructive’ explanations, by means of which phenomena are described
in terms of more abstract, higher order constructs and hypotheses on the same
descriptive level, with ‘reductive’, by means of which phenomena are functionally
related to other phenomena at a different and, in a hierarchical sense, more basic
level of description. Cummins (1983) contrasts subsumption under a causal law
with functional analysis, claiming that psychological phenomena are typically not
explained by subsuming them under causal laws, but by treating them as
manifestations of capacities that are explained by analysis: “Most psychological
explanation makes no sense when construed as causal subsumption but a great
deal of sense construed as analysis”. Deutsch (1960) distinguishes what he calls
descriptive, generalisatory approaches with structural, neurophysiological or
mechanical. In the latter type:

An event is explained by being deduced as the property of a structure, system

or mechanism and not as an instance of events in its own class . . . The precise
properties of the parts do not matter; it is only their general relationships to
each other which give the machine as a whole its behavioural properties . . .
 Explanation 99
This highly abstract system . . . can be embodied in a theoretically infinite
variety of physical counterparts . . . Given the system or abstract structure
alone of the machine, we can deduce its properties and predict its behaviour.
(Deutsch 1960, p. 1)

Deutsch recommends this approach as a middle road between what he calls

‘positivism run wild’ and ‘neurophysiologising’. Its power is that it is sufficient
for the prediction of behaviour and its advantage that it provides a link to phy-
siology, which ultimately may provide an additional testing ground.
These mechanistic approaches focus on the processes or operations involved in
a sequence of behaviour. At this level an attempt is made to provide a functional
characterisation of these independent of their physical realisation, i.e. in terms of
the software rather than the hardware. Thus the theory may take the form of a flow
chart or, if formally developed, a computer program. The approach owes much to
cybernetics, information theory and computer science. Examples are Deutsch’s
(1960) model of need, Newell and Simon’s (1972) theory of problem solving,
Gray’s (1975) behavioural inhibition system and models of reading (Coltheart,
Patterson & Marshall, 1986). Many theories in cognitive psychology take the form
of flow charts; rather fewer are formulated in precise computational terms.
Certain concepts from cybernetics such as feedback are crucial to the under-
standing of behaviour and the advent of computer simulation has led to a de-
mystification and making precise of many previously mentalistic concepts.
Currently the dominant paradigm in cognitive psychology, functionalism offers
an autonomous level of description for psychology, which can take advantage of
developments in artificial intelligence and be related to work in neuroscience.
However, again it is only one approach among many and in particular lacks the
historical dimension that a causal account might provide.

Neurophysiological
Mechanistic approaches can be adopted at two distinct levels. Marr (1982)
distinguishes the level of representation and algorithm (just described) from that
of the hardware implementation. Dennett (1971) contrasts the design stance with
the physical stance. Marr used Hubel and Wiesel’s work to support his theory of
vision; Gray has looked to neurophysiological experiments to support his model
of anxiety. In these explanations the nature of the actual physical embodiment of
the process is investigated. It is equivalent to Aristotle’s material cause, explaining
something in terms of its composition. Some have held that this type of explanation
is particularly useful for cases of malfunction. For example, neuropsychologists
explain behavioural dysfunction by reference to brain damage; psychopathological
disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, may be
explained in terms of brain chemistry. However, ultimately the distinction between
function and structure is relative, as P. S. Churchland (1986) points out. There are
many ‘levels’; each one could be considered functional with respect to the one
below and structural with respect to the one above.
100 Philosophy
Teleological
In contrast to causal explanations, teleological or purposive explanations explain
a given event by reference to a future event. They are equivalent to Aristotle’s
final cause. Behaviour is explained as occurring in order that some future event
(a goal) may be achieved. For example, ‘walking for the sake of one’s health’
(Aristotle’s example) or ‘Jones crossed the road in order to buy tobacco’ (Peters’,
1958, example). In contrast to causal explanations which can be pursued indefi-
nitely, teleological explanations may be considered ultimate if they refer to natural
goals. It is often advanced that evolutionary accounts are of this nature (functional
explanations in yet another sense of ‘functional’), e.g. ‘hair stands on end in order
to frighten the enemy’. This is misleading if it is thought to preclude a causal
account. The piece of behaviour evolved because members of the species who
possessed it survived to procreate. The analogous case in ontogeny is the law of
effect, which was criticised on the grounds of retroaction: how can a satisfying state
of affairs strengthen a connection that has already occurred? But of course
reinforcement affects the probability of the connection reoccurring in the future.
Many psychologists in the past have stressed the purposive aspect of behaviour
(notably McDougall, Tolman, Lashley and, in more recent times, Miller, Galanter
& Pribram, 1960, who suggest a feedback loop as the basic unit of behaviour). It
is particularly appropriate where a variety of means may lead to a particular end,
the behaviour thus being classifiable by reference to the end rather than the means.
Flexibility and adaptiveness are distinctive if not defining features of behaviour.
Peters (1958), for example, has argued that purposive explanations are normally
appropriate for behaviour, causal explanations only being resorted to when behav-
iour is abnormal in some way, e.g. under the influence of drugs or an obsessional
compulsion. Similarly, Taylor (1964) has argued that causal explanations provide
necessary but not sufficient conditions for behaviour, on the grounds that a goal
may be achieved in a variety of ways. The purposiveness of human behaviour has
led some to postulate that the appropriate explanation for human behaviour is to
be given in terms of reasons rather than causes (see below). It is clear, however,
that purposive explanations are not incompatible with causal explanations.

Mentalistic
A number of traditions have claimed that a radically different type of explanation
is appropriate in the social sciences from that which is applicable in the physical
sciences. Thus, according to the tradition of Verstehen in 19th century Germany,
psychology should pursue empathic understanding rather than causal predictive
explanation. Using intuition, it aimed to explain the link between events whose
correlation would otherwise be puzzling. An example is Weber’s classic analysis
of the link between the Protestant ethic and economic enterprise. The approach,
although useful at the stage of formulating hypotheses, cannot substitute for
subsequent testing.
The method of hermeneutics, first applied to the interpretation of texts, was later
applied to the analysis of social behaviour. It aimed to make the meaning of an
 Explanation 101
action intelligible by reference to the role played in the social context. Harré and
Secord’s (1972) approach in terms of rules and roles owes much to this, as does
Gauld and Shotter’s (1977) based on shared meanings.
In the philosophical analysis of action it has often been maintained that actions
should be explained in terms of reasons, in contrast to movements which are
causally explained (e.g. Melden, 1961). Thus Davidson (1963)(who allows that
reasons can be causes but thinks they cannot be generalised), in particular, has
urged that behaviour be explained, or better ‘justified’, by reference to desires and
beliefs in the light of which the behaviour is reasonable, a strategy known as
‘rationalisation’. This intentional stance (Dennett, 1971) is based on the assumption
of rationality. It depends heavily on ordinary language and conceptual analysis, the
assumption being that the social sciences have merely to systematise and extend
common sense. This mentalistic ‘folk psychology’ concentrates on semantic
content. Russell (1984) makes the important point that rationalisation mistakenly
takes the explanation of individual behavioural episodes as the paradigm of
psychological explanation, whereas the proper concern of scientific psychology is
with the determinants of competence in the species.

Summary
We have contrasted explanations that explain events by relating them to increas-
ingly higher order generalisations of classes of events of which they are members,
with those that seek explanation by analysing the processes involved or their
physical embodiment. Some explanations seek to establish associative relations
between events and may explain a given event either by referring it to an antecedent
(causal) or subsequent (teleological) event, or by attempting to specify relations
of functional dependence in mathematically precise terms. Yet other approaches
seek an understanding that is not aimed at prediction but is based on empathic
intuition.

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 Explanation 103
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11 Reduction

Introduction
Reduction is a relation of logical derivation between statements or theories. What
is at issue in the case of psychology and physiology is not the reducibility of mental
states to brain states but whether a theory of mental states can be explained in
terms of a theory of neural mechanisms. “What gets reduced are theories . . . the
stuff in the universe keeps doing whatever it is doing while we theorize and theories
come and go” (P. S. Churchland, 1986, p. 288). Thus the result of a reduction will
not be, for example, that headaches become illusory but that their occurrence will
have been explained. Phenomena are explained rather than explained away. Nagel
(1961) gives the following definitions of reduction: “the deduction of one set of
empirically confirmable statements from another such set” and “the explanation
of a theory or set of experimental laws established in one area of inquiry, by a
theory usually though not invariably formulated for some other domain” (p. 338).
Hooker (1981) provides examples illustrating the logical diversity and
‘bewildering variety and complexity’ of reductions. They may involve derivation
of laws, aimed at explanatory unification and perhaps increased systematicity,
and/or identification of terms, aimed at ontological simplification (a reduction in
the number of entities postulated). They may be strict or weak (the claims ranging
from logical equivalence of statements at one extreme to mere empirical corre-
lations at the other). They can be total or partial (depending on their scope); in some
cases they take the form of ‘microreductions’, where the relation between units of
analysis at different levels is that of whole to part.

Conditions for reduction

A prerequisite for reduction is the ordering of sciences from higher to lower levels,
e.g. sociology, psychology, physiology, chemistry, physics. There are other
possibilities and there are levels within conventional disciplines. Oppenheim and
Putnam (1958) proposed six levels in their suggested framework for micro-
reduction: (1) social groups, (2) multicellular living things, (3) cells, (4) molecules,
(5) atoms and (6) elementary particles. In this case the units of analysis at each level
have as parts the units of analysis at the next level down. P. S. Churchland (1986)
 Reduction 105
offers a set biassed towards neuroscience (behaviour, circuit, cell assembly,
synapse, cells, membrane), as well as discussing levels of organisation in terms of
research methods applied to the study of learning and memory, ranging from
studies of neurotransmitters at the cellular level to neuropsychological, ethological
and psychological studies at higher levels.
The essential requirement of reduction is derivability, i.e. the possibility of
deducing the laws of one science from those of another. In practice, laws of higher
level sciences can only be deduced from laws of lower level sciences with the
addition of statements specifying boundary conditions and other limiting assump-
tions (see below). All interesting cases of reduction also require a further condition,
that of definability, i.e. a mapping of the terms in the two theories, by biconditionals
or some kind of bridging laws. The status of these (whether e.g. logical identities,
deliberately created conventions, contingent identities or empirically established
correlations) is controversial and may be difficult to decide. Further, there must be
some advantage to be gained, either theoretical e.g. explanatory unification and
ontological simplification, or heuristic e.g. the development of fruitful research
strategies. Finally, the reduction must be empirically supported.
There has been a historical shift, in the conditions considered necessary for
reduction, away from positivism. Schaffner (1967), in a useful paper, describes
four versions of reduction, two positivist models and two weaker modifications:

1 The ‘direct’ model, adopted by Nagel, Woodger and Quine, which specifies
two main conditions: (1) definability, i.e. a biconditional relation between the
terms of the two theories and (2) derivability of the laws of one theory from
the laws of the other theory. This is a positivist model, in which explanation
is seen as a matter of logical deduction.
2 The ‘indirect’ model, espoused by Kemeny and Oppenheim (1956), which
requires merely that the data explicable by one theory can be explained more
systematically and/or simply by another theory. Even in this model, described
by Hooker (1981) as ‘austerely positivist’, it is admitted that the translation
from one theory to another does not follow precisely by means of bicondi-
tionals: the reduced theory holds only approximately and within certain limits.
Kemeny and Oppenheim (1956) acknowledge, on the one hand, that these
points are of fundamental importance but, on the other, that if they are taken
into account “the problem of reduction becomes hopelessly complex”. “Any
actual example has to be stretched considerably if it is to exemplify
connections by means of biconditionals, and most examples will under no
circumstances fall under this pattern.”
3 The ‘approximate’ model, supported by Popper, Feyerabend and Kuhn. An
examination of the history of science has led to the rejection of the positivist
model. Feyerabend (1962) claims that no intuitively plausible example of
reduction in the history of science actually fits empiricist theory. In general,
it has been argued that derivability neither implies reducibility nor guarantees
explanatory or ontological unification, on the grounds that the criteria for
reduction are not purely logical but involve semantic assumptions about the
106 Philosophy
meaning of terms, as well as pragmatic and normative considerations. Hence
they depend on the state of technological development and practice, and are
relative to a specific point in time. In particular, it is argued that theories need
varying amounts of revision before they can be reduced: they are likely to
become corrected in the process. What needs to be explained is reconfigured.
A later, reducing theory may explain where and why a previous reduced theory
did not work. Thus reductions are typically approximate, being only indirectly
related to the original theory and directly related only to a revised version.
4 The ‘isomorphic’ model developed by Suppes (1967), in which all that is
required is an isomorphism between models of the two theories concerned,
probably a one-to-one correspondence between values of the variables in the
two domains.

Hooker (1981) postulates a retention–replacement continuum, which determines

whether a reduction is smooth or bumpy (P. S. Churchland, 1986). At the retention
end, ontological commitments are retained (i.e. entities do not cease to exist)
as are laws or close approximations to them. Examples are the identification of
light with electromagnetic waves, and mind-brain identity theory where mental
states are contingently identified with brain states. At the replacement end, entities
may be eliminated. Some fairly neutral observation statements may be retained
but the ontologies and accounts are substantially different; the old theory is
explained away. Examples are the replacement of phlogiston by oxygen, demons
by dopamine, the caloric theory by the kinetic theory of heat, and eliminative
materialism in which mentalistic language or ‘folk psychology’ is replaced by more
scientific physicalistic descriptions. Intermediate cases, as examples of which
Hooker (1981) gives the reductions of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics and
psychology to neurobiology, may be characterised by any of the following features:
(1) The reduction is partial or holds only within certain limits, e.g. the relation of
Einstein’s special theory of relativity in relation to Newtonian mechanics, where
the reduction only applies in the limit; or the applicability of concepts such as
consciousness, intentionality and rationality which may depend on certain limiting
conditions. (2) A single concept in one theory may map onto a multiplicity of
concepts in the other theory, e.g. the reduction of temperature is said to be domain-
specific, i.e. different for gases, plasmas and solids (but see Hatfield, 1988);
similarly mental functions may be realised by a variety of physical embodiments,
e.g. binocular stereopsis is carried out by anatomically and evolutionarily distinct
systems in the owl and the cat (Pettigrew & Konishi, 1976). (3) Co-evolution and
mutual feedback between the two theories, e.g. as in the interaction between
psychology and physiology in the study of vision or neural networks.

Arguments in favour of reduction

The main arguments in favour of reduction are theoretical unification and increased
explanatory power, as well as mutual benefit resulting from research cooperation
between disciplines. The unity of science has been explored in depth as a
 Reduction 107
hypothesis by Neurath (1938) in the context of logical positivism, by Oppenheim
and Putnam (1958) as a fruitful working hypothesis which stimulates research,
and by Causey (1977) who has attempted to specify technical conditions for
microreduction. The ideal of positivism was to provide a unified body of know-
ledge based on observation and logic, whose truth could be guaranteed. Oppenheim
and Putnam (1958) consider indirect and direct evidence for reduction in relation
to their six levels described above. The indirect evidence is from evolution,
ontogenesis and synthesis (i.e. higher levels evolve, develop ontogenetically, and
can be synthesised, from entities at lower levels). As an example of direct evidence
for reducing the social level to the multicellular, they cite the explanation of
economic phenomena in terms of the psychology of individual choice behaviour,
and as examples of the reduction of the multicellular level to the cellular, Hebb’s
(1949) theory of cell assemblies and (foresightfully) neural networks.

Arguments against reduction

Definability
We have already noted that there is controversy about the status of the bridging
laws which connect terms in one discipline with those in another. It is generally
agreed that they cannot be analytic or logically necessary. Concepts from different
disciplines have different meanings: they are drawn from different contexts, belong
to different conceptual frameworks, have different observational criteria and
different implications. Experience is different from behaviour (e.g. a headache is
not a disposition to take aspirins) and actions are different from muscular move-
ments (the same action may be carried out by a number of different movements).
Responses are normally defined in terms of consequences rather than constituent
movements (Bindra, 1976). Claims of identity are therefore generally for con-
tingent identity: identity of reference rather than identity of properties. Jessor
(1958) argued against reduction on the grounds that lower level sciences lack some
of the concepts of higher level sciences, in the case of psychology, concepts dealing
with the functional environment and the context of behaviour. Bannister (1968)
suggested that psychology and physiology have different semantic networks.
Putnam (1973) has argued against the identification of psychological states, such
as jealousy, love and competitiveness, with Turing machine states, on the grounds
that the former are continuous and dependent on learning, whereas the latter are
discrete, instantaneous, and independent of learning and memory. However, the
question is whether a mapping can be achieved. Fodor (1974) suggests that the
terms in psychological laws may not correspond with, but may ‘cross-classify’,
the terms in neurophysiological laws. There is no a priori reason why the two
descriptions should map onto one another, since to some extent there are arbitrary
and pragmatic factors are involved. What is salient at one level of description may
not correspond with what is important or useful at another level (Wimsatt, 1976).
It is clear that many problems confront the mapping of psychological and
neurophysiological states. Absence of an area may not be accompanied by a
108 Philosophy
corresponding lack of function (as in some cases of hydrocephaly and callosal
agenesis). The relationship may be one-to-many in either direction: the same
function may be carried out by different structures (equipotentiality) or the same
structure may have different functions. Functionalists stress token rather than type
identity on the grounds of multiple instantiability, claiming that mental states may
be realised in neurobiological or computer hardware. The same psychological
function or mental state may not correspond to the same neural mechanism in
different species (e.g. the mediation of pattern perception by different parts of the
brain in rats, monkeys and humans), in different individuals (e.g. the localisation
of speech with respect to hemisphere) or at different times in the same individual
(functional reorganisation may occur as a result of maturation or damage,
according to the degree of plasticity available). Thus, the bridging laws linking
psychological descriptions to neurophysiological descriptions may be disjunctive
and/or incomplete (which makes Fodor, 1974, doubt whether they could be laws).

Derivability
We have already seen that laws of higher level sciences cannot be deduced directly
from laws of lower level sciences but need not only bridging laws but also
additional statements specifying boundary conditions, indicating domain-specific
or other limiting conditions. Putnam (1973), who has done a complete volte face
since 1958, argues for the autonomy of psychological laws on the grounds that they
can only be derived from lower level laws with the addition of auxiliary hypotheses.
Higher level laws depend on boundary conditions which are crucial to them but
accidental to the lower level laws. For example, laws governing the flight of an
organism or machine cannot be derived simply from a knowledge of its structure
without also knowing about atmospheric conditions.
Secondly, derivability is to be distinguished from explanation. An explanation
should make the relevant features explicit. Lower level explanations are likely to
contain additional, irrelevant details that obscure rather than reveal. Important
higher level generalisations are likely to be lost. The reason why a square peg does
not fit in a round hole is best given in terms of the rigidity and relative sizes of the
peg and the hole rather than in terms of the microstructure, e.g. positions and
velocities of elementary particles (Putnam, 1973). Even if it were possible, for
example, to give a biochemical account of wine tasting it might not always be very
useful. This is partly because it may not refer to relevant aspects or accessible
variables, and partly because it may be too detailed or clumsy. Similarly, even if
it did turn out to be possible to provide a biochemical account of memory, this
might not be useful in helping to decide to which school to send a child. Another
example comes from psychotherapy: which explanation is useful may depend on
the practical possibilities of treatment (e.g. drugs versus group psychotherapy).
Some reductions may neither lead to an increase in simplicity nor be very useful.
Putnam (1973) remarks that the reducibility of psychology to physiology
depends on what is meant by psychology. It could equally well be argued that
it depends on what is meant by reduction. The concept of reduction has itself
 Reduction 109
been reduced almost out of existence. Bechtel (1988) discusses some more liberal
schemes for relating disciplines, such as Darden and Maull’s (1977) concept of
interfield theories and his own of cross-disciplinary research clusters (Bechtel,
1986). These can apply within as well as between disciplines, allowing cooperation
between disciplines with different objectives and the pursuit of relations other than
derivability, e.g. whole to part, function to structure, physical embodiment, or
cause; appeal for further explanation may be made to higher as well as lower levels.

References
Bannister, D. (1968). The myth of physiological psychology. Bulletin of the British
Psychological Society, 21, 229–31.
Bechtel, W. (1986). The nature of scientific integration. In W. Bechtel (Ed.) Integrating
scientific disciplines. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff.
Bechtel, W. (1988). Philosophy of science: An overview for cognitive science. Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bindra, D. (1976). A theory of intelligent behaviour. New York: Wiley.
Causey, R. L. (1977). Unity of science. Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel.
Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.
Darden, L. & Maull, N. (1977). Interfield theories. Philosophy of Science, 43, 44–64.
Feyerabend, P. K. (1962). Explanation, reduction, and empiricism. In H. Feigl & G. Maxwell
(Eds.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 3, 29–97. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Fodor, J. A. (1974). Special sciences (Or: Disunity of science as a working hypothesis).
Synthese, 28, 77–115.
Hatfield, G. (1988). Neuro-philosophy meets psychology: reduction, autonomy, and
physiological constraints. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 5, 723–46.
Hebb, D. O. (1949). The organization of behaviour. New York: Wiley.
Hooker, C. A. (1981). Towards a general theory of reduction. Part I: Historical and scientific
setting. Dialogue, 20, 38–59.
Jessor, R. (1958). The problem of reductionism in psychology. Psychological Review, 65,
170–8.
Kemeny, J. G. & Oppenheim, P. (1956). On reduction. Philosophical Studies, 7, 6–19.
Nagel, E. (1961). The structure of science. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Neurath, O. (1938). Unified science as encyclopaedic integration. In O. Neurath et al.,
Encyclopaedia and unified science, International encyclopaedia of unified science.
(Vol. 1, No. 1). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Oppenheim, P. & Putnam, H. (1958). Unity of science as a working hypothesis. In H. Feigl
(Ed.) Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2, 3–36.
Pettigrew, J. D. & Konishi, M. (1976). Neurons selective for orientation and binocular
disparity in the visual wulst of the barn owl (tyto alba). Science, 193, 675–678.
Putnam, H. (1973). Reductionism and the nature of psychology. Cognition, 2. 131–146.
Schaffner, K. F. (1967). Approaches to reduction’. Philosophy of Science, 34, 137–47.
Suppes, P. (1967). What is a scientific theory? In S. Morgenbesser (Ed.) Philosophy of
science today. New York: Basic Books.
Wimsatt, W. C. (1976). Reductionism, levels of organization, and the mind-body problem.
In G. G. Globus, G. Maxwell & I. Savodnik (Eds), Consciousness and the brain. New
York: Plenum.
Part II
From philosophy to history
12 Neural nets
From Hartley and Hebb to Hinton

Abstract
The history of neural nets is traced, beginning with the associationist ideas of
Aristotle and the physiological speculations of Hartley and Hebb. Lashley’s
empirical work led him to conclude that memory traces are not localized. However,
it was not until the development of the hologram by Gabor and its application to
brain function by van Heerden that a possible theoretical basis for distributed
information storage was proposed. Willshaw and his colleagues demonstrated that
non-linear associative models were simpler, more efficient models, which retained
the property of tolerance of degraded input. Since then there have been improve-
ments in the realism of these models and attempts to integrate findings from the
structure and function of the nervous system, notably the cerebellum and hippo-
campus.

Associationism, if not as old as the hills, is at least as old as our intellectual history.
Aristotle is credited with having laid down the doctrine and applied it to memory:
recollection occurs because processes naturally follow each other in an orderly
manner. Hobbes (1651) made it an all-embracing principle. According to him, all
thought and action was produced by the lawful succession of ideas, which was
accountable for in terms of association: if two mental events have occurred together
at the same time, then if one occurs in the future, the other will be reinstated. David
Hartley (1749) followed John Locke in adopting the psychological association of
ideas, and contiguity as its sole principle. His contribution was to provide a
speculative account of the physiological basis of association. He believed that
physical objects produced vibrations in the surrounding aether, which agitated
small particles in the medullary substance of the nerves and brain, forming the
physical basis of sensation. Vibratiuncles, feebler vibrations persisting after the
cessation of the stimulus, formed the physical basis of after-images, ideas, and
memory.
By the end of the 19th century the brain was pictured as a mass of neurons
connected by synapses. The similarity of the synapse to an association proved
irresistible. The basis of memory as changes in synaptic efficiency has been a
reasonable hypothesis since the time of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1908), who
114 From philosophy to history
discovered neurons and suggested that learning was mediated by cell outgrowths.
But even before this, Alexander Bain made reference to “specific grouping, or co-
ordination of sensations and movements, by virtue of specific growths in the cell
junctions” (Bain, 1873, p. 91) and William James wrote: “Let us assume as the
basis of all our subsequent reasoning this law: when two elementary brain pro-
cesses have been active together or in immediate succession, one of them on re-
occurring, tends to propagate its excitement into the other” (James, 1890, p. 566).
Donald Hebb developed Ramón y Cajal’s idea with his notions of cell assemblies
and reverberating circuits: “When an axon of cell A is near enough to excite a cell
B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, some growth process or
metabolic change takes place in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency, as one
of the cells firing B, is increased” (Hebb, 1949, p. 62). Hebb’s rule has been made
mathematically more precise by many current workers in parallel distributed
processing (PDP), e.g., Rumelhart, Hinton, and McClelland (1986).
Sensitivity to frequency (i.e., the view that the strength of an association is a
function of the frequency of pairings in its past history) and the notion of learning
as some kind of statistical modelling are old ideas. The new connectionism
augments the old ‘co-occurrence statistics’ of associationism (to borrow a term
from Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988) with hidden units, to enable systems to deal with
more global and abstract properties, and sophisticated principles for weight setting.
Besides Hebb, the other important historical figure in this area is Karl Lashley.
In a personal letter written in 1957 he gives his own account of how he became
interested in the organization of the brain: “As a laboratory boy in Zoology in 1907
I found in a box of trash abandoned by J. B. Johnston when he went to Minnesota
a series of Golgi stained sections of a frog’s brain. I proposed to Reese, his
successor, that I work out all the connections among the cells so that we might
know how the frog works. It was a shock to learn that the stain is selective, but I
have never escaped from the problem” (Cobb, 1960, p. xvii). Lashley became
associated with Shepherd Ivory Franz, who was then at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in
Washington. Franz had been working on the functions of the mammalian brain
using ablation and had shown that lesions in the frontal lobes do not destroy long
established habits; that they only abolish learned behaviour if a great deal of tissue
is destroyed; and that habits lost by such destruction can be relearned. Franz and
Lashley replicated these results in 1917. This problem was to become Lashley’s
life-work. Following a series of apparently ‘negative’ results, he put forward his
hypotheses of equipotentiality and mass action “whereby the efficiency of
performance of an entire complex function may be reduced in proportion to the
extent of the brain injury” (1929, p. 25). His conclusion was that memory traces
are not localized in the cerebral cortex. In his famous paper ‘In search of the
engram’ he wrote: “The mass of evidence . . . shows conclusively that it is the
pattern and not the localization of energy on the sense organ that determines its
functional effect” (Lashley, 1950, p. 469). Lashley saw these results as militating
against connectionism. It is ironical that the ‘new connectionism’ has provided a
solution to his problem. Lashley’s other great problem, likewise solved by PDP,
was the spatial representation of temporal order, discussed in another famous paper
 Neural nets: from Hartley and Hebb to Hinton 115
(‘The problem of serial order in behavior’), delivered at the Hixon symposium
in 1948.
Neural nets, in which the activity of the brain is modelled abstractly by networks
of logical neurons, were developed in the 1940s. (For a more detailed account of
work dating from this period onwards, see Cowan & Sharp, 1988, to whom I am
indebted.) Hilgard and Marquis (1940) in their book Conditioning and learning
discuss schematic arrangements of neurons to account for conditioning by
alteration of the synaptic threshold. Simultaneous activation from the CS and UCS
increase the excitability of a synapse, such that the CS alone is able to activate it
whereas previously it was unable to do so.
The first major contribution was made by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts
(1943) in a paper entitled ‘A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous
activity’. They applied symbolic logic to the problem of describing what neural
nets can do and proved that whatever operations and processes can be described
in logical terms can be embodied in nets of formal neurons or what became known
as ‘McCulloch–Pitts’ (M–P) nets. Each unit is activated if and only if its total
excitation reaches or exceeds zero. However, these neural nets are highly simplified
and amount to no more than synchronous, discrete logical switches.
Between the years 1946 and 1953 a series of important interdisciplinary meet-
ings (see Heims, 1975), which gave rise to what became cybernetics, was attended
by Kenneth Craik, Gregory Bateson, Heinrich Klüver, Theodore Schneirla, Kurt
Lewin, John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, Walter Pitts,
Julian Bigelow, and Arturo Rosenblueth, amongst others. At the first meeting
Klüver drew attention to the problem of form perception. At a subsequent meeting
there was a conflict between the cyberneticians supporting atomistic, digital
computer models, based on neurophysiology and mathematics, and Koehler
emphasizing the findings of empirical psychology and favouring dynamic field
theories and mechanisms such as isomorphism. Partly in answer to this challenge
of form perception, Pitts and McCulloch (1947) in a paper on ‘How we know
universals’ described a net of idealized neurons, similar to a digital computer, but
capable of recognising forms. They even suggested detailed cerebral cortical
mechanisms.
Other developments in the fifties included the work of John von Neumann, Ross
Ashby, and Albert Uttley. Uttley (1954) demonstrated that neural nets with Hebb-
like modifiable connections could learn to classify binary patterns and von Neumann
(1956) dealt with the problem of reliability by introducing redundancy into M–P nets.
Wilfrid Taylor was the first to develop neural nets with associative memory.
Associative memory is the ability to generate one internal representation from
another or the remainder of a complex representation from part of it (content
addressability). His original net (1956) consisted of a layer of associative units
sandwiched between arrays of sensory and motor units. The units were analog and
all contact weights modifiable. The training procedure used was Hebb’s rule:
activated synaptic weights are increased if they activate their target units.
Frank Rosenblatt (1958) selected for attention a subclass of neural nets, which
he called perceptrons, that consist of a space (retina), a single set of association
116 From philosophy to history
neurons, and response neurons. His work constituted a major approach to the
problem of pattern recognition. He showed that M–P nets with modifiable
connections could be trained to classify patterns. Central to the work was the idea
of training the perceptron by reinforcement procedures while exposing it to a
sequence of pattern instances. It became popular and highly controversial, as we
shall see.
Bernard Widrow and M.E. Hoff (1960) developed the adaline (adaptive linear
neuron), similar to the perceptron. It has a slightly different training procedure
(what has come to be known as the ‘Widrow–Hoff’ or ‘delta’ rule): weight changes
are proportional to the differences between the desired activation pattern and the
unit’s total excitation.
A number of important advances came from the consideration of physical
analogies, notably the hologram. (For a technical account, see Willshaw, 1981, on
which the following is based.) A hologram is a method of information storage
employing coherent beams of electromagnetic radiation. It provides a permanent
record of the pattern of interference between two light waves in a localized region
of space. Subsequent illumination of the hologram with one of the waves effec-
tively unlocks the pattern from store. The hologram was invented by Gabor (1948)
and achieved technical importance with the arrival of the laser. Technological
advances in the sixties led people to suggest it as a model for brain functioning,
largely on account of its properties of resistance to local damage and tolerance of
imperfect input—old ideas. Van Heerden (1963a, 1963b) discussed the similarities
between the method of optical information storage in solids using coherent light
and Beurle’s (1956) suggestions as to how associative learning could take place in
a nerve net by means of modifiable thresholds. There are two main problems
with holographic models of memory: (1) They are very complicated systems for
the relatively simple computations they perform. (2) The fidelity of recall is not
very good.
David Willshaw and Christopher Longuet-Higgins began the search for simpler
representations of holographic memory. In 1969 they published a paper entitled
‘Non-holographic associative memory’, in which they argued that the features
of holography that commend it as a model of associative memory can be mim-
icked and actually improved on by simpler discrete non-linear models, viz. the
correlograph and the associative net, which might have been evolved by the
brain.
Information storage in such a system has three important properties: Firstly, it
is parallel because each mapping can be effected without reference to any other.
(‘Parallel’ is used in at least three different senses: (a) independent, as here; (b)
simultaneous, as in Rumelhart, Hinton, & McClelland, 1986, p. 47, “The system
is inherently parallel in that many units can carry out their computations at the same
time”; (c) interactive, the most interesting usage, as in Selfridge’s ‘Pandemonium’
model of pattern recognition.) Secondly, it is non-local or distributed: each
memory is represented by a pattern of activity distributed over many elements,
and each element is involved in representing many different memories. (Contrast
local memory where each piece of information is stored in a separate location
 Neural nets: from Hartley and Hebb to Hinton 117
and can be retrieved with perfect accuracy.) Thirdly, it is robust, i.e., resistant to
local damage which causes incompleteness—hence it can function as a content
addressable memory, or inaccuracy—hence patterns can be reconstructed from
degraded inputs, although this facility is achieved at the cost of storage space.
Discussion of the property of recognition of displaced patterns with Francis Crick
led to refinement of the model and the development of an associative net or matrix
memory, which can be represented as a lattice. An intersection/synapse is activated
when the associated input and output are activated together, i.e., if the pair of lines
that pass through it have been activated in the association of at least one of the
pattern pairs.
These ideas are clearly realizable in neural tissue: the horizontal lines of the
matrix could be axons of input neurons, the vertical lines dendrites of output
neurons, and the intersections modifiable synapses which function as binary
switches. Several people have suggested that the nerve cells of the cerebellar
cortex may function as an associative net: Eccles, Ito, and Szentagothai (1976),
Pellionisz and Llinas (1979) and Marr (1969) who made detailed proposals. Marr
made similar suggestions for the hippocampus, where his theory has been sup-
ported by the discovery of long-term potentiation (i.e., strengthening of excitatory
synapses for seconds to minutes as a result of presynaptic stimulation, see
McNaughton & Morris, 1987), and extended his theory more generally to the
neocortex.
In the seventies the dominant research paradigm was the arch-rival, artificial
intelligence (AI), committed to exploring rule-based systems of symbols in von
Neumann machines as the model of intelligent behaviour. This work was
predicated on Kenneth Craik’s belief that “thought parallels reality through
symbolism”. It is a top-down approach, premissed on logical atomism and the
possibility of explicit knowledge. The construction of neural nets, by contrast,
constitutes a bottom-up, holistic approach, characterised by implicit knowledge.
(See Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1988, for the contrast between these two approaches.) A
substantial contributory factor to the ascendency of AI and the decline of interest
in neural nets during this period was the publication by Minsky and Papert in 1969
of their book Perceptrons. This demonstrated limits to the performance of one-
layer perceptrons: they cannot distinguish such letters as T and C independently
of rotation; they have the greatest difficulty demonstrating topological connected-
ness and mathematical functions such as parity (whether an odd or even number
of points are on the retina). Minsky and Papert proved that perceptrons are not
computationally universal: they cannot compute EXOR, the exclusive or, or its
negation, which is computationally universal, in that all other functions can be
expressed in terms of it. They claimed that most of the work on perceptrons was
“sterile” and “without scientific value” and misleadingly implied that their con-
clusions extended to multi-layered perceptrons.
Papert, at the meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society in London in
December 1987, rendered Geoffrey Hinton almost apoplectic. To understand why,
it is necessary to have a knowledge of the historical background. Papert (1988, p.
3–4) casts the story in terms of the myth of Snow White:
118 From philosophy to history
Once upon a time two daughter sciences were born to the new science of
cybernetics. One sister was natural with features inherited from the study of
the brain . . . The other was artificial, related from the beginning to the use of
computers. Each of the sister sciences tried to build models of intelligence,
but from very different materials. The natural sister built models (called neural
networks) out of mathematically purified neurones. The artificial sister built
her models out of computer programs.

In their first bloom of youth the two were equally successful and equally
pursued by suitors from other fields of knowledge. They got on very well
together. Their relationship changed in the early sixties when a new monarch
appeared, one with the largest coffers ever seen in the kingdom of the sciences:
Lord DARPA, the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency. The artificial sister grew jealous and was determined to keep for
herself the access to Lord DARPA’s research funds. The natural sister would
have to be slain. The bloody work was attempted by two staunch followers of
the artificial sister, Marvin Minsky and Seymour Papert, cast in the role of the
huntsman sent to slay Snow White and bring back her heart as proof of the
deed. Their weapon was not the dagger but the mightier pen, from which came
a book—Perceptrons—purporting to prove that neural nets could never fill
their promise of building models of mind: only computer programs could do
this. Victory seemed assured for the artificial sister. And indeed for the next
decade all the rewards of the kingdom came to her progeny, of which the
family of expert systems did best in fame and fortune.

But Snow White was not dead. What Minsky and Papert had shown the world
as proof was not the heart of the princess; it was the heart of a pig . . . Their
book was read as proving that the neural net approach to building models of
mind was dead. But a closer look reveals that they really demonstrated
something much less than this.

What they demonstrated was that there were serious limitations to one-layer
perceptrons but it does not follow from this that the whole neural net enterprise is
doomed.
Papert acknowledges that “There was some hostility in the energy behind the
research reported in Perceptrons, and there is some degree of annoyance at the way
the new movement has developed; part of our drive came, as quite plainly
acknowledged in our book, from the fact that funding and research energy were
being dissipated on what still appear to me to be misleading attempts to use
connectionist methods in practical applications” (Papert, 1988, pp. 4–5).
The 1980s saw the rise of neo-connectionism, with the publication by Geoffrey
Hinton and John Anderson in 1981 of their book Parallel models of associative
memory. John Hopfield (1982) demonstrated a formal analogy between a net of
neuron-like elements with random symmetric connection weights (a Hopfield
net) and spin glass (a magnetic material consisting of a random mixture of
 Neural nets: from Hartley and Hebb to Hinton 119
ferromagnetically and antiferromagnetically interacting spins) which has the ability
to store many different patterns. (This was dependent on earlier work by Brian
Cragg, a neuroanatomist, and Nevill Temperley, a physicist, 1954, who suggested
analogies between the behaviour of neural nets and the properties of magnetic
materials.) Using Hebb’s rule Hopfield was able to show that the weights can be
modified so as to stabilize net activity. The storage of information in dynamically
stable configurations was an important conceptual advance but the nets were
artificial rather than neural, in that each element both excites and inhibits its
neighbours.
Geoffrey Hinton and Terrence Sejnowski (1983) were able to build on this,
repeating Kirkpatrick, Gelatt, and Vecchi’s (1983) method with spin-glass prob-
lems. They introduced Boltzmann machines, which are adaptive Hopfield nets with
hidden units, which implement a Monte Carlo procedure for finding stable con-
figurations of active and inactive (analog) units. They are unsupervised but slow
and employ only symmetric connections.
In 1986 Rumelhart, Hinton, and Williams successfully implemented, in a two-
layer perceptron with analog units, a procedure originally suggested by Rosenblatt
known as back-propagation, in which responses are used to adjust the weights of
the motor units and then the hidden units, the adjustment being related to weight
changes of all the units downstream. These multilayer analog perceptrons permit
the investigation of supervised learning in adaptive neural nets. They can do all
sorts of wonderful things that single-layer perceptrons cannot do, e.g., solve the
EXOR problem, distinguish T and C independent of translation and rotation, and
learn family trees. There are two problems: (1) They are relatively slow, and (2)
procedures that work well on small-scale problems may not generalise to larger-
scale versions (the scaling problem). Work in the last couple of years has been
devoted mainly to improvements dealing with entrapment (i.e., getting stuck in
non-optimal solutions) and scaling problems.
The two volumes of Parallel distributed processing (the PDP ‘bible’), edited
by Rumelhart and McClelland and published in 1986, were sold out (6,000 copies)
before it went to press. What is all the fuss about? The core ingredients are very
simple: units which have a level of activation, connections which have weights or
thresholds, and modification rules (typically either Hebbian, where, e.g., activated
connections are strengthened, or the Widrow–Hoff delta rule, where weight change
is proportional to the discrepancy between obtained and desired outcome).
Some of the features of PDP that have excited people are as follows:

1 It is neurally inspired and plausible.

2 Parallel processing enables one to account for the speed with which complex
decisions are made. (The hundred step constraint.)
3 Distributed representation accounts for the resistance to damage which
Lashley noted. “Information is not stored anywhere in particular. Rather it is
stored everywhere” (Rumelhart & Norman, 1981, p. 3). Representation is
global rather than local. However, distributed representation is not opposed
to localization of function: it occurs within localized modules.
120 From philosophy to history
4 Nevertheless, PDP is anti-reductionist and holistic. It is the pattern as a whole
that is the meaningful level of analysis.
5 PDP can account well for pattern recognition (stereopsis and other aspects of
visual perception), motor control, and learning (selection of the rule that best
fits the current situation).
6 There is automatic generalisation: related representations activate units in
common.
7 Distributed representation gives a realistic account of memory access and con-
tent addressability (recall from partially incorrect or incomplete descriptions).
“Information is better thought of as ‘evoked’ than ‘found’” (Rumelhart &
Norman, 1981, p. 3). The blurring of the distinction between veridical recall
and confabulation or plausible reconstruction seems to be characteristic of
human memory.
8 Storage and processing are not separated. All of the processing is carried out
by the units: there is no executive or overseer.
9 Knowledge is implicit rather than explicit, stored in the connections rather than
the units. It is built into the processor itself and not directly accessible to
interpretation by some separate processor.

I conclude that the history of parallel distributed processing has itself been a
case of parallel distributed processing. Synaptic connectionism and distributed
representation are old ideas. The employment of physical analogies (notably the
hologram and spin-glass) and the application of computer technology, logic, and
mathematics have enabled these parallel processes to interact from time to time.

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13 G. F. Stout’s
philosophical psychology

Introduction
My aim in this chapter will be to present some of the chief doctrines of George
Frederick Stout’s philosophical psychology, particularly those which may have a
bearing on current issues in cognitive science. As the main purpose is one of
exposition, I shall rely heavily on quotations from his writings. Stout was an arm-
chair psychologist: experimental psychology was for him a source of information
rather than a substitute for thinking. It is peculiarly difficult to give an account of
his philosophy for several reasons. The various strands are all closely interwoven.
For example, embedded in his concept of noetic synthesis are criticisms of asso-
ciation, the doctrine of unity, and the role of thought in sensation. His philosophy
is a synthesis. Mace (1945, p. 313) reports that he once gleefully remarked: “I have
got them all in my system”. Stout favours the via media; thus each statement must
be qualified, easily leading to apparent paradox. In my view, these are more serious
sources of difficulty than his terminology, though this can be confusing. On the one
hand, he expresses new ideas in old-fashioned ways (“He hid his twentieth century
light under a nineteenth century bushel”: Mace, 1954, p. 75). More commonly, he
expresses the same ideas in different ways.

Biography
George Frederick Stout was born in the north east of England in 1860, the son of
a shipbroker. He did well at school and went on to study at Cambridge, where he
graduated with first class honours in both Classics in 1882 – achieving special
distinction in ancient philosophy – and Moral Science the following year, achieving
special distinction in metaphysics. Following graduation, he came under the
influence of James Ward, who turned his attention to psychology. He was elected
Fellow of St John’s College Cambridge, appointed University Lecturer in 1887
(where his pupils included G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell), first Anderson
Lecturer in Comparative Psychology at Aberdeen in 1896, first Wilde Reader in
Mental Philosophy at Oxford in 1899, and Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at
St Andrews in 1903, where he remained until his retirement in 1936. He was editor
of Mind from 1891–1920. In 1939 he emigrated to Australia, where his son, Alan,
124 From philosophy to history
had become Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at Sydney, and died there
in 1944.
He had a superb intellect, loving nothing better than to engage in philosophical
discussion, at which he was brilliant – despite his deafness, which could be an
advantage! He was one of the best read men of a reading generation (Wright, 1944),
with an insatiable interest in books and ideas (Knight, 1946). He had a freshness
and liveliness of mind – a perennial youthfulness. He was a good friend and a
shrewd judge of character. He valued simplicity, directness, honesty and integrity,
tolerating everything except humbug (Passmore, 1952). Broad (1945) describes
him as always “sane, sensible and decent”. His life, like Locke’s, was “natural, easy
and unaffected”; he was a living example of the joy to be found in academic life.
His wit, puckish humour, absent-mindedness and engaging eccentricities were
known to his friends.

Influence and assessment

Stout was particularly influenced by Herbart’s concept of apperception and the
possibility of a dynamic theory of knowledge; and by Bradley and Ward’s critiques
of the associationist doctrine, for its particularity and atomism. He anticipated
modern reactions against the sensationist and associationist traditions, though his
arguments were not always original. Perhaps his originality lay in linking dynamic
Wundtian voluntarism with the cognitive aspects of Herbartian apperception.1
Stout has been described as “the first of the moderns rather than the last of the
ancients” (Mace, 1954, 75). He moved with and ahead of his times in every way
but one, never conforming to terminological fashion. I believe he became out-moded
on account of his old-fashioned terminology and his exclusive reliance on armchair
analysis. Kusch (personal communication) has suggested that his old-fashioned
terminology may have reduced his influence amongst philosophers while his lack
of experimental evidence may have lessened his attraction to psychologists. In
addition, he spent most of his life secluded in the remote outpost of St Andrews.
He influenced Samuel Alexander and William McDougall who drew on his
doctrine of conation for their own theories; and Spearman who acknowledges his
debt to him – his third noegenetic principle of the eduction of correlates was based
on Stout’s concept of relative suggestion. Many of Stout’s ideas anticipated Gestalt
psychology. Schaar (1996) has demonstrated that Stout was the mediator between
the ideas of Brentano and Twardowski and the realist theories of Moore and
Russell, both students of Stout’s. Stout pointed to ways of escaping the solipsistic
predicament and attempted to work out a theory of perception that would soften
the intolerable opposition between the world of phenomenology and the world of
physics.

Published works
Stout wrote four major books and over sixty journal articles, published mainly in
Mind and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. His Analytic Psychology
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 125
(AP), first published in 1896, was an elaborate treatise in two large volumes, a work
of reference for psychologists, which went into three editions. By common consent
his best book, it established his reputation. Flugel comments that it is: “well worthy
of greater attention than it usually receives from the modern student, for it is at once
an acutely penetrating and profoundly satisfying book, and it is astonishing how
many anticipations – or, at east, adumbrations – of later twentieth-century develop-
ments are to be found in it” (Flugel, 1933, 152). Others complained of the tendency
to lapse now and then into an over-refinement of analysis, finding its style rather
heavy and slow. It was intended to provide a preliminary analysis of our actual
developed consciousness (AP, II, 20–21, footnote). “This department of psy-
chology is purely analytical and largely introspective . . . its aim is to discover the
ultimate and irreducible constituents of consciousness in general. The only modern
writer who appears to have fully realised the importance of this preliminary inquiry
is Brentano” (AP, I, 36). It was to pave the way for the genetic treatment of
psychology, “undoubtedly the most important and interesting . . . reserved for a
future work” (AP, I, 37).
This exposition of psychology from a genetic point of view was provided by
the Manual of Psychology (MP),2 first published in 1898, which became the
standard textbook on psychology for students in British universities, going into
four further editions (1901, 1913, 1929, 1938). Its unusually wide circulation made
it his best known work. It rests on the AP. It is not a textbook in the ordinary sense
of the word but an original contribution to psychology (Passmore, 1952). Mind and
Matter (1931) was the much delayed and incomplete publication of the first series
of the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh from 1919–21, and God and Nature (1952)
the posthumous publication of the second series.

Criticism of associationism
Stout was “the most vigorous and influential critic of associationist psychology”
(Passmore, 1952, xxxviii). He reinforced the powerful attacks developed by
Bradley and Ward. “Introspective analysis easily reveals that [the synthesis of the
data of different senses in the perception of a single object] cannot be accounted
for by association of ideas” (AP, II, 24). “Association of ideas forms no part of the
ordinary perception of things” (AP, II, 26). He allows that “the associative principle
. . . comes into play in so far as the transition from a given sensory experience to
a corresponding percept is strengthened by repetition” (AP, II, 30) but the laws of
literal resuscitation, revival, or reinstatement of which Bain speaks are “founded
on a false view of the nature both of association and of construction” (AP, II, 44):
“the process as described is a sheer impossibility and absurdity” (AP, II, 45).
Stout points to three errors:

1 The exclusive emphasis on mere combination. Against this Stout urges that

every new synthesis results from the further determination of a psychical

whole that in some way already pre-exists. The new synthesis consists in
126 From philosophy to history
the distinction and definition of the parts and relations within this prior
whole . . . It is like the shuffling of a pack of cards; the various combina-
tions which take place presuppose the general and relatively indeterminate
combination, in virtue of which the cards constitute a pack at all.
(AP, II, 48)

2 Failure on the part of the associationists to recognise the apprehension of a

form of combination as a distinct psychical element: “the presentation of a
form of synthesis is as distinct from the presentation of the elements combined
considered apart from their union, as the presentation of red is distinct from
the presentation of green” (AP, II, 48).
3 The disposition to regard mental elements as entering into new combinations,
without themselves undergoing transformation in the process. “Elements
which enter into a new whole, receive new qualifications from their relations
within this whole” (AP, II, 48). Stout provides various colourful examples:

(a) “The whist-player needs not be told that in every fresh deal the several
cards become qualified by their relations within the new whole. To fit in
to the design and plan of a building the stones must be hewn into shape”
(AP, II, 48–49).
(b) It would obviously be an absurdity to attempt to account for the organ-
isation of an army merely by the contiguous adhesion of the soldiers inter
se, apart from the descending scale of subordination to officers. But it is
an absurdity of an exactly analogous nature, though much greater in
degree, to attempt to account for the systematic unity of the human mind
by mere association.
(AP, II, 2)

A navigator discovering he is sailing round an island:

the parts to be put together are not initially apprehended in pure isolation
from each other. The navigator starts by considering them under a certain
point of view . . . The process of piecing them together is only possible
because it is also a process whereby this relatively vague and indeter-
minate view receives progressive determination in detail.
(AP, II, 50)

There are three prongs to his argument: (1) anti-atomism, stressing the general
rather than the particular; (2) wholes or unity; (3) direction.

(1) General vs particular

The ultimate root of Professor Bain’s fallacy has been laid bare by Mr. Bradley.
It lies in the tacit assumption that association is a link between particulars, as
such.
(AP, II, 45)
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 127
As against the particularism of the associationists, Mr. Bradley lays down the
axiom that ‘Association marries only Universals’. . . the connection which is
operative in the process of revival is not between atomic particulars as such,
but between general elements of content which they have in common.
(AP, II, 46)

Stout reformulated the Law of Association in two ways, one of which was by
introducing the principle of Relative Suggestion, which foreshadows stimulus and
response generalisation. He introduces the term with the example of Kepler’s
discovery of the orbit of Mars: “The path of the planet between the observed points
had to be mentally supplied by Kepler, in accordance with analogy. A process of
this kind is what I propose to call Relative Suggestion, a term adapted from Thomas
Brown” (AP, II, 51).
He defines it as follows:

The most general formula for it is: If the presented content b has formed part
of a presented whole bc, then the presented content ß, when it recurs, will
tend to call up a whole γ formally corresponding to bc. But the simplicity of
this ultimate principle may be complicated in endless ways. The ßγ which
corresponds to b may be a simple modification of b, as a lighter grey is a
modification of a darker grey; or again, it may involve the relation of b to a
new context, and it may happen that the constituents of this new context have
associations of their own, which contribute to determine the productive-
reproductive process.
(AP, II, 52)

Examples of different types are given, such as the fluctuation of the meaning of
words in language with the context; continuing a series; or producing a parallel
series, as in melodic transposition.

(2) Wholes or unity

Apprehension of a whole independently of the apprehension of its component
details Stout calls implicit apprehension. Here his exposition presages that of the
Gestalt psychologists: “our cognisance of the form of combination characteristic
of a whole is a mode of consciousness distinct from our cognisance of its con-
stituents” (AP, II, 2–3). “I have a prenotion or presentiment of the whole before I
resolve it into its components” (AP, II, 25), “The nature of any whole is determined,
not merely by the nature of its constituent parts, but also by the form of their
combination” (MP, 514). Transposition of a tune is again given as an example.
Mace addresses the issue of the relation of Stout to Gestalt psychology in the
preface to the fourth edition of the Manual:

to claim ‘anticipation’ would be ungenerous and inaccurate. It would be truer

to say that from the time of his earliest writings Professor Stout was in
sympathetic accord with the reaction against the sensationalistic tradition, and
128 From philosophy to history
in part on the grounds which have led to the more developed form of the
Gestalt psychology. But to the latter belongs the credit of carrying the cam-
paign in a systematic way into the experimental field, hitherto the stubbornest
of strongholds of sensationalist Psychology.

In part, however, the similarity of their doctrine is based on different and

independent grounds, and in some respects Professor Stout goes further than
the exponents of this school would be prepared to follow. But whilst largely
independent, the two developments are on many fundamental points in sub-
stantial agreement.
(MP, ix–x)

The fifth edition of the Manual includes an appendix on Gestalt psychology, written
by R. H. Thouless, with a Supplementary Note added by Stout, clarifying his
position on the issues raised by the Gestalt psychologists. There are two main points
on which he was not satisfied with their psychology of sense-perception. The first
is their almost complete denial of the part played by past experience in the
perceptual process: “it seems to me that they have thrown out the baby with the
bath-water. The bath-water is associationism; the baby is the use of empirical
explanation in the psychology of perception” (MP, 674). The second is their neglect
of the difference between sensation and perception: “the distinction is, I maintain,
undeniable and of primary importance both for the theory of knowledge and for
psychology” (MP, 676).

What constitutes perceptual appearance is that something seems to the

percipient to exist objectively, which may or may not really exist, and which
may not even be believed to exist. The sensible appearance, on the contrary,
is not seeming at all. Neither is it anything which may seem to exist without
in fact existing. It is actually experienced and therefore must actually exist.
(MP, 676)

In Wertheimer’s experiments on apparent motion, the sensible appearance of

motion is

unaffected by the knowledge that there are objectively two stationary

illuminated points where these seem to be a single moving point. On the other
hand the perceptual appearance is not unaffected by knowledge of the
objective fact. With such knowledge seeing is no longer believing.
(MP, 676)

This strikes me as analogous to Pylyshyn’s (1984) notion of cognitive penetrability.

On the differences between Stout and Gestalt, Passmore quotes a letter from
Koffka to Stout: “As you say in your letter, you derive the supersummative, unitary
character of melodies – or any other temporal wholes – from the unity and
continuity of interest . . . My system demands that melodies must be whole apart
from the interest of the listener” (Passmore, 1952, xxxix).
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 129
(3) Direction

The laws of mental grouping . . . are merely modes in which conscious striving
seeks satisfaction. To regard them as containing by themselves the explanation
of the grouping and sequence of presentations is like the attempt to explain
the course of a vessel by reference to the arrangement of the sails, without
taking into account the existence and direction of the wind.
(AP, II, 82–3)

The other way in which Stout reformulated the Law of Association was by re-
expressing it as the Law of ‘Continuity (of Interest)’ rather than Contiguity (of
Presentation). It thus became a conative, functional, goal-directed process rather
than a purely cognitive or mechanical affair. For two items to become associated,
mere temporal contiguity is insufficient: they have to be relevant to attaining
purpose. “The truth is that the most important condition of association is not mere
contiguity in the strict sense of temporal continuity of attention, but also continuity
of interest” (MP, 506). “Throughout it is the reference to the proposed end which
at once gives unity to the series and constitutes its raison d’être” (AP, II, 32).
“Trains of ideas, like trains of perceptual activity, have, in general, a certain unity
and continuity of interest. They subserve some end, practical or theoretical” (MP,
503).

There is a tendency ideally to reinstate those objects that are relevant to the
general trend of mental activity at the moment of recall. The sight of rain will
suggest an umbrella if we are intending to go out; otherwise it may only
suggest the idea of somebody else getting wet. If our minds are occupied with
scientific discussion, the word ‘proofs’ will suggest one group of ideas; if we
are engaged in preparing a book for the press, it will suggest something quite
different.
(MP, 512)

Schematic apprehension is the implicit apprehension of a whole combined with

successive apprehension of each of its components, so as to control the order of
their emergence and exclude intrusion of irrelevant objects. It links the idea of the
whole with that of direction.

There is present in the one case a mental synthesis which is absent in the other
. . .The vivid, distinct and persistent apprehension of the train of events as a
whole, so controls and guides the ideal train as to prevent divergence into cross
series which would interrupt and tangle the narrative.
(AP, II, 34)

“So far then as the implicit idea or perception of a whole determines the successive
emergence of its parts in consciousness, we may apply to it the term ‘schematic
apprehension’. This schematism is not without affinity to that of Kant” (AP, I, 96).
130 From philosophy to history
Noetic synthesis
A central theme in Stout’s philosophy is noetic synthesis: ‘synthesis by the
intellect’.

By noetic synthesis I mean that union of presentational elements which is

involved in their reference to a single object; or, in other words, in their
combination as specifying constituents of the same thought. It is by noetic
synthesis that those complex psychical units come into being which we call
percepts, ideas, and concepts. All these words imply something which is
perceived or conceived, or of which we had an idea; and it is this objective
reference which constitutes each of them a unit in mental process.
(AP, II, 1)

To the extent that the next step in a train of thought is determined by “the
controlling influence of the central idea of the topic with which the whole series
is concerned”, noetic synthesis is operative; to the extent that it is determined by
the special idea that last emerged, the principle of association is operative. The
contrast between ‘contiguous adhesion’ and noetic synthesis is also shown in the
passage from automatic processing to ‘thought-control’: “In proportion as
automatism supervenes association becomes substituted for thought-control” (AP,
II, 3).
Stout distinguishes noetic synthesis from Wundtian apperception:

What I termed noetic synthesis undoubtedly has a rough correspondence with

what Wundt called apperception. There is, however, an important distinction.
Noetic synthesis owes, in my view, its peculiarity to the introduction of a
distinct kind of mental fact, the apprehension of the whole which determines
the order and connection of the apprehension of parts . . . Such a conception
is widely different from that of the reaction of consciousness upon its own
content, which seems to form the essence of Wundt’s ‘apperception’.
(AP, II, 401)

Relation between sensation and conception

The distinction between thought and presentation, together with the insistence that
they must be distinguished only as separable phases of the one cognitive process,
was characteristic of Stout’s epistemology and set for him his special problems
(Passmore, 1952).

Sensation distinguished from conception

In the Analytic Stout distinguishes thought-reference from presentation:

In the process by which we take cognisance of an object two constituents are

distinguishable: (1) A thought-reference to something which, as the thinker
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 131
means or intends it, is not a present modification of his individual conscious-
ness. (2) A more or less specific modification of his individual consciousness,
which defines and determines the direction of thought to this or that special
object; this special mode of subjective experience we may call a presentation.
(AP, I, 46–47)

In the Manual Stout distinguishes perceptual appearance (alias activity factor) from
sensible appearance:

the development of our knowledge of the material world depends on two main
conditions in the most intimate union and interdependence. These may be
called the ‘sense-factor’ and the ‘activity-factor’. The activity-factor is essen-
tially involved in our apprehension of the independent reality of physical
objects and their qualities . . . By the sense factor is meant the actually experi-
enced sensa which enter as essentially independent into sense-perception.
(MP, 408)

“[T]he sensum and the character of the physical object are not identical . . . nor
can we identify the sensum with what we may call the perceptual appearance – with
what the physical object seems to be to the percipient in the act of perceiving it”
(MP, 409). He gives the following examples: (a) “though there is no sensible
appearance either of the top of the table where the book covers it or of the
under-surface of the book, there is a perceptual appearance of both” (MP, 677);
(b) “Whenever one thing is perceived as being behind another . . . the perceptual
appearance is present without any corresponding sensible appearance” (MP, 678).

Interdependence of sensation and conception

In the Analytic Stout allows the possibility of pure ‘anoetic sentience’ (i.e. simple
sensory experience devoid of any form of awareness of anything outside sense
experience) but in all subsequent works he denies this. Sensation and thought are
inextricably inter-mixed; they are ‘inseparably interpenetrate’ from the outset. On
the one hand, conception implies sensation: thought is “inseparably blended with
sense presentation and, so to speak, embedded in it.” “Thought is discriminative
only in so far as it has presentation for its vehicle” (AP, I, 48). On the other hand,
sensation implies conception. All sense experience involves thought which
“transcends the immanence and immediacy of sense”. Stout’s final position was
that thought is as primary as sensation; every sense experience carried with it
reference to something beyond itself.
Our perception of the world is coloured by certain antecedent expectations.
We look for things to which appearances and phenomena belong. Categories
are universal principles of relation holding either for all knowable objects or
for all of a certain kind. The awareness of the categories of space, time, thing-
hood and causality is ‘primary’ or ‘original’. “Our position is that such categories
belong even to rudimentary perceptual consciousness as a condition of its further
132 From philosophy to history
development” (MP, 414). They include: spatial unity – “all extended bodies are
extended in one and the same space” (MP, 414); temporal unity – “any particular
duration or change is, from the outset, apprehended, however vaguely, as having
a ‘before’ and ‘after’” (MP, 415); and causal unity – the unity of different attributes
as belonging to the same thing.
The view that sensation involves thought is akin to top-down processing,
originating in cognitive psychology with the so-called ‘New Look’ in perception;
but the converse position, that thought involves sensation goes beyond cognitive
psychology to Mach and positivism.
The following passage from the Analytic will serve to summarise this section
and link to the next:

Whatever is perceived is recognised as such or such; and however vague

and rudimentary the recognition may be, it implies a reference to something
beyond the given object. The object comes before consciousness as an
instance, or example, or particular appearance of something which may have
other instances, or examples, or particular appearances . . . The word ‘other’
implies a reference beyond this particular object; a reference to what, for
psychological purposes, we may regard as a whole, of which the presented
particular is a constituent part. This whole is an object of implicit appre-
hension, and in all human perception, at least, some such implicit apprehension
appears to be involved.
(AP, II, 6)

Epistemology
Stout never lost his conviction that epistemology was the key both to philosophy
and to psychology (Passmore, 1952). The theory of knowledge was always a main
theme. At the beginning of the Analytic Stout maintains that,

It is a primary problem of psychology to investigate how such knowledge [of

the material world] comes into being . . . Psychology investigates the history
of individual consciousness, and this coincides with the history of the process
through which the world comes to be presented in consciousness.
(AP, I, 7)

Realism
Passmore maintains that Stout tried to steer a via media between absolute ideal-
ism and ‘new realism’, but in my view he comes much closer to realism than to
idealism. Stout challenged the solipsistic premise that our knowledge of the
external world is an inference based on sensations and images that alone are
directly and certainly known. For him the data of experience are not mere
appearances of objects but the objects themselves as they appear. He says: “the
physical world . . . has a distinct existence independent of the process of knowing
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 133
. . . it is immediately known through experience without being actually experi-
enced” (Stout, 1931, 222). The following arguments are adduced: (a) “[T]he
possibility of regarding any object as a mere thought involves a reference to objects
which are not regarded as merely identical with the thoughts that think them”
(AP, I, 46). (b) “If we are to explain illusion, we can do so only by distinguishing
between sensations and physical things – a distinction which we should not
otherwise have recognised” (MP, 419). Similarly,

In all appearance something real appears; otherwise fiction and error would
be impossible . . . To make a mistake is to believe something real to be in
some way different from what it really is. But, unless we are cognisant of the
real being concerning which the mistake is made, we cannot believe it to be
what it is not; we cannot think of it wrongly if we do not think of it at all. If
all appearance were mere appearance, everything for us would be equally real
or unreal.
(Unpublished Fragment, cited by Mace, 1954, p. 72)3

Representation
Passmore states the problem succinctly thus:

Representative perception will not do, for it does not admit that the physical
world is immediately known and cannot explain how we could ever know it
at all; naive realism will not do, because it cannot account for the difference
between the world as it is and the world as we experience it.
(Passmore, 1952, xliii)

The problem is to give an account of the world such that it could include
presentations and physical objects as constituents without sacrificing their unity.
“A sensum is only a conditioned fragment of a physical object, just as a physical
object is only a conditioned fragment of the world” (Passmore, 1952, xliii).
At the end of the first of two articles on the philosophy of his great disputant,
Samuel Alexander, Stout gives the following account of his position on repre-
sentation:

Am I then committed to a representative theory of sense perception? I admit

that I am . . . But though I accept a representative theory of sense-perception
I reject any representative theory of knowledge in general. The representative
function of sensa, like all knowledge by way of representation, must be
founded on an apprehension of some relation between what represents and
what is represented; and this must in the long run be apprehended directly and
not by way of representation. I have indicated my own positive view on this
question in my book on Mind and Matter.
(Stout, 1940, 18)
134 From philosophy to history
In the Unpublished Fragment, Stout provides this wonderful critique of the copy
theory:

The preposition ‘of’ in the phrase ‘idea of’ is vague and ambiguous. Unless
we are careful, we tend to give it a meaning such as it bears when we speak
of an effect, or a copy, or a picture, or a reflexion, or a representation of
something. An effect is an occurrence distinct from its cause in such a way
that we may know it without knowing what produced it. A copy of a picture
has an existence distinct from its original; a reflexion has an existence distinct
from the thing which casts it. We can see the copy without seeing what is
copied; we can see the reflexion without seeing what is reflected.

If we interpret in the same way the relations of an idea to that of which it is

an idea, we are plunged into a bottomless abyss of nonsense. We have on the
one hand, the experience of an individual self; on the other, the real world
beyond it. This real world itself would not enter into individual experience
at all but only more or less imperfect copies or representations of it. These
copies or representations would be all that the individual is aware of. He
would know only his idea, which would intervene, like a painted screen,
between him and what really exists. Thus it would for him be exactly the same
as if there were nothing else. He could never distinguish what seems to be
from what is. He would not be able to apprehend the representations which
alone exist for him as being representative of something beyond themselves.
Still less would he be able to get outside the inner circle of his ideas so as to
determine how far they confirm or fail to conform to the outer circle of real
or ‘objective’ being.
(Unpublished Fragment, cited by Mace, 1954, 70–71)

Final remarks and conclusions

My thesis in relation to the question of Stout’s anticipation of the cognitive
revolution is that he is much too complex to be simply pigeon-holed. In certain
respects he did anticipate the cognitive revolution: in his critique of association,
his formulation of Gestalt hypotheses, the stress on the role of expectation, top-
down processing and directed thinking. But in other ways he goes beyond cognitive
science, particularly with regard to the way in which, for him, cognition is imbued
with conation. His views on the embodied self adapting to its environment are in
many respects reminiscent of the views of Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991),
who espouse an enactive view of cognition. They seek to avoid the scylla of
realism – cognition as the recovery of a pregiven outer world, and the charybdis
of idealism – cognition as the projection of a pregiven inner world. Both the
sensori-motor capacities of the organism and the environmental context (bio-
logical, psychological and cultural) need to be taken into account. What constitutes
the world of a given organism is enacted by that organism’s history of ‘structural
coupling’. Cognition is inextricably linked to the lived histories which are the result
 G. F. Stout’s philosophical psychology 135
of evolution. Cognitive science has frequently lacked these motivational and
historical dimensions (Valentine, 1995).
I conclude with a passage from Passmore’s Memoir on Stout:

Pre-eminently he is a philosopher of the middle way. He would grant you so

much, but only so much. Mind is conative – yes, but it is cognitive, too; and
cognition and conation are not merely added to one another but mingle in the
same process. Characters are particulars, but they belong to kinds; minds are
embodied, but mind is not body, nor body mind; things are distinct, but not
complete in themselves; we know the world as it is, but it is not only as we
know it; to be is not to be known, but whatever is, is known, and whatever is
known, is; God is not Nature, but Nature embodies God and God expresses
Himself through Nature. The convictions of common sense are preserved, but
without disrespect to either science or philosophy. In Stout’s philosophy, the
idea of Reconciliation finds its most philosophical expression.
(Passmore, 1952, 1)

Acknowledgements
I should like to thank Dr N.E. Wetherick for his kindly, initial guidance through
this thicket. I am grateful to the Bolzano Conference delegates, especially Liliana
Albertazzi, Martin Kusch and Robin Rollinger, for comments following presen-
tation of this paper.

Notes
1 I am grateful to Robin Rollinger for this suggestion.
2 All page references are to the 5th edition.
3 This fragment was a draft of part of chapter 1 for the fifth edition of the Manual of
Psychology, which in the event was not revised by Stout himself but by Mace in
consultation with Stout.

Bibliography
Broad, C. D. (1945). Professor G. F. Stout (1860–1944). Mind, 54, 285–88.
Flugel, J. C. (1933). A hundred years of psychology. London: Methuen.
Knight, R. (1946). George Frederick Stout: An appreciation. British Journal of Educational
Psychology, 16, 53–56.
Mace, C. A. (1945). George Frederick Stout 1860–1944. Proceedings of the British
Academy, 31, 306–16.
Mace, C. A. (1954). The permanent contribution to psychology of George Frederick Stout.
British Journal of Educational Psychology, 24, 64–75.
Passmore, J. A. (1952). Memoir: George Frederick Stout. In G. F. Stout, God and Nature
(Ed. A. K. Stout), (pp. xxv–liv). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pylyshyn, Z. W. (1984). Computation and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Schaar, M. van der (1996). From analytic psychology to analytic philosophy: the reception
of Twardowski’s ideas in Cambridge. Axiomathes, 7, 294–324.
136 From philosophy to history
Stout, G. F. (1896). Analytic psychology. Vols. I & II. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Stout, G. F. (1898). Manual of psychology. (5th ed. 1938). London: University Tutorial
Press.
Stout, G. F. (1930). Studies in philosophy and psychology. London: Macmillan.
Stout, G. F. (1931). Mind & matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stout, G. F. (1940). The philosophy of Samuel Alexander (I). Mind, 49, 1–18.
Stout, G. F. (1952). God and nature. (A.K. Stout, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Valentine, E. R. (1995). Deconstructing cognition: Towards a framework for exploring
non-conceptualised experience. In P. Pylkkänen & P. Pylkkö (Eds.), New directions
in cognitive science (pp. 1–9). Helsinki: Finnish Artificial Intelligence Society.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E. & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT
press.
Wright, J. N. (1944). Obituary: Prof. G.F. Stout. Nature, No. 3911, October 14, p. 481.
14 Biographical introduction
to James Sully’s Studies
of Childhood

If the Human Mind ever comes to be generally regarded as susceptible of scientific

form and treatment, this will be through the efforts of such thinkers as Mr. SULLY.
(Alexander Bain)1

James Sully was born in Bridgwater, Somerset in 1842, into a Radical-Liberal, non-
conformist family. His parents were Baptists. After a somewhat haphazard variety
of schooling, he trained for the non-conformist ministry but by the end of his course,
as he confesses in his autobiography: “I had acquired the practice of putting
questions to myself, and I knew it was impossible for me to fall back into the passive
acquiescent attitude of my old religious days” (Sully, 1918, p. 75). There followed
two periods of study on the continent, in Göttingen under Lotze and in Berlin under
Helmholtz and Du Bois-Reymond. Between these two visits abroad he married
Mary Lewis, subsequently becoming father to a daughter, Edith, born 1873, and a
son, Clifford, born 1880. Although in receipt of a stipend from his father until the
family business went bankrupt in 1879, Sully sought employment to help support
his family. With the support of Alexander Bain, one of the examiners of his MA
thesis, for which he was awarded a gold medal, Sully secured the position of
assistant to (Lord) John Morley, editor of the Fortnightly Review at the end of 1870.
He became a freelance journalist, beginning by writing ‘middles’ for the Saturday
Review on such topics as homishness, the British Hebe, the philosophy of shopping,
the pathos of pleasure seeking and carioling (Norwegian pony-carting). Over the
next forty years he wrote scores of articles and reviews for general interest
periodicals, such as the Cornhill Magazine, Fortnightly Review (a major platform
for radical opinion) and Nineteenth Century (aimed explicitly at popularisation),
also contributing articles in French to Ribot’s Revue philosophique, thus becoming
a “philosopher among journalists and a journalist among philosophers” (The Times
obituary). Some of these articles were subsequently developed into books, including
Sensation and intuition, the first of his eight major texts. Much of the material on
which Studies of childhood was based had been previously published: earlier
versions of the Father’s diary had appeared under the titles of ‘Babies and science’
and ‘Baby linguistics’ in the Cornhill Magazine 1881 and the English Illustrated
Magazine 1884 respectively, George Sand’s childhood in Longman’s Magazine
138 From philosophy to history
1890, and the Introduction under the title of ‘The new study of children’ in the
Fortnightly Review 1895. The remainder was serialised in fifteen parts under the
general title of ‘Studies in childhood’ in The Popular Science Monthly between 1894
and 1896, ‘The child as artist’ and ‘The young draughtsman’ appearing as the
American edition of Studies of childhood went to press.
Sully was at the centre of London intellectual life for more than a quarter of a
century. He had a wide circle of friends (some of whom were the subject of pen
portraits in My life and friends), in particular: Alexander Bain, Charles Darwin,
George Eliot, Francis Galton, John Hughlings Jackson, William James, G. H.
Lewes, George Meredith, Henry Sidgwick, Herbert Spencer, Leslie Stephen and
Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a member of the Sunday Tramps, a celebrated club
of pedestrians organized by Leslie Stephen,2 and of the Metaphysical Society,
famed for its vigorous debates between scientists and theologians. Sully was
essentially a facilitator. He played a key role in the disciplinary and institutional
development of psychology in Britain at the turn of the century. Sidgwick appointed
him as joint secretary of the Second International Congress of Psychology which
met in London in 1892. This provided Sully with the opportunity “to meet men
whose names had long been known to me, such as W. Preyer, Alfred Binet,
Ebbinghaus, and Paul Janet” (Sully, 1918, p. 231–232). The same year, after several
unsuccessful attempts, he was appointed to the Grote Chair of Mind and Logic at
University College London, a post that he held until his retirement in 1903. He was
a frequent contributor to Mind and invited to join the editorial board of the
Psychological Review when it was founded in 1895. Its editor, James Mark
Baldwin, made a significant contribution to developmental psychology through
his theory of interaction with the environment, by means of assimilation and
accommodation (Baldwin, 1895), which influenced the Swiss psychologists,
Edouard Claparède and, particularly, Jean Piaget. Sully was instrumental in setting
up the first major psychological laboratory in England, at University College
London in 1898 (Valentine, 1999), and called the meeting at which the British
Psychological Society was formed in 1901. After spending some of his retirement
in his beloved Italy (whither he went whenever in need of mental and physical
refreshment) and writing his memoirs, he died in Richmond, Surrey in 1923.
Studies of childhood was the first work of its kind in England, preceded only by
those of W. Preyer in Germany and G. Stanley Hall in America. It is distinguished
amongst Sully’s works by including original investigations of his own. In My life
and friends Sully tells us that he was led by his psychological leanings “to watch
the unfolding of infant consciousness in my own children. Friends, too, were most
kind in sending me observations which they made on their own children” (Sully,
1918, p. 238). He had the following appeal published in Mind, 1893:

PROFESSOR SULLY will be greatly obliged if parents or teachers of young

children can supply him with facts bearing on the characteristics of the childish
mind. What he especially desires is first-hand observations carried out on
children during the first five or six years of life. Any action or saying which
was considered worth recording will presumably have some significance as
 Introduction to Sully’s Studies of Childhood 139
illustrating either common characteristics or the range of individual diversity
among children. With the observation there should be given the sex of the child
and the exact age at the time of the occurrence described, also, if possible, a
reference to any facts of temperament, surroundings and previous experience
which serve either to throw light on the observation, or on the other hand to
make it appear extraordinary or exceptional. The points on which observation
are more particularly desired are the following:
(Mind, 1983, pp. 420–421)

There followed these heads with examples supplied under each: Attention and
Observation; Memory; Imagination and Fancy; Reasoning; Language; Pleasure
and Pain; Fear; Self-feeling; Sympathy, Affection; Artistic Taste; Moral and
Religious Feeling; Volition; Artistic Production. Many of these became chapter
headings in Studies of childhood.
The first edition of Studies of childhood was published in 1895 and widely
reviewed, amongst other places in the Athenaeum, Daily Chronicle, Mind, the
Monist and the Speaker (by Alexander Bain). It was published in America
the following year, and sympathetically reviewed by Bryan (1894) in the
Psychological Review. Reprinted many times, with a new edition in 1903, the book
was translated into French, German and Russian, and a popular version issued
under the title Children’s ways. Although some commentators cast doubt on
the value of naturalistic observation, the text was widely cited in the scientific
literature for decades to come. It won, as its author had hoped, “a considerable
popularity, not only among psychologists, teachers, and parents, but among men
of letters. It was pleasant to receive favourable words about it from men like
W. E. Gladstone, Leslie Stephen, and George Meredith” (Sully, 1918, p. 239–240).
George Meredith wrote to Sully as follows:

Your book arrived and is now being carefully studied & annotated by the
mother of a smiling babe half an inch greater in bulk, who has already begun
to observe with interest the motions of his toe when he is in his bath. Further
details will be communicated.

The nurse, the mother and the father are pencil in hand about the infant for
your behoof. Very seriously indeed let me say that considering the length of
time you have devoted to the observation of these little ones and your devout
intentness, the marvel is that you did not sink midway into the condition of
the infants’ mind. It is a triumph of the philosophical, and nothing else would
have sustained you. I have heard praises of the book from young mothers, and
I have little doubt that you have already testimony of the solid philosophical
value of your patient study. As to me I read and admire.
(Letter from George Meredith to James Sully, 4th April, 1896)3

With a few exceptions, such as the work of Tiedemann (1787),4 the scientific study
of children dates from the nineteenth century (Wong, 1994). Prior to that time,
140 From philosophy to history
reports remained fragmentary and unpublished (Cavanaugh, 1985). Increasing
awareness of the appalling conditions of children working in factories was one of
the factors leading to the recording of children’s physical development. About the
same time, the Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quetelet (1835) published his seminal
work in which he suggested that the average measure from a sample might be taken
to represent the norm or typical value. During the last quarter of the century, the
charting of children’s mental development had become the focus of attention, with
an exponential increase in the number of studies of children published, reaching
about eighty by 1888 (Hall, 1888). Not only was the need for accurate, impartial
and systematic observation recognized but, more importantly, Darwinian evolu-
tionary theory provided a theoretical focus.5
A number of scholars and scientists made studies of their own children.6 (For a
comprehensive review of the canon of so-called ‘baby diaries’, see Wallace et al.,
1994.) Hippolyte Taine, the French philosophical psychologist, published a report
of the development of language in his daughter in 1876. Its English translation in
Mind the following year prompted Darwin to publish his ‘Biographical sketch of
an infant’, the notebook for his eldest child, William, nicknamed ‘Doddy’, made
thirty-seven years previously. What is notable about this study is the way in which
Darwin immediately uses his observations to argue whether, for example, a
particular piece of behaviour is likely to be innate or acquired. The first major text
in developmental psychology, Die Seele des Kindes (1882) by the German
physiologist W. Preyer, was based on careful observations of his son’s first three
years. Sully’s ‘Father’s diary’, included in Studies of childhood – observations of
his son Clifford7 during his first six years of life – falls in this tradition. Unlike other
authors, Sully never explicitly identifies himself as the father, perhaps thereby
hoping to gain greater scientific credibility. About the same time, Binet (1903)
was trying the patience of his two daughters, Marguerite and Armande, with
persistent questions and tests directed at contrasting their cognitive development,
as he had earlier done with respect to their motor development (see Reeves, 1965,
Ch. 7).
Darwin’s theory claimed continuity of development and raised the issue of the
relation between ontogenetic and phylogenetic development. The German
embryologist Ernst Haeckel (1866, 1910) put forward the doctrine that ontogeny
recapitulates phylogeny, on the basis of observed similarities of the human foetus
at various stages in its development to more primitive ancestors. Recapitulation
appeared to offer hope of direct evidence for evolutionary continuity. The doctrine
has now been discredited (Gould, 1977) and the possibility that it could have
provided an adequate foundation for developmental psychology rejected (Costall,
1985). Stanley Hall, the other major pioneer of the developmental psychology
textbook, also subscribed to the recapitulation theory and adopted Haeckel’s
‘biogenetic law’, erroneously believing that children love to swing in trees because
of a common ancestry with monkeys, and that the minds of children and ‘savages’
are comparably primitive.
The concept of evolution was central to Sully’s thinking throughout his work,
as it was for so many of his contemporaries. He was invited to contribute an
 Introduction to Sully’s Studies of Childhood 141
entry on evolution, as part-author with T. H. Huxley, to the ninth edition of
Encyclopaedia Britannica. It appears as a theme in both his first psychological
work (Sensation and intuition) and his last (An essay on laughter), and it permeates
Studies of childhood. He cannot resist concluding his discussion of children’s
drawings with the following statement: “It is, I think, uncontestable that a number
of characteristic traits in children’s drawing are reflected in those of untutored
savages” (p. 385). In My life and friends he admits that he was particularly
concerned with “tracing an affinity between the ideas and impulses of the child
and those of backward races” (Sully, 1918, p. 238–239), to which end he contrived
a visit to Pitt-Rivers’ anthropological collection of drawings of primitive peoples,
in his country estate (the collection is now in the University Museum, Oxford). He
comments:

It was no ordinary pleasure to be shown the museum, picture-gallery, band-

stand, and other arrangements which this inventive and large-hearted country
squire had set up as a means at once of educating and of entertaining his
tenants. As he drove me round the grounds I could not but ask myself how
much more cordial the relations between the classes and the masses in rural
England might have been to-day if more of the squirearchy had bestirred
themselves, like my enterprising host, to engage the interest of their tenantry
by introducing among them the rudiments of high culture.
(Sully, 1918, p. 239)

Sully met Darwin on a number of occasions. The first was at the Priory, the home
of George Eliot and G. H. Lewes, as he recounts:

It was a wet afternoon, and I found myself the only guest. Just as I was rising
to go, the maid entered and announced ‘Mr. and Mrs. Darwin.’ Lewes turned
to me and said, ‘You must not go now.’ A quiet elderly pair were ushered in.
Darwin’s bald dome of a head, with its deep curtain of grey hair and a long
grey beard to match, deeply impressed me. The first number of Mind had just
appeared, and Darwin spoke in praise of it, adding that what he especially liked
was Mr. Sully’s article on ‘Physiological Psychology in Germany.’ Lewes
turned to me with a knowing smile, and said to Darwin, ‘Perhaps you would
like to know the writer of the article.’
(Sully, 1918, pp. 164–165)

Other occasions were visits to Darwin’s own house in Down “when the Sunday
Tramps were allowed, in spite of muddy boots, to drop in at the tea-hour” (Sully,
1918, pp. 223–224).
As mentioned above, attention had also been drawn to the problems of child
development from an altogether different angle—the prevailing social conditions.
The last quarter of the 19th century was a period of ferment in education in Britain
(Hearnshaw, 1964). School Boards were set up to provide elementary education
in 1870, which became legally compulsory in 1876. By the 1880s the shocking
142 From philosophy to history
condition of these Board schools had been noted. A number of surveys (e.g. by the
British Medical Association and the Charity Organization Society) drew attention
to the lamentable conditions and revealed the inadequate provision, especially for
the physically and mentally disabled. The 1890s saw the beginning of proper
provision for such children. In 1896 the Childhood Society was formed, aimed at
promoting the study of educational methods and the environment best suited to
the physical and mental development of both normal and abnormal children. Its
main concerns were statistical surveys, child welfare and legislation. Sully was
invited to collaborate with them; it was suggested that investigations might be
carried out at his new psychophysical laboratory at University College London
(Caws, 1949).
However, Sully was a member of the rival group who favoured a different
approach—the detailed investigation of individual children. The British Child
Study Association had been formed in 1894, the result of a meeting of British
women teachers, including Miss Louch of Cheltenham Ladies’ College, with
Stanley Hall at the international conference on education at the World Trade Fair
in Chicago the previous year. Hall had established psychological laboratories at
Johns Hopkins (in 1883, the first in America) and Clark Universities. He was leader
of the Child Study movement in the United States8 and founded the Pedagogical
Seminary (subsequently the Journal of Genetic Psychology) in 1891. In 1894 he
initiated a programme of child study questionnaires, which asked people to provide
narrative accounts of children’s behaviours in everyday situations. The topics
which were covered—ranging from automatisms, fears and playthings to sacred
music, prayers and the soul—were as rich and broad in scope as Sully’s.9 The
members of the British Child Study Association, like their American counterparts,
were teachers and psychologists, whose aim was to help parents make observations
which could provide teachers with useful information. Their concern was practical
pedagogy—to provide a link between laboratory and classroom. Sully was one of
its moving spirits, becoming a vice-president on the formation of the central council
in 1898, and contributed a number of articles to its journal, the Paidologist. His
The Teacher’s handbook of psychology (1886) was a psychological text specifically
directed at teachers. (The two child study organizations amalgamated in 1907.)
Sully’s approach, as embodied in the Child Study movement, came under attack
from Hugo Münsterberg, director of the psychological laboratory at Harvard
University; one of those who came to Sully’s defence was Dorothea Beale, head
of Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Several issues underlie the debate between Sully
and Münsterberg (see Gurjeva, 1998): the nature of psychology and associated
methodology; who is permitted to carry out psychological investigations; and the
applicability of the results of such investigations. Sully was primarily interested in
‘genetic’ psychology (i.e. developmental psychology in a broad sense); his
preferred methodology was the holistic study of individual children, based on
naturalistic observation in everyday situations. For Münsterberg, on the other hand,
the focus of interest was experimental psychology, which subjected psychological
phenomena to analysis in the laboratory. Sully took the view that science was
organised common sense, to which amateurs and lay people could contribute,10
 Introduction to Sully’s Studies of Childhood 143
whereas Münsterberg held that scientific investigation was the prerogative of
professionally trained scientists. Finally, for Sully one of the main purposes of
psychological investigations was to produce results that could be applied to
education, whereas Münsterberg doubted the practical applicability of results from
laboratory experiments to the classroom. Although the professionalisation of
science, begun in Sully’s day, has continued unabated, these issues are still the
subject of current debate.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful for permission to reproduce material from the Sully papers and
correspondence and from the Galton papers 325, University College London
Library. I should like to thank the following for their help by generously sharing
information: Alan Costall, Geoff Bunn, Lyuba Gurjeva, Graham Richards, David
Stonestreet and André Turmel, and for companionship in writing and free exchange
of ideas: Susan Sugarman.

Notes
1 Testimonial for Sully’s application for the Chair of Philosophy, Liverpool University,
1881 (Sully papers and correspondence, University College London Library, MS Add
158/1).
2 There is a charming article by Sully, entitled ‘Reminiscences of the Sunday Tramps’,
in the Cornhill Magazine, (1908), 24, pp. 76–88.
3 University College London Library, MS Add. 158/10.
4 Frequently regarded as the first attempt to make a series of scientific observations on
the behaviour of children, and translated into English by Murchison & Langer (1927).
5 The Origin of Species was published in 1859.
6 Francis Galton was quite envious. He wrote to Sully: “My dear Sir, I have of late been
envious of those who have children, and opportunities for psychologically dissecting
them. Thank you so much for what you tell me about yours. There can be no doubt that
the mind of an imaginative child is full of fantasy and day dreaming & that most
whimsical associations arise & abide . . .” (Letter from Francis Galton to James Sully,
dated 25th March 1880. University College London Library, MS Add. 158/3).
7 In later life, Clifford himself wrote a psychologically sophisticated and trenchant
pamphlet on the fallibility of eye witness testimony, specifically the procedure of line-
ups. This was no doubt related to a doctoral dissertation on which he embarked but did
not complete: ‘Experimental investigation of the nature of recognition as distinguished
from reproduction.’
8 For an excellent review of the different contributory elements to this movement, see
Siegel & White (1982).
9 For a re-evaluation and appreciation of G. S. Hall’s contribution to psychology, see
White (1992).
10 However, a letter from Sully to Galton, in his capacity as advisor to the Child Study
Association, reveals some equivocation on this issue: “. . . The members of the British
Assocn for Child Study, mostly teachers wish to try their hand at a methodical
observation of children’s sense capacities. Do you think that there are simple modes of
observation which they might carry out? If so whose apparatus would you recommend?
Of course it must be simple & not expensive. The object of the work is not so much
(in the first instance at least) to get any new results of value but to obtain practice in
144 From philosophy to history
something like careful observation. Whether teachers wholly without training in
scientific observation can be expected to do such work, aided only by written
instructions, I somewhat doubt, but you can advise me on this point . . .” (Letter from
James Sully to Francis Galton, dated 27th April, 1897, Galton papers 325, University
College London Library.)

References
Anon. (1923). Death of Professor Sully. The Times, November 3, p. 14.
Baldwin, J. M. (1895). Mental development in the child and the race: Methods and
processes. New York: Macmillan.
Binet, A. (1903). L’étude experimentale de l’intelligence. Paris: Schleicher. (The
development of intelligence in children. New Jersey: Baltimore, 1916.)
Cavanaugh, J. C. (1985). Cognitive developmental psychology before Preyer: Biographical
and educational records. In G. Eckhardt, W. G. Bringmann & L. Sprung (Eds.),
Contributions to a history of developmental psychology. Berlin: Mouton.
Caws, A. G. (1949). Child study fifty years ago. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society,
1, no. 3, 104–109.
Costall, A. (1985). Specious origins? Darwinism and developmental theory. In G. Butterworth,
J. Rutkowska & M. Scaife (Eds.), Evolution and developmental psychology, pp. 30–41.
Brighton: Harvester Press.
Darwin, C. (1877). A biographical sketch of an infant. Mind, II, 285–294.
Gould, S. J. (1977). Ontogeny and phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gurjeva, L. G. (1998). Everyday bourgeois science: The management of children in Britain,
1880–1914. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge.
Haeckel, E. (1866). Generelle morphologie der Organismen. (2 vols.) Berlin: Reimer.
Haeckel, E. (1910). The evolution of man: A popular scientific study. Vol. 1, Embryology
or ontogeny. (5th ed., transl. J. McCabe) London: Watts. (First published 1883).
Hall, G. S. (1888). Introduction to W. Preyer, The mind of the child (pp. xxi–xxv). New
York, NY: Appleton.
Hearnshaw, L. S. (1964). A short history of British psychology 1840–1940. London:
Methuen.
Huxley, T. H. (1896). Evolution in biology. In Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed., Vol. 8,
pp. 744–751). Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black.
Murchison, C. & Langer, S. (1927). Tiedemann’s observations of the development of the
mental faculties of children. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 34, 205–230.
Preyer, W. (1882). Die Seele des Kindes. Leipzig: Grieben. (The mind of the child. Transl.
H. W. Brown. New York: Appleton, 1889).
Quetelet, A. (1835). Sur l’homme et le développement de ses facultés ou essai de physique
sociale. (English translation, A treatise on man and the development of his faculties,
1842. Reprinted by Scholars’ Facsimile and Reprints, Gainsville, 1969).
Reeves, J. W. (1965). Thinking about thinking. London: Secker & Warburg.
Siegel, A. W. & White, S. H. (1982). The child study movements: early growth and
development of the symbolized child. Advances in Child Behavior and Development,
17, 233–285.
Sully, C. (1925). Mistaken identity. London: Longmans, Green. (Reprinted with additions
from Bedrock, October 1912).
Sully, J. (1886). The teacher’s handbook of psychology. London: Longmans, Green.
Sully, J. (1895). Studies of childhood. London: Longmans, Green.
 Introduction to Sully’s Studies of Childhood 145
Sully, J. (1896a). Studies of childhood. New York, NY: Appleton.
Sully, J. (1896b). Children’s ways. New York, NY: Appleton.
Sully, J. (1897a). Children’s ways. London: Longmans, Green.
Sully, J. (1897b). Untersuchungen über die Kindheit. Psychologische Abhandlungen für
Lehrer und gebildete Eltern. Leipzig: E. Wunderlich.
Sully, J. (1898). Etudes sur l’enfance. (Transl. A. Monod, preface by G. Compayré). Paris:
Alcan.
Sully, J. (1918). My life and friends: A psychologist’s memories. London: Fisher Unwin.
Sully, J. (1978). Evolution in philosophy. In Encyclopaedia Britannica, (9th edition,
Vol. 8, pp. 751–772). Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black.
Taine, H. (1876). Sur l’acquisition du langage chez les enfants et dans l’espèce humaine.
Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 1, 5–23.
Tiedemann, D. (1787). Beobachtungen über die Entwicklung der Seelenfähigkeiten bei
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Valentine, E. R. (1999). The founding of the Psychological Laboratory, University College
London: ‘Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully.’ History of Psychology, 2, 204–218.
Wallace, D. B., Franklin, M. B. & Keegan, R. T. (1994). The observing eye: a century of
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Toronto.
Part III
History
15 Psychology at Bedford College
London 1849–1985

Preface and acknowledgements

1997 is the 110th anniversary of the birth of Victoria Hazlitt, the centenary of the
appointment of Beatrice Edgell to the staff of Bedford College London and the 70th
anniversary of the conferral on her of the title of Professor of Psychology. For
most of us these names are at best those of memorial prizes. The approach of the
centenary provided an incentive to explore the riches of the College Archives. This
work should perhaps be dedicated to those diligent ladies who preserved records
of the early history of the College.
The history of any Department is multidimensional; the available material
presents real difficulties of selection and organisation. All that can be done within
the present confines is to sketch the outline and draw attention to a few of the
highlights. The obvious categories are teaching: staff, students, courses and
degrees; research: funded projects, conferences papers and publications; space:
location and buildings; and events of national importance that impinged on the life
of the College and the Department. The main developments that are apparent are
the protracted disentanglement of psychology from philosophy, its increasing
recognition as a scientific discipline and the eventual formation of a separate
Department. Part of this process was the building up of a laboratory and the
acquisition of equipment. It is a sad reflection on current times that many now
wish to jettison these hard won-gains, thus fuelling the charge of ‘classroom
subject’ levelled at psychology. Other obvious changes, which cannot escape the
notice of those still involved in higher education, are the exponential expansion in
student numbers and the subjugation of education to the forces of the market
economy.
I should like to thank especially Sophie Badham, the College Archivist, but also
Linna Bentley, for their help, guidance, interest and enthusiasm.

1849–1897 Early days

The University of London was founded in 1836, the first BA degrees being awarded
in 1839 and the first MAs the following year. In 1848 Queen’s College, Harley
Street, London was founded, the first college in the country specifically for the
150 History
education of women; its founding father and guiding spirit was the Anglican, F.
D. Maurice. The following year in 1849 the ‘Ladies College in Bedford Square’
opened at number 47 (now 48). Founded by Elizabeth Reid, a Unitarian, and
supported by non-conformists, it offered a non-sectarian, liberal education. It was
a pioneering venture in higher education for women—Bedford College was the
first university college for women.
At the start the teaching staff were all male and the student body was all female.
Among the first teachers in the College were: the Rev. A. J. Scott (philosopher
and man of letters), Alexander Bain (philosopher), W. B. Carpenter (physiologist
and second registrar of the University of London), Augustus de Morgan
(mathematician and logician), and William Sterndale Bennett (composer). Erasmus
Darwin, elder brother of Charles, was one of the first trustees. The first Head of
the Department of Mental and Moral Science, out of which Psychology developed,
was Francis William Newman, younger brother of the future cardinal, John Henry.
From 1851–1854, the Head of the Department of Moral Philosophy was
Alexander Bain. Although he spent most of his life in Aberdeen, he was at that time
living in London, where he was working as Assistant Secretary to the Board of
Health and contributing articles and reviews to various journals. He was acquainted
with J. S. Mill (whom he helped edit his father’s work), George Grote (sub-
sequently Vice-Chancellor of the University and after whom the Chair of Mind and
Logic at University College is named), Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, G. H.
Lewes and Thomas Carlyle; and was working on The Senses and the Intellect,
published in 1855, which became the established textbook in psychology for the
next half century. He had spent the early summer of 1851 in Paris, where he met
Ribot and Comte (whom he thought “the sheer negation of humour”, though much
enamoured of his classification of the sciences). In Leipzig he had met Wundt, J.
McK. Cattell, Ebbinghaus and Helmholtz. A transitional figure, he anticipated
many seminal ideas (see Valentine, 1997) and would be better known if he had
written in a more accessible style (as did his comparable contemporary, William
James). One of his several legacies was the journal Mind which he established in
1876, and which is still going strong.
An account of his dealings with Bedford College and the parallel progress on
his book is given in his Autobiography:

In the end of September [1851] I returned to London; having previously made

an engagement to give lectures in the college for ladies in Bedford Square. I
undertook two courses . . . physical and political geography . . . I was also
expected to give a course of moral philosophy—that is to say, psychology;
but the course was not accepted that year.
(Bain, 1904, p. 229)

It was at the end of 1851 that I resolved upon the final draft of the Psychology,
which was put in two parts as ultimately arranged . . . All the days that I had
no lecturing, from the beginning of 1852 onwards, I devoted to composition.
(Bain, 1904, p. 233)
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 151
“In the Winter Session of 1852–3 I resumed the geography course at Bedford
College, and also, for the first time, conducted a class in psychology, making use
of my MS, so far as it went” (p. 234). (During this period he also met James Braid,
who introduced hypnosis for surgery, in Manchester, and James Stratton, a local
phrenologist, in Aberdeen.) “By the end of this year [1853] the Intellect was nearly
finished.” “At the close of that term [Summer, 1854], I resigned the connexion with
Bedford College, going in the recess to Scotland” (p. 240).
So we know that Bain lectured in psychology at the College and also have some
idea of the content of those lectures. It is of interest that the writing of his book
coincides so closely with the Bedford period.
In 1874 Bedford College moved to 8–9 York Place, Baker Street. The University
of London opened its degrees to women in 1878, being the first British university
to do so. (Oxford did not admit women until 1920 and Cambridge not until 1948.)
The father of Elizabeth Garrett (of Garrett Anderson hospital fame, the second
woman to qualify as a doctor—she offered to give lectures in physiology at the
College in 1865 but was turned down, presumably because it was not deemed a
suitable subject for ladies) had pressed for degrees for women in 1862. The vote
was a tie, with George Grote voting in favour, but unfortunately the casting vote
by the Chancellor (for which the convention was to defend the status quo) went
against and the course of women’s education was set back again. In 1869 women
became eligible for the University Certificate of Higher Proficiency or General
Examination for Women, as it was known, retrospectively deemed equivalent to
matriculation. By the early 1880s Bedford students were gaining BAs, BScs and
Masters degrees from the University of London. The first BA honours degree in
Mental and Moral Science (third class), awarded to a Bedford College student,
was achieved in 1884 by Maria E. Findlay (who, however, managed second class
honours in German).
The first edition of the Bedford College Calendar (compiled and paid for by the
foresightful Miss Henrietta Busk because she thought the early history of the
College might disappear for want of records) appeared in 1888. It advertised
courses taught by Miss Frances A. Mason (Head of the Department of Mental and
Moral Science from 1886–88) on Logic, Psychology and Ethics; and a class in
Mental & Moral Science for the BA Examination. Indeed, the College timetable
for 1903–4 shows lectures on Mental & Moral Science on Tuesdays and Fridays
at 11.05, and lectures on Psychology in the Training Department on Tuesdays at
2 and Thursdays at 12.30 (see Bentley, 1991, p.27).
The Training Department (for teachers) had been founded in 1892, the year in
which John Henry Muirhead took up the appointment of Head of the Department
of Mental and Moral Science. The Report of Council for 1894–5 records as a
development in the Training Course that session that each student “has made a
psychological study of one pupil in a practising school”. Certainly by 1895–6 (and
probably before) Professor Muirhead was lecturing on psychology, ethics and logic
in the Training Department.
1897 was an extremely important year for Psychology. In Cambridge Dr W. H. R.
Rivers was appointed University Lecturer in Experimental Psychology and the
152 History
Physiology of the Special Senses and set up, within the physiological laboratory,
what was the first laboratory for psychology in England (Edgell, 1947, p. 114). He
subsequently became famous for his part in the pioneering anthropological
expedition to the Torres Straits, his research on the physiology of the senses,
notably vision, for which he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society in
1908, and his humane treatment of World War I shell-shock victims, notably
Siegfried Sassoon (brought to public attention by Pat Barker’s The Regeneration
Trilogy). But in London too psychological laboratories were being set up.
University College founded one that session, Rivers being one of the people who
was hired to teach. At Bedford College John Muirhead resigned his Professorship
in Mental and Moral Science and the post was advertised. At the first attempt no
appointment was made; it was resolved to postpone the appointment and admit a
late application from Miss Beatrice Edgell. On 21st December the Board duly met
again. Testimonials for eleven candidates were reconsidered and the names of two
candidates not previously on the Selected List were forwarded and placed in order
of merit: Miss Beatrice Edgell, BA, and Mr Joseph Solomon. Both candidates
attended to meet the Council; Miss Beatrice Edgell was appointed to the
professorship for the remainder of the session.
In 1897 a second Bedford College student, Nancy M. Catty, had been awarded
a third class degree in Mental and Moral Science; but things were due to change.
Nine of the next sixteen degrees awarded to students from the Department up to
the end of World War I (and seventy per cent of those awarded up to 1912,
including the first one in psychology) were first class. Thus the anecdote reported
in the Bedford College Old Students’ Association Magazine is justified: “‘What did
Miss X . . . get?’ an old Bedford student once asked in my hearing. ‘Get?’ was
the indignant reply, ‘Why a first of course. Miss Edgell’s students always do’”
(BCOSA, 1933). Beatrice Edgell took up her appointment as Lecturer in Philosophy
and Head of the Department of Mental & Moral Science in January 1898. Thus
began the special development of psychology under Miss Edgell, to which Dame
Margaret Tuke refers in her history of the College (Tuke, 1939, p. 252). This
involved the building up of a laboratory, developing the teaching and status of the
subject in the College and the University, as well as substantial contributions to
research.

1898–1933 Beatrice Edgell’s Golden Age

In her first session, Beatrice Edgell stepped into Professor Muirhead’s shoes and
was lecturing in psychology, logic and ethics in the Training Department. The
1899 Calendar advertises an Elementary course on Psychology in the Training
Department, given by Miss B. Edgell, for which the recommended textbook was
James’s Textbook; together with a more advanced course in Psychology given to final
year students only, for which the syllabus was as follows: Elements and development
of mind; the senses—perception, imagery, thinking; feeling and its expression;
attention; volition. The recommended books were Sully’s Outline of psychology,
James’s Textbook and Ward’s article on psychology in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 153
The following year Beatrice Edgell was away in Würzburg, pursuing her PhD
under Külpe, an opportunity provided by the award of a Travelling Research
Scholarship from her alma mater, University College of Wales at Aberystwyth.
On her return she set about building up a laboratory.

In 1900, when I returned from Bavaria, when I was anxious to start experi-
mental psychology at Bedford College, little was known about it. But the
College authorities gave me every facility, and a grant for equipment [£5].
True, I had not much accommodation; all one’s equipment had to be stowed
away into a cupboard after demonstrations. But it was a start.
(Westminster Gazette, 11.2.27)

Margaret McFarlane relates that

Under primitive conditions a laboratory came into being in a top back room
in the Baker Street building. Here with a minimum of apparatus and much
improvisation we learned the method of devising experiments and evaluating
their results. Many a time an irreverent reference to the dark room as the
‘bathroom’ brought a smiling protest from her!
(BCOSA, 1948–9)

Beatrice Edgell herself referred to this era as “the days of makeshift and poverty”,
remarking that they were by no means the least happy.
The British Psychological Society was founded in 1901 and the British Journal
of Psychology first published in 1904. It was not long before members of the
Bedford Department were contributing papers to meetings of the Society, and
publishing their work in the journal. Beatrice Edgell presented a paper on time
judgment to the fifth meeting of the Society, in 1903, and two to a meeting in 1905.
The first, entitled ‘Experiments on association’, was published in Child Study in
1913, where it jostles pages with advertisements for baby foods (Bengers, Horlicks
and Bourneville cocoa) and gas fires—‘a boon to mothers’; and formed the basis
of a lecture given to the British Academy Education Section in Norwich in 1935,
reported in The Queen. The second paper, with W. Legge Symes (subsequently
Professor of Physiology at the Royal Veterinary College) on ‘The Wheatstone-
Hipp chronoscope. Its adjustments, accuracy and control’ was published in the
British Journal of Psychology the following year (1906) and was still being cited
thirty years later. This piece of equipment is now on loan to the Science Museum.
Other research was being conducted by Gladys Martyn (a physical training
instructor as well as psychologist) on mental fatigue. Some of the ensuing
publications are described as emanating from the Physiological Laboratory,
University of London, where Edgell had a part-time appointment; the publication
lag was two months.
In 1906 the Department of Mental and Moral Science was renamed the
Department of Philosophy and Psychology, one step along the path from arts to
science and the protracted separation of psychology from philosophy. The College
154 History
Calendar for 1910 lists two main courses for BSc Psychology. 1. Psychology, for
which the syllabus was: Scope and methods of psychology; relation of psychology
to other sciences and to philosophy; analysis of consciousness; fundamental
processes; detailed treatment of the phenomena of cognition, feeling and will. 2.
Laboratory course, for which the syllabus was: Qualitative analysis of sensation;
determination of psychical standards and units; psychophysical law and methods;
conditions of normal perception and illusion; time relations and mental state,
including reaction, memory and time consciousness; physiological correlates of
feeling and action; construction and use of psychological apparatus.
In 1912 the first BA Honours degree in Psychology (first class) was gained by
a Bedford College student, Blanche A. Lunniss. Another sign of the increasing
recognition of psychology as a scientific discipline was the award by the London
County Council of a grant for the development of intercollegiate work in a science
subject, allocated to a course on Experimental Psychology taught by Beatrice
Edgell.
On 4th July, 1913, the Regent’s Park buildings were opened by Queen Mary.
An appeal for new buildings had been launched in 1903. Psychology was among
the Departments for which a laboratory was provided. “The Department of
Psychology, where research on rats was in progress, was especially interesting to
Her Majesty” (Tuke, 1939, p. 216).

When the new college opened in Regent’s Park in 1913 psychology had
become such an important branch of study that it had its own department under
the direction of Miss Edgell, and so popular had the subject become, mainly
through the attraction of Miss Edgell’s lectures, that the psychology lecture
room was crowded to capacity.
(BCOSA, 1948–9)

“Since the move to Regent’s Park in 1913, however, Professor Edgell has been
installed in a laboratory which is the equal to any in London” (Sphere, 26 February
1927).
In 1914 Victoria Hazlitt, who had graduated in 1910 with a first class BA in
Philosophy, with Experimental Psychology as a special subject, was appointed
Assistant in Experimental Psychology. She was to play an important role in the
teaching of psychology in the College and the University. During World War I,
she courageously undertook the teaching of practical classes at King’s College,
during the absence of William Brown on active service, and at Chelsea College,
at a time when evening meetings in city centres were a virtual impossibility (Edgell,
1947). In the Bedford Department, she introduced new courses on psychological
doctrines involved in mental tests, and colour vision.
In 1916 Olive A. Wheeler was awarded a DSc in Psychology (equivalent to
a PhD—PhDs weren’t introduced until 1921). The title of her work was
‘Anthropomorphism and science: a study of the development of ejective cognition
in the individual and the race. The basis of comparative psychology’. Victoria
Hazlitt was awarded her MA for a study of the acquisition of motor habits in 1917.
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 155
In the summer of 1918 a holiday course in psychology was arranged for the long
vacation but had to be abandoned owing to the small number of applicants. In July
1919 a joint meeting of the Aristotelian Society, the Mind Society and the British
Psychological Society was held at Bedford College, attended amongst others by J.
B. S. Haldane, W. R. Sorley, Carl Jung (from Geneva), the Bishop of Down
(subsequently Archbishop of Dublin), Hastings Rashdall, W. H. R. Rivers, William
McDougall, A. R. Whitehead (Imperial College) and Bertrand Russell. Among
the topics discussed was the new physics, prior to the publication of Einstein’s
theory of relativity. The following session there was an outbreak of paratyphoid
B, emanating from the kitchen, and a regulation was introduced, at the request of
students, that academic dress be worn in lectures.
1920 is the first year in which Psychology courses are listed under Science as
well as Arts in the College Calendar and the first BSc degrees in Psychology were
awarded to Bedford College students. (The University of London had instituted
science degrees—the BSc and DSc—in 1858.) Psychology was represented, in the
person of C. S. Myers, on the board of management of the new journal Discovery
which dealt with recent advances in scientific knowledge—another sign of the
increasing recognition of psychology as a scientific discipline. In 1921 psychology
was established as an independent section of the British Association; several heads
of the Bedford Department served as its president.
Beatrice Edgell was granted a year’s leave of absence for the session 1921–2.
There is a charming letter from her to the Council:

I find it difficult to offer any very adequate reason for making the request—I
am not in failing health and I have no great enterprise on foot, nonetheless I
feel that a year free from lecturing would be very welcome and should mean
greater freshness in my work afterward, and thus ultimately benefit the
department . . . it would be good to recruit after twenty years fairly strenuous
lecturing . . . I hope the Council will not think the request unreasonable. If for
any reason it is an untimely one, I will gladly withdraw it.

Her teaching was carried out by three temporary visiting lecturers: Lucy Fildes, a
graduate of the Department, who taught a course on the Psychology of mentally
defective children; Frederic Bartlett, who lectured on Psychology and primitive
culture; and G. E. Moore, who lectured on Fundamental conceptions of psychology
with special reference to Ward’s Psychological Principles. That session a course
of three advanced lectures in psychology was given by Professor Edouard
Claparède on ‘L’Intelligence et la Volonté’; Professor Spearman presided at the
first lecture.
In 1924 Victoria Hazlitt was granted leave of absence because she “desired
leisure to complete an important piece of research work”. This was undoubtedly
her book on Ability, published 1926, for which she was awarded a DLit. During
that session Professor Henri Piéron of the Sorbonne delivered three advanced
lectures in psychology entitled ‘La douleur au point de vue des fonctions effectives
et perceptives’.
156 History
Beatrice Edgell notes that by 1922 a divergence of interest between philosophers
and psychologists was becoming apparent by the one-sided attendance at sessions
of the British Psychological Society. “Some of the older members with a
background in philosophy felt that some of the papers read lacked breadth of
outlook and were trivial in character, even though they purported to have some
immediate practical relevance” (Edgell, 1947, p. 122). In June 1926 she raised the
issue of the separation of the Department into two separate Departments of
Philosophy and Psychology, at the Academic Board. There was some discussion
but the Board felt unable to come to any decision without more time to consider
the matter; it was resolved to defer the matter to the next meeting. The issue was
in fact not satisfactorily resolved for almost another twenty years. (In July 1928
the Academic Board voted 4/3 in favour of splitting the Department. Presumably
Council disapproved because nothing came of it.)
There was also an on-going saga concerning the roof of the North Science Block,
in which Psychology was housed. Three Departments were contenders for the
space. Botany had erected an experimental greenhouse on it, to the annoyance of
Psychology, who wanted to develop an animal house there (partly because the
closure of the Training Department demanded some redirection of activities).
Zoology wanted it to keep pigeons and rabbits. Reasons were presented for
Psychology’s wishing the removal of the greenhouse. The real reason was that it
thwarted Departmental development but others were adduced in addition: it caused
frequent interruption to the work of the attendant attached to the Department of
Psychology and rendered ineffectual the room for ‘quiet study’, whose only
windows looked onto the roof. For the meantime, Psychology had to make do with
the conversion of a cellar into a dark room, as testified by a number of memoranda:
“The cellar is now cleared of all material objects, except dirt” (Edgell, 1922):

I have asked a man from the Electric Production Co. to call next Tuesday
between 11 and 12 o’clock with regard to the possibility of a speaking tube
from your department to the cellar. May I know some time before this exactly
what it is you require?
(Olive Monkhouse, College Secretary, to Beatrice Edgell, 1926)

It is clear from another memo of about the same period that laboratory equipment
was being ordered from France. Beatrice Edgell to Miss Monkhouse: “What does
your financial mind say to this? . . . He is the man who makes apparatus for
Professor Piéron (Sorbonne).” A document dating from 1927 may be relevant,
which lists apparatus to measure the subject’s ability to discriminate active from
passive touch; difference in temperature; position of body; colour; a large tuning
fork to measure the lowest note that is audible; and an O K 300 Galton whistle.
There were some problems in ascertaining whether or not the items were likely to
attract customs duty. (Victoria Hazlitt wrote the following memo to Miss
Monkhouse: “The Customs Officer at Great Portland Street advised our saying
‘To the best of our knowledge they are not dutiable’. It is quite impossible to tell
for certain from the lists so we have the right to benefit of the doubt. In haste. VH.”
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 157
Miss Monkhouse replied sharply, in a note written at the bottom of the page, “Are
they or are they not?”)
In 1927 the title of Professor of Psychology was conferred on Beatrice Edgell.
A woman professor was a newsworthy item: she was certainly one of the earliest
woman professors of psychology. Announcements of her appointment appeared
in the Morning Post, Sphere, Daily Chronicle, Times, Evening Standard, Yorkshire
Post, Glasgow Herald, Westminster Gazette, Times Educational Supplement,
Nature and The Lady.

A career of patient and persistent endeavour underlies the appointment of

Miss Beatrice Edgell, which was announced in yesterday’s Westminster
Gazette. When Miss Edgell went to Bedford College 30 years ago as lecturer
in psychology she was pioneering on entirely new academic ground . . . From
that small beginning has grown the comprehensive psychology department,
with its splendidly equipped laboratories and lecture rooms, under Professor
Edgell’s control. Red Cross nurses from the most remote states of central and
eastern Europe go to Miss Edgell for a finishing course in conjunction with
social science.
(Westminster Gazette, 11 February 1927)

At the end of 1929 the Department moved into the new Tuke building. The
buildings were opened in June 1931 by Queen Mary; Victoria Hazlitt was amongst
those presented to her. At the Department of Psychology there were exhibits to
illustrate: (1) The study of learning (a) by sheer repetition: records showing
improvement in writing with the left hand; (b) by practical trial with effort to gain
control through understanding, illustrated by work on an old-fashioned snuff-box
puzzle, and a complication box. (2) The study of child psychology: (a) Tests for
children between eighteen months and five years. As a result of studies at the
Merrill-Palmer Nursery School (Detroit) a carefully graded series of the activities
normal for children of different ages between eighteen months and six years had
been selected. The material on view was used in connection with this series. Some
of the children at the Foundling Site Nursery School had worked with this material
and their results suggested that nursery school life increases manipulative control
and practical ability. (b) Tests for Older Children. A selection of non-verbal tests
of intelligence and of practical ability were on view.
Then disaster struck. On 19th April 1932 Victoria Hazlitt was found burned to
death in a passage-way by the side of her house on North Hill, Highgate. The
following announcement appeared in the Evening News (23 April 1932):

A remarkable story of a woman who was seen burning like a ‘human bonfire’
in her garden was told at a Hornsey inquest to-day on Dr Victoria Henrietta
Hazlett [sic], a lecturer in psychology at London University and Bedford
Women’s College, Regent’s Park. A verdict of death from burns due to
ignition of her clothing was returned. It was stated that Dr Hazlett was in the
158 History
habit of cleaning clothing with petrol in the garden. Mr Harry Martin Terry,
a stockbroker of Wembley Park, Middlesex, said he climbed over the wall of
Dr Hazlett’s garden and found her charred body in a small passageway. Joseph
Leonard Collins, a gardener at the house adjoining that of Dr Hazlett, said
they saw smoke and flames coming from Dr Hazlett’s garden, but attached no
importance to it, as they thought rubbish was being burned in a bonfire. The
coroner remarked that a mystery in the case was how the petrol was being used
by Dr Hazlett at the time it became ignited. He said it had been known for
sparks to come from artificial silk stockings when rubbed. Dr Pritchard said
that he had tried experiments by dropping a china bowl on concrete, but no
sparks resulted. It was stated that Dr Hazlett was cleaning a green dress of pure
silk at the time. The nearest fire was in the house. She smoked cigarettes only
when in company.

There was the usual fatuous comment from a psychologist, reported in the Daily
Mail: “She might have thought, when the flames leaped about her, that she would
conserve her energy for putting out the fire rather than scream for help. A strong-
willed and highly trained psychologist might think that.”
Three weeks later Beatrice Edgell asked permission to relinquish her post. A
meeting was held to consider the arrangements for the Department following her
retirement. The issue was whether or not it should be divided into separate
Departments of Philosophy and Psychology. A factor that favoured such a division
was the difference in scope of the two subjects but as usual the bottom line was
cost. The committee concluded that “The department could not be separated
without extra expenditure which might prevent the Council from doing what they
thought essential in other departments”. Thus, it was “agreed that though for
academic reasons the committee were as a whole in favour of dividing the depart-
ment, it would be better to keep the present arrangement of one department until
at least the end of the present quinquennium”.

1933–1943 Susan Stebbing, Alec Mace and World War II

Susan Stebbing, the eminent philosopher and logician, was appointed Professor of
Philosophy and Head of Department in 1933, a post which she held until her
premature death in 1943. Alec Mace was appointed Reader in Psychology, coming
from St Andrews where he had set up a laboratory. He was assisted first by Annie
Jenkin and later by Madeleine Folley (née Kerr); between them they taught all the
psychology courses. Mace’s interests ranged widely from research on incentives
undertaken for the Industrial Health Research Board, to lectures on character and
temperament, and aesthetics. He also lectured on the history of psychology and
wrote a book on The Psychology of Study published by Penguin. Annie Jenkin’s
research interest was imagery and learning, the topic of her MA and PhD.
Madeleine Kerr’s PhD was on ‘Emotional fluctuations in women’; in addition she
published articles on temperamental tests applied to twins, children’s drawings,
and the validity of the mosaic test.
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 159
During this period public lectures were delivered at the College by David Katz
on ‘Some problems of perception in modern psychology’ (1934); Rudolph Carnap
on ‘Philosophy and logical syntax’ (1934); Frederic Bartlett on ‘Time from the
point of view of the psychologist’ (the first of a series of six lectures on ‘Time’, in
which others were given by Sir Arthur Eddington on ‘Time and entropy’ and C.
D. Broad on ‘Time as a metaphysical problem’, 1935); Edgar Rubin on ‘Experience
and perception, thinking, feeling’ (1937); and Karl Buhler on ‘The wisdom in
language’ (1939).
With the outbreak of war in 1939, Bedford College was evacuated to Newnham
College, Cambridge. The Regent’s Park buildings were occupied by all manner of
people. Sylvia Shimmin relates that it took her about a fortnight to find Alec Mace
in order to register when she went up in 1943, since the Department was ‘of no
fixed abode’. In May 1941 the College received damage by enemy action, as a
result of which the North Science Block was ‘estimated a total loss’. It was just as
well for Psychology that it had moved out of it (albeit more than a decade ago)!
On 28th January 1944, Council finally agreed to the division of the Department
into two separate Departments of Philosophy and Psychology. H. B. Acton was
appointed to the Chair of Philosophy. October 1st saw the institution of an
independent Department of Psychology, with Mace as Head but not Professor. On
27th October, Council received a letter from him informing them that he had been
offered the Chair of Psychology at Birkbeck College, which he intended to accept,
subject to satisfactory arrangements being made for the management of the Bedford
Department. He agreed to hold the fort in the interim, working in both places
simultaneously (as Council was reminded he had been doing for the last two years
anyway!). On 15th December, Council finally agreed to the Academic Board’s
recommendation that a Chair should replace the Readership in Psychology “on
the grounds of the anticipated growth in the Department and the unusual scope
offered for such development by the existence in one College of Departments of
Sociology, Physiology and Philosophy”. Finance Committee did not oppose this
but warned Council “that it is with the greatest hesitation that they support the
recommendation for any new commitments at a time when the College is faced
with so heavy a deficit on the year’s working”. It was agreed to apply to the
University for a Chair in Psychology to take effect from 21st October 1945.

1945–68 Denys Harding

Thus it was that Denys Harding was appointed Professor and Head of the
Department of Psychology in 1945. Although the author of two books on
psychology, he was better known for his work in literary criticism, and particularly
for his association with Leavis’s Scrutiny, of which he was an early co-editor and
in which he published several early articles.
Initially he and Madeleine Folley taught the whole syllabus between them,
students additionally attending inter-collegiate lectures. It is hardly surprising to
find a letter of 1946 asking for a full-time Assistant in Psychology. In 1947 there
was a request from Psychology for help with service teaching for the Social Studies
160 History
Certificate: the staff could cope with the lectures but not the written work which
Mrs Wootton (subsequently Dame Barbara) wished the students to do.
During this period many staff appointments were made, including Peter
McKellar (1947), Patrick Slater and Sylvia Shimmin (1948), Joan Wynn Reeves
and Monica Lawlor (1950), Derek Forrest and Alan Richardson (1952), Monica
Creasy (1953), Gilmore Lee (1956), Sheila Vincent (1958), Sheila Chown and
Billy Brown (1960), Mary Pickersgill (1961), John Valentine (1963), John Wilding
(1964), Ray Meddis (1965) and Alan Cubbon (1967). The staff increased from 2
in 1945 to 9 in 1968, the graduates from 1 to 17.
During this period a number of public lectures of interest were given. Fraser
Darling gave a course of lectures on social ecology during the Lent term of 1953.
In 1958 three lectures were given on the human brain, by J. Z. Young on ‘The
brain and its connections’, Donald Mackay on ‘The brain as an information system’
and W. Grey Walter on ‘The physiology of mentality’. Happiness was the subject
of the Special University Lectures in Philosophy in 1958 given by Raymond Pollin.
The same year Noel Annan delivered the Hobhouse Memorial lecture on ‘The
curious strength of positivism in English thought’.
Following the war period, the quadrangle was filled with building materials.
War-damaged internal walls in the Psychology Department were rebuilt and
window frames in the Tuke building readjusted. Further repairs necessitated by war
damage were carried out in 1948 and redecoration following the BBC’s tenancy
of the Tuke building. A celebration to mark completion of the reconstruction of
war-damaged buildings was held in October 1952.
In July 1946 the Department requested that the former slaughter house in the
grounds of the Holme (a beautiful Nash villa on the Inner Circle, which had been
acquired by the College earlier in the year) be used as a play room for child
observation for final year students. The proposal was rejected by the architect on
the grounds of difficulties in drainage and heating. The Report of Council for
1952–3 drew attention to the needs of the Department of Psychology:

The development of promising lines of research of a precise kind which

balance the work in social psychology already well established under
Professor Harding’s guidance, requires laboratory space which is not available
in the Department. It would be a grave error to limit this research, and as a
temporary alleviation makeshift arrangements in a converted basement room
at the Holme have had to be planned for next session.

On 2nd March 1960 the Queen Mother opened the new extensions to the Tuke
Building (planned since 1955–6). Her Majesty visited the new laboratories in the
Departments of Physics, Psychology, Biochemistry and Chemistry and watched a
number of experiments in progress, talking with staff and students in each
department. (She also opened the Reid Hall extension, the Students’ Union, and
had tea in Herringham Hall.)
 Psychology, Bedford College London 1849–1985 161
1968–85 Brian Foss
Brian Foss succeeded to the Chair and Head of Department of Psychology in 1968.
He was president of the British Psychological Society from 1972–74 and of the
Psychology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in
1974. He served as General Psychology Editor for Penguin for ten years, his own
particular interests being imitation (the subject of his inaugural lecture) and infant
development (he edited four volumes on the Determinants of Infant Behaviour).
The personal interest that he took in students created a very happy atmosphere in
the Department.
Staff appointments during this period included Elizabeth Valentine and Kate
Loewenthal (1972), John Nicholson, editor for the New Scientist and interested in
politics and the media, Margaret Christie, a psychophysiologist (1974), Ray
Matthews, with expertise in computing (1978) and Chris McManus, qualified in
medicine and psychology, with interests in handedness and aesthetics (1979).
During this period student numbers doubled with virtually no increase in staff
numbers. (Since then both have doubled.)
A distinctive feature of this period was the connection with medical education.
The Todd report (1965–68) had recommended the linking of medical schools with
universities, and Bedford College became associated with St Mary’s Hospital,
Paddington. This led to several joint appointments and the teaching of intercalated
medical students. In 1975 a postgraduate course in Clinical Psychology was
recorded as a priority, if resources become available. Twenty-two years later, it is
to be achieved.
Funded research projects during this period included studies of neonatal
behaviour undertaken at the perinatal research unit at St Mary’s, Paddington under
the supervision of Brian Foss (the effects of maternal analgesics on neonatal
behaviour; maternal personality and early behavioural development in infancy; and
the development of crying in infancy and its effect on the mother); the effects of
noise on information storage (John Wilding); individual differences in the ‘post-
lunch dip’ in efficiency (Margaret Christie); determinants of sleep depth in humans
(Ray Meddis); and communication in the deaf (William Edmondson).
In 1969 the Department was described to an intending visitor as ‘crammed in
with a shoehorn’. A Development Appeal was launched in 1978, and in 1982 the
Department expanded into the Wolfson laboratory. However, with increasing
financial stringencies, the plan for reorganisation of the University—the amal-
gamation of smaller colleges into larger units—could be accomplished. After many
false starts and protracted negotiations, the merger of Bedford College with Royal
Holloway College finally took place in 1985, with a move to the latter’s site at
Egham, Surrey.
162 History
Bibliography

Published works
Bain, A. (1904) Autobiography. London: Longmans, Green, & Co.
Bentley, L. (1991) Educating women: A pictorial history of Bedford College University of
London 1849–1985. Surrey: Alma Publishers in conjunction with Royal Holloway &
Bedford New College.
Edgell, B. (1947) The British Psychological Society. British Journal of Psychology, 37,
113–32.
Tuke, M. (1939) A History of Bedford College 1829–1937. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Valentine, E. (1997) Alexander Bain. In A. Chapman & N. Sheehy (Eds.), The biographical
dictionary of psychology. London: Routledge.

Archival sources
Bedford College Annual Report of the Council.
Bedford College Calendars.
Council Minutes, Bedford College London.
Papers of the Philosophy Department 1900–84. (Royal Holloway University of London
Archives, AR332/6/1-4).
Papers relating to the staff of the Philosophy Department 1900–84. (Royal Holloway
University of London Archives, AR332/6/5).
Papers relating to the Psychology Department, 1923–77. (Royal Holloway University of
London Archives, AR334/10/1–5).
Personnel files for Beatrice Edgell and Victoria Hazlitt. (Royal Holloway University of
London Archives, AR150).
16 Measuring the mind
Beatrice Edgell, pioneer woman
psychologist of Bedford College

Introduction
I have chosen a topic in the history of psychology as the subject for my inaugural
lecture for a number of reasons: it has been my main preoccupation for the past
few years; it is what I have most enjoyed; and it is a theme of relevance to the
College. I first became interested in Beatrice Edgell some years ago, when I realised
it was the centenary of her appointment to Bedford College and I wondered whether
there was anything about her in the College archives. Sophie Badham dug out her
staff file for me and I became acquainted with the impressive collection of indexed
press cuttings. Even though I was looking at often boring memoranda, Edgell
leaped off the page at me. We have a number of things in common: training in
philosophy as well as psychology, research interests in memory; we both taught at
Bedford College and we are both women.
Beatrice Edgell was head of the Department of Mental and Moral Science
(subsequently the Department of Philosophy and Psychology) at Bedford College
London from 1898–1933. She was

• the first British woman to be awarded a doctorate in psychology

• the first woman to become professor of psychology in the UK and
• the first woman president of four learned societies: the Mind Association, the
Aristotelian Society, the British Psychological Society, and the Psychology
Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

So she is of significance both to the history of British psychology and to the history
of women in science.
Her contributions to British psychology include

• establishing one of the first psychological laboratories in Britain – and the

first in a women’s college
• making substantial contributions to research, both theoretical and empirical
• professional activities – developing the status of psychology, both locally in
London University and nationally, partly through her work with the British
Psychological Society and
164 History
• as a teacher in a women’s college, training a number of women who later
played a prominent role in the development of scientific and professional
psychology in Britain.

I shall discuss three of these (the laboratory, her research and teaching) and finally
consider reasons for her success at a time of limited access to education for women,
when social mores dictated that it was unnatural for women to pursue professional
careers. To give you an idea of the sort of ideas that were prevalent at the time,
here is a quote from Dr Edward Clarke, a Harvard medical school professor, who
was of the opinion that any post-pubertal education of women would arrest the
development of their reproductive systems. Writing in 1873, in a book that became
so popular that it went into 17 editions in 13 years, he claimed that such education
would result in “monstrous brains and puny bodies; abnormally active cerebration
and abnormally weak digestion; flowing thought and constipated bowels” (cited
in Walsh, 1977, p. 126).
But first, something of Edgell’s family background and education. Beatrice
Edgell was born on October 26th 1871, in the centre of Tewkesbury,
Gloucestershire, the youngest of six children. Her father, Edward Higginson Edgell
(like his father before him) was a local bank manager, who played an active role
in the town, supporting good causes and donating something approximating the
equivalent of £1,000 in today’s money towards the restoration of its glorious abbey.
Beatrice’s mother, Sarah Ann Buckle, came from a family of yeoman farmers. She
died when Beatrice was only eleven years old. The family was comfortably off,
employing a nurse, a maid and a cook at the time of Beatrice’s birth. All the children
were educated alike regardless of their gender. Herein lie the seeds of Beatrice’s
success: she was born just at the right time – as higher education was beginning to
open up to women – to a supportive family.
Beatrice became one of the first pupils of Tewkesbury High School for Girls
when it opened in 1882. Following her mother’s death, the family moved to
London, thus enabling Beatrice to enter Notting Hill High School for Girls in 1886
at the age of 14. Notting Hill was one of the first two Girls’ Public Day School
Trust schools, founded in 1873, which set out to provide education parallel to that
of boys’ grammar schools. Employing “an ample staff of competent teachers at
salaries above the market price” (Bryant, 1969, p. 265), they played an enormously
important role in providing women with access to professional careers – especially
teaching – and helping to break the deadlock created by lack of qualified women.
Beatrice went up to the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth in 1891, the
first year in which women were admitted to ordinary degree courses there. It was
the first of the three colleges that were later to form the University of Wales, proud
of its tradition of equal opportunity, for both genders and all social classes.
Aberystwyth was a safe place, which catered for women and prepared students for
(initially) University of London degrees. Here Beatrice studied literature, classics
and philosophy, specialising in the last and graduating with a B.A., awarded by
the University of London, in mental and moral sciences in 1894. During her first
year, she had been greatly impressed by a lecture on animal behaviour given by
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 165
Conwy Lloyd Morgan, which she attended encouraged by a room-mate who had
worked under him at Bristol. It seems likely that this had a formative influence on
her later interests.
After three years’ teaching in high schools in the north of England, in 1898, as
a recent graduate and a late applicant, Edgell was appointed lecturer in philosophy
and – at the tender age of 27 – head of the Department of Mental and Moral Science
at Bedford College London, a post that she held for the remaining 35 years of her
career. Bedford College, founded in 1849, was the first college in Britain to offer
higher education to women; and London was the first university in Britain to open
its degrees to women, which it did in 1878 (a good 40 years before either Oxford
or Cambridge). The title of professor of psychology was conferred on Edgell in
1927. She was one of the earliest woman professors of psychology, and certainly
the first in Britain. Her appointment attracted considerable media attention. She
died in Cheltenham on 10th August 1948. Her funeral service took place in
Tewkesbury Abbey – an honour earned not only by her parents’ donations towards
the abbey’s restoration but also by the distinction she herself had brought on the
town of her birth – on Friday 13th.
A travelling research scholarship from her alma mater enabled Edgell to spend
the session 1900–01 studying abroad, under Oswald Külpe at the University of
Würzburg, where she became the first woman to graduate from that university,
and the first British woman to gain a doctorate in psychology. She carried out work
for the sensory physiologist Max von Frey, who “loved psychology and talking
about it in fluent English” (Pear, 1955, p. 22) in the Physiological Institute,
Wilhelm Wien (Röntgen’s successor and another Nobel prizewinner) in the
Physical Institute, and Oswald Külpe and Karl Marbe in the Psychological Institute.
She wrote her doctoral dissertation (in German) on Die Grenzen des Experiments
als einer psychologischen Methode. At the beginning, she states that the reason
for pursuing it was her own wish to study the feasibility of the experiment as a
method in psychology. I think she was excited at the prospect – opened up by the
new experimental psychology – of applying scientific methods to the investigation
of what had previously been considered philosophical problems and wanted to see
just how far you could push it. It was a topic of current debate – and still is. I would
say that this was the leitmotiv of her life and career; hence the title of my lecture:
measuring the mind.
In her thesis, Edgell favours the pursuit of the experimental method, which she
considers to be a valuable method which has achieved a measure of success in
psychology but mainly in the area of sensory processes. Nevertheless, she thinks
that it has a number of limits and that psychological science will not be advanced
by exaggerating its capability. Defining psychology as the science of the facts of
experience in relation to the experiencing subject and writing from a positivist
perspective, she is then faced with trying to square the circle. She feels the need
to ground psychological experiments in physical (or physiological) processes, in
order to achieve systematic and uniform relationships. Mental states pose problems
for measurement and the determination of systematic causal relationships, in her
view, because they are continuous, holistic, individual, subjective and determined
166 History
by past experience. Their causal conditions are frequently not under the experi-
menter’s control.
For this reason, Edgell did not accept the (later) Würzburg position that
systematic introspection could be extended from the study of sensory processes
to those of thinking and judgment. However, her later practice seems to have
conformed with Külpe’s later practice, in that a number of replications of Würzburg
work were conducted in the Bedford College laboratory by her students (e.g. Karl
Bühler’s experiments, in which subjects were asked to deliberate on such statements
as ‘Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more’).

The laboratory
On her return from Würzburg, Edgell set about establishing one of the first
psychological laboratories in Britain. She had limited resources at her disposal but
in marked contrast to the situation at University College London, where funds had
to be raised to hire W. H. R. Rivers to do the teaching, she was able to provide the
expertise herself. In her own words, as reported by the Westminster Gazette:

In 1900, when I returned from Bavaria, when I was anxious to start experi-
mental psychology at Bedford College, little was known about it. But the
College authorities gave me every facility, and a grant for equipment [the
princely sum of £5]. True, I had not much accommodation; all one’s equip-
ment had to be stowed away into a cupboard after demonstrations. But it
was a start.1

She referred to this era as ‘the days of makeshift and poverty’, remarking that they
were by no means the least happy on that account. As one of her students and
colleagues recalled:

Under primitive conditions a laboratory came into being in a top back room
in the Baker Street building. Here with a minimum of apparatus and much
improvisation we learned the method of devising experiments and evaluating
their results . . .2

James Sully once remarked that “a psychological laboratory is always as near the
clouds as a builder can place it”.3
The situation had clearly not improved much by 1911 when the Academic Board
received a letter from Edgell concerning the need for assistance in Psychology,
specifically the assistance of a boy for help with practical work. In a letter
supporting her case, she explained that

practical classes in Psychology are held in the Philosophy Lecture Room and
the small room adjoining, and the preparations for them involve considerable
labour. Before each class, chairs, tables must be moved, apparatus set up and
put into working order, and at the close of each class everything must be
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 167
cleared up, and put away in cupboards. For this work there is no assistance
whatever. The most trifling errand or job must be done by Miss Martyn or
myself. By reason of the limitations in general of the equipment and apparatus,
the practical course needs much thoughtful contrivance and the constant
manufacture of odds and ends of apparatus.4

Later there was a galvanometer room and some of the equipment was ordered
from France (there were problems getting it through the customs). It was mainly
apparatus to measure sensory abilities and included a Galton whistle (used to
measure sensitivity to high frequencies).
One can get some idea of the experimental work carried out from published
reports. In 1912 the London County Council awarded a two-year grant for the
development of intercollegiate work in a science subject to the College, which
allocated it to Psychology. A report of some of the experimental work carried out
was published. This included not only investigations in the Würzburg tradition,
employing largely introspective analysis, but also studies of mice learning mazes
and rats solving puzzle boxes.
The mazes were scrubbed at frequent intervals with carbolic soap to minimise
scent cues. However, one reviewer commented that:

It is rather unfortunate that, in what is mainly a statistical study, only two mice
and three rats were used, especially as rat J was later found to be blind, mouse
S was out of condition part of the time, and several times (as is to be expected)
the animals were very excited.5
(Journal of Experimental Pedagogy, 3, 1915–16, p. 209–210)

It should be borne in mind that these were, after all, only class experiments, not
intended to advance the frontiers of scientific knowledge, but pioneering ventures
nonetheless.
Psychology was among the departments for which a laboratory was provided
when the College moved to Regent’s Park in 1913. This laboratory was said to be
the equal of any in London and “one of the best equipped and most fruitful in the
University”.6 When Queen Mary came to open the new buildings, it was reported
that, “The Department of Psychology, where research on the memory of rats was
in progress, was especially interesting to Her Majesty” (Tuke, 1939, p. 216). The
Daily Mail provided the following detailed account of the visit, under the title ‘The
Queen and the Mice’:

A select little family of white rats and mice – four in number – monopolised
the attention of the Queen for some minutes yesterday afternoon when her
Majesty opened the new buildings of the Bedford College for Women in
Regent’s Park.

The rodents are confined in cages in the laboratory for experimental psy-
chology, and while the two mice are experts at threading mazes, the two rats
168 History
are exponents of the art – reduced to a fine predatory science amongst their
species – of penetrating obstacles separating them from their food.

When the Queen entered the laboratory the mice were running about in their
cages, and at her Majesty’s request . . . were taken from the cells to exhibit
their accomplishments. The mazes lay on a bench adjoining, and were covered
with glass . . . [The mice] have to run through the mazes to the opening, where
food – milk, bread or cheese – is placed for them, but one was reluctant to
start upon the journey and cowered at the sound made by a member of the
Royal entourage. ‘He’s frightened’, remarked the Queen, and she tapped the
glass covering as an intimation to the mouse that she would like him to
complete his experiment, and thereupon he scuttled through the maze, her
Majesty laughing at his spasmodic efforts.

On the opposite side of the laboratory were the two rats, and they climbed up
the wire of their cells and sniffed inquisitively at the Queen with their pink noses.
One is so far advanced that he will gnaw through a tape and rub away a piece
of paper, releasing a flap through which he crawls to his food, and the other
burrows under sand to an aperture giving access to a succulent bit of cheese.
Their simple ‘residences’ are known as puzzle-boxes to the lady students.

Her Majesty inquired the object of the experiments, and was informed that
they were for the purposes of comparison and deduction with respect to habit-
memory in animals and human beings.7

A set of pictures, originally published in The Graphic in 1919,8 which reappear in

several other newspapers over the next few years,9 under such titles as ‘Modern
Young Lady’s Education’ and ‘The Wonders of the Mind: How women are taught
the remarkable powers of the brain at Bedford College’, displays a variety of tasks
designed to train perceptual-motor skills, such as listening for overtones (the
caption reads: ‘The very modern young lady is being highly trained in the powers
of observation. While her mother merely learnt to darn socks, she has all her
faculties trained’); quickness of perception (‘a momentary glance in a dark room
[a tachistoscope] is the new method of training the very modern girl in quickness
of perception’); accuracy and steadiness of movement (‘acquired by line-drawing,
every error being electrically recorded on a smoke drum’); mirror drawing
(‘Practice improves left as well as right hand’); estimation of extent and direction
of movement (‘A kind of miniature railway is used, with one part ascending at a
good angle. The student is blindfolded, and with her left hand moves a little trolley
upwards until a buffer is reached. This movement is practised again and again,
and then repeated with the other hand, when the amount of error is ascertained’);
and attractiveness of pictures (‘the attractive power of pictures in impressing the
mind and moving the will’).
The following is a contemporary account of the facilities as they were in 1931,
from Nature:
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 169
The Department of Psychology occupies the first floor of one wing and
comprises a lecture room and laboratories. The latter are well equipped with
modern recording apparatus and material for studying the special senses. A
pendulum tachistoscope is built into one of the walls. There is also a kodascope
for the projection of films in the study of evidence and report.10

All in all, this was pioneering work, on a wide range of topics – sensory perception,
motor skills, thinking, animal learning – using the best equipment available and
instilling in students the principles of experimental design.

Research
Edgell’s own research, likewise, spanned a number of different areas. She was
equally at home with philosophical and theoretical, as with experimental work. She
read eight papers to the Aristotelian Society; she wrote entries for encyclopaedias,
and reviewed innumerable books. She herself wrote three books: Theories of
Memory (1924), for which she is perhaps best known; Mental Life (1926), a
textbook for social science students; and Ethical Problems (1929), a textbook on
psychology for nurses.
She also made substantial contributions to empirical research. One was a
painstaking investigation of the calibration of the Wheatstone-Hipp chronoscope,
an instrument for measuring reaction times. Edgell would have acquired her
knowledge of this instrument during her time in Würzburg. Mental chronometry
was important for both scientific and ideological reasons. Scientifically, the
accurate measurement of time intervals of less than one second was important
because these were used to make inferences about mental processes (e.g. their
number or complexity). Ideologically, measurement was the hallmark of hard
science. Precision was pursued almost as a cult, aimed at establishing psychology
on a par with physics and physiology. Hence, the problem of calibration posed a
threat and provided a central challenge.
Edgell and her collaborator examined four instruments, investigating the effect
of various factors on the making and breaking of the current and hence the accuracy
of measurement. (One of the problems resulted from the use of batteries as a power
source, which could be unreliable.) They determined that the instrument was
accurate to within one millisecond (the prescribed goal) and made recommen-
dations for its use. Their paper, published in 1906, was still being cited thirty years
later; it has also been the subject of recent attention. The accuracy of mental
chronometry was not improved on for another 50 years until the advent of elec-
tronically based timing systems.
Much of Edgell’s empirical work was concerned with memory. In a lecture to
the London Child Study Society in 1912, she included the report of a large-scale
experiment, published the following year in the Society’s journal, Child Study,
where it jostles with advertisements for baby foods (Benger’s, Horlicks and
Bourneville cocoa) and gas fires (‘a boon to mothers’). The participants were over
170 History
twelve hundred schoolchildren aged 8–12 years, courtesy of the London County
Council. The experiment was also run on half a dozen adults.
Aimed at the empirical investigation of conditions for Stout’s ‘conative unity’,
three conditions of associative memory were compared: (1) pure contiguity, the
arbitrary pairing of two items, e.g. a pictured object and a number; (2) ‘artificial
association’, where the children were instructed to generate a mnemonic (“very
ingenious were the connections invented” she says, “e.g. a picture of an ultra rosy
apple and the number 85 called forth the artificial connection, ‘apple, ate five’. An
egg of greenish-yellow hue and the number 71 prompted the connection, ‘7 to 1 it
is bad’”); and (3) conceptual similarity, where there was some conceptual relation-
ship between the items to be associated, in this case geometrical shapes, e.g. a
pictured circle and square.
The results are shown in Figure 16.1. Edgell noted various effects – all of which
can be confirmed by the application of modern statistical techniques. Apart from
the obvious ones like improvement with age and the general inferiority of pure
contiguity, she noticed an increase in the relative superiority of mnemonic
techniques with age, and improvement in girls at an earlier age than that of boys.
Similar developmental lags have been observed by current investigators but
Edgell’s work in this respect has barely been superseded to this day. “We still know
almost nothing about whether there are sex differences in memory development”
(Schneider & Pressley, 1997, p. 323).

0.5

3.5
Mean number correct (max = 5)

1.5

1.5

0.5

0
Diverse Artificial Kindred

Figure 16.1 Diverse, artificial and kindred memory associations as a function of age and
sex (drawn from data in Edgell, 1913). From left to right: boys 8–10, girls
8–10, boys 10–12, girls 10–12, boys 12, girls 12, adults.
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 171
Was Edgell’s psychology feminine?
It might be asked whether Edgell’s psychology was distinctively feminine. There
seems to be no evidence that either she or any of the other early British women
psychologists (with the exception of Susan Isaacs) showed a preference for so-
called ‘soft’ topics, such as child development, personality or social psychology.
Quite the reverse, if her study of the chronoscope is anything to go by. It is notable
that many of the early British women psychologists studied animal learning and
behaviour. It could of course be argued that the pursuit of hard science was a case
of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ’em” – that it was necessary for women to adopt or
ape the male model in order to succeed. I prefer to believe – and do in fact fervently
believe – that these British women had an eye for the fundamental problems of
psychology and recognised the importance of using experimental methods to tackle
them.
One striking feature both of Edgell’s psychology, and that of the other early
British women psychologists, is the very broad range of topics investigated. This
wide coverage together with the lack of a unifying theory might be regarded as a
feminine trait in contrast to the more masculine, focussed pursuit of a personal
theory, such as is seen in William McDougall’s instinct psychology or Charles
Spearman’s theory of intelligence. However, as Leslie Hearnshaw was later to
remark, an antipathy to theory was one of the features that came to characterise
British 20th century psychology, the most influential work being the experimental
investigation of applied problems. In this sense, by taking the first steps along a
road that other major British psychologists were to follow, Edgell may be seen to
have been truly a pioneer.

Teaching
Important though her research was, it is possible that Edgell’s greatest contribution
was as a teacher. As her obituarists in the British Journal of Psychology wrote:

Her influence cannot be adequately measured by her writings and perhaps her
students are the best witness of her work. They comment on her kindness, her
willingness to answer their questions, her lucidity. Perhaps her greatest
asset as a teacher was the strictly impartial manner in which she presented
controversial topics, leaving their relative merits to emerge in the discussion
which followed her expositions. Her students were thus stimulated to think
for themselves and their conclusions were always treated with respect.
Professor Edgell founded no school of psychology, but the success of her work
is demonstrated by the success of her students in many widely differing fields.
(Smith, McFarlane & Jenkin, 1949, p. 122)

Prior to Edgell taking up her appointment in 1898, two third class degrees in mental
and moral science had been awarded to Bedford College students. By contrast, nine
of the next sixteen degrees awarded to students from the Department up to the end
172 History
of World War I (and seventy per cent of those awarded up to 1912, including the
first one in psychology) were first class. Long before the days of grade inflation,
these are impressive figures indeed. A former student recounted the following
anecdote:

‘What did Miss X—- get?’ an old Bedford student once asked in my hearing.

‘Get?’ was the indignant reply, ‘Why a first, of course. Miss Edgell’s students
always do.’11

Edgell taught not only students of philosophy and psychology but also journalism
and social studies, as well as teachers and nurses – many of whom came from
overseas to study psychology at Bedford College.
Here’s a tribute from an ex-serviceman on the journalism diploma:

Professor Edgell was a woman of charm with a wise, persuasive manner; a

shrewd and practical psychologist, too, who gave one the impression that she
could judge character and weigh up the personality behind the facade. She
made psychology a human rather than academic study.12

Working in a women’s college, she trained a number who later played a prominent
role in the development of both academic and applied psychology in Britain.
Notable amongst these are:

• Victoria Hazlitt (1887–1932), who taught psychology at Bedford College and

other London colleges during World War I and made substantial contribu-
tions of her own to research – in animal learning, mental testing (including
pioneering work on university selection, undertaken at Bedford College in the
1920s) and developmental psychology – before her premature death
• Olive Wheeler (1886–1963), a fellow graduate of the University of Wales and
the first Bedford College student to be awarded a doctorate in psychology (in
1916), who was created a dame for services to education in Wales
• Lucy Fildes, OBE (1884–1968), who carried out research on what would now
be termed learning disabilities, and was appointed the first head of the
psychology department in the newly opened London Child Guidance Clinic
in 1929 and
• Winifred Raphael (née Spielman; 1898–1978), employed at the National
Institute of Industrial Psychology for almost forty years, who made a sub-
stantial contribution to the development of occupational psychology, not only
through technical initiatives – pioneering unstructured interviews and attitude
surveys in the 1930s – but also by encouraging acceptance of the psychologist
in industry.

The position of women in universities was, not surprisingly, of particular concern

to Edgell and a topic on which she delivered a lecture about 1911 to the Council
of the National Union of Women Workers, in which she remarked:
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 173
On going through the data for the review which I have tried to give you, I
have felt that the position of women in these Universities is one to fill any
woman who has part or lot in them with great thankfulness, and with great
gratitude towards those, who through the fifties, sixties and seventies of the
last century [i.e. the 19th], worked so hard to win for women the privileges of
higher education.13

She drew attention to two evils: spending too much time and energy on teaching
at the beginning of a career (women tend to be more conscientious) and accepting
lower pay for the same job. She considered that both time and money were needed
to combat these. With regard to the second (unequal pay) she commented, “The
danger of this evil does not lie within the Universities themselves, but in the
insidious influence of popular ideas concerning women’s labour” (p. 4). At least
World War I was largely to solve that problem, even if women are still seriously
under-represented in science and at professorial level.

Factors contributing to Edgell’s success

How did Edgell achieve her success, at a time of limited access to education for
women, when social mores dictated that it was unnatural for women to pursue
independent careers? What’s more, at the time of her birth, no university anywhere
in the world had a professor of psychology.
By the end of her career, she had achieved recognition and distinction. She
had become professor of psychology at a British university and, in the years
immediately following, president of four learned societies. In all cases she was the
first woman to achieve these honours. Her achievements were noted in the national
press on a number of occasions; she was honoured with obituaries in the Times,
Nature and the British Journal of Psychology, in the days when women were
frequently ‘invisible’.
A number of enabling factors can be identified.

Family
Edgell was fortunate in her family, who supported rather than hindered her career.
They provided her with resources and encouragement. She was born with the
proverbial silver spoon in her mouth (almost literally). Her mother was a ‘go-getter’
who instilled determination into her children. In the words of one of her great
nephews, Beatrice and her elder sisters were ‘allowed to do it’, ‘encouraged to do
it’ and ‘fiercely educated’. Being the youngest of six children may well have
endowed her with good social and diplomatic skills.
She did not marry. I do not know whether or not this constituted a dilemma
and/or a sacrifice for her; I suspect it did not. For most of her adult life, she lived
with her other unmarried siblings (an elder sister kept house for them), who must
have supplied affiliative as well as material needs. As the youngest of six children,
she did not have to look after aging parents, and thus was not faced with the ‘family
claim’ in that respect.
174 History
Educational opportunities
Edgell was born just at the right time – as higher education was beginning to open
up to women. Although opportunities were strictly limited, they did exist. She was
able to gain access to education through normal routes by careful selection of
institutions. Oxford and Cambridge were not open to her but the Universities of
London and Wales were prepared to award degrees to women. Although she had
to attend the University of Würzburg as an auditor rather than as a properly
registered student, she succeeded in being awarded a doctorate there.
Also relevant is the fact that the institutional development of experimental
psychology in Britain began around the turn of the twentieth century. The British
Psychological Society was founded in 1901 and the British Journal of Psychology
first published in 1904. To both of these she was an early and regular contributor.
Edgell was an original member of the British Psychological Society, distinguished
amongst learned societies by having admitted women from its inception.

Personal qualities
Undoubtedly Edgell was extremely academically able, as her achievements testify.
At school she won prizes for literature and geography. She achieved a first class
degree – if on the second attempt! She achieved distinction in the University of
London teacher’s diploma, and was awarded scholarships for her M.A. and Ph.D.
studies. She wrote and defended her doctoral thesis in a second language. Molly
Harrower, one of her students who became a prominent clinical psychologist in
America, reports being challenged by Edgell’s ‘excellent mind’ (Harrower, 1983,
p. 159).
Nor is there any doubt that she was capable of hard work. It is astonishing just
how much she managed to achieve. She taught the whole degree course with
minimal assistance and supervised postgraduate students. She carried out and
published research. She read and reviewed a phenomenal number of books, as well
as writing three of her own. She played an active part in both college and university
administration, and a leading role in learned and professional societies.
She demonstrated enormous determination and perseverance. She and her
sisters have been described as ‘very determined girls’, ‘independent women’.
Like her American counterpart, Margaret Washburn, Edgell proceeded as an
autonomous individual, with a single-minded dedication to her own career. Her
educational trajectory was carefully researched and planned with enterprise and
resourcefulness. The fact that she was the first British student to study in Würzburg
is testimony to her pioneering spirit and courage.
She was socially skilled and good at networking. As a pioneer woman, there were
few role models for Edgell to follow. In these circumstances, the role of mentors,
supporters and collaborators takes on a particular significance. It has been observed
that early American female faculty members often had chivalrous professional
contacts with male professors at nearby institutions, influential ‘big brothers’ who
supported them.
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 175
I think it is very significant that right from the beginning of her career, Edgell
became accepted by male colleagues in the hard sciences. The work on the chrono-
scope was undertaken at the University of London’s Physiological Laboratory, in
collaboration with William Legge Symes, a physiologist, subsequently professor
at the Royal Veterinary College, well known for his research on digitalis and
luminal, and inventor of the Symes cannula. Edgell and Symes remained life-long
friends. She did not forget his help: he was a beneficiary of her will forty years later.
The director of the laboratory was Augustus Waller, a Fellow of the Royal
Society, noted for his experiments in developing the electrocardiograph. He was
a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Physiology and of the University
Senate, a powerful and prestigious position, to which Edgell herself was elected
in 1907.
Edgell had considerable diplomatic skills and was frequently called on to chair
meetings. This is an eye-witness account from one of her obituaries:

To those who had the privilege of working with her during her presidency of
the British Psychological Society she revealed herself as an extremely
competent Chairman. She was very clear-headed and had the gift of steering
the discussions into profitable channels, and also by her delightful sense of
humour averting potentially acrimonious disputes. She always remained
dignified and quiet, but there was no doubt about her power.
(Smith et al., 1949, p. 122)

One of Edgell’s outstanding personal qualities was discretion. In her time, strict
social mores governed the entry of women into male circles. For example, properly
bred women did not smoke or enter rooms where men were smoking. Pioneer
women academics often felt ill at ease and unsure of their welcome at dinners and
banquets, and learned to tread carefully.
Molly Harrower recalls a notice posted at the entrance to the Faculty Club in
the Neurological Institute at McGill, when women were reluctantly admitted in
the 1930s. It read: “Ladies are asked to pass as quickly as possible to the quarters
allotted to them and under no circumstances to linger in the hall or on the stairways”
(Harrower, 1983, p. 159).
Edgell’s tactics differed from those of her American contemporary Margaret
Washburn, who “had been intrepid enough to invade the sacred precinct of the
men’s smoker at psychological meetings. Marching uninvited into its midst, she
had sat down and lighted a cigar. None questioned her privilege to enjoy the smoker
thereafter.” (MacCracken, 1950, p. 50).14 Contrast this with Edgell’s attitude
towards the attendance of women at the British Psychological Society dinners, of
which she said: “The women members of the Society were never excluded from
these dinner gatherings but for the first few years it seemed to them wiser not to
attend . . .” (Edgell, 1947, p. 115). She knew when to be assertive and when not.
176 History
Strategies
Margaret Rossiter, in her study of American pioneer women scientists, has dis-
tinguished three strategies they used to achieve success. All recognise the existence
of social stereotypes but react to them in different ways.
The first is a confrontational strategy of defiant protest, in which equality is
demanded and an attempt made to change the system – as by the suffragettes.
The second is a ‘realistic’ strategy of acceptance and conformity to sex-typed
employment. Adaptation is made to the situation by arguing that women have
special skills. A classic example is the development of home economics. The third
strategy is one of quiet but deliberate over-qualification, accompanied by personal
modesty, dubbed ‘Madame Curie’. It accepts the existence of double standards for
men and women but attempts to overcome the social stereotypes by excellent
training and credentials, in the belief that women must not only be better than men
but outstanding, i.e. ‘Madame Curies’. According to a recent study of applications
for Swedish Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellowships, they need to be
2.5 times better (Wennerås & Wold, 1997).
Edgell’s strategy closely fits this last one of quiet but deliberate over-
qualification. She sought the best credentials. Her secondary education took place
at an institution described as “the most famous of its kind in England”.15 Armed
with her excellent qualifications, she had no difficulty obtaining a post as lecturer
in philosophy (indeed head of department!) at Bedford College London. (Her late
application was preferred over those from earlier candidates, none of whom were
considered suitable.) Once in post, she then sought further training by going abroad
to Würzburg, where the new experimental psychology was being taught. In the
course of her career, she collected two bachelors’ degrees, one teaching diploma,
a masters degree and two doctorates.

Coda
I should like to conclude with extracts from Edgell’s obituary in Nature, which
ably summarises her achievements. The author was probably Denys Harding, who
became professor of psychology at Bedford College when an independent
department of psychology was finally established in 1946. He writes:

One of the significant figures in the development of British psychology . . . she

helped to establish the traditions on which the study of psychology is still based
in British universities . . . Throughout her life she combined her interest in
philosophy and in experimental psychology, though with a special leaning to
the latter . . . The laboratory she established bears witness to her concern for
exact and objective experimental method aided by the best material equipment
then available . . . Her example and influence thus aided the development of
psychology in Britain as an independent experimental science which still
retained the stabilizing effect of philosophical discipline . . . Precise of mind
and emphatic of utterance she was an excellent teacher, and she is held in
 Measuring the mind: Beatrice Edgell 177
affectionate respect by a large number of former students, many of whom are
now engaged in psychological work applied to industry, education and various
branches of social work . . . During the War she wrote a history of the [British
Psychological] Society, part of which she read at the annual meeting . . . in
1946. This was the first occasion on which many of her younger colleagues
had met her, and they will remember her as they saw her then, frail, alert and
indomitable.16

Acknowledgements
For help and encouragement at various stages of this research, I am particularly
grateful to: Sophie Badham, Wilhelm and Elisabeth Baumgartner, Halla Beloff,
Linna Bentley, Alan Costall, Angus Hone, Chris McManus, Kathryn Metzenthin,
Jennifer Sherwood, John Valentine, Tom Wilks, David Wilson, Sarah Wilson and
Johannes Zanker. I should also like to thank: Sarah Jane, Mark Pitchforth, Armin
Stock, Nicky Sugar and Mark Wells for help with the preparation of this lecture.
Some of the material presented above draws on two previously published
articles: Elizabeth R. Valentine, ‘Beatrice Edgell: An appreciation’, British Journal
of Psychology 92, (2001), 23–36; and Elizabeth Valentine, ‘Beatrice Edgell – the
pioneer woman’, History & Philosophy of Psychology 3(1), (2001), 14–26. A full
treatment appears in Elizabeth R. Valentine, Beatrice Edgell: Pioneer Woman
Psychologist, Nova, 2006.

Notes
1 Westminster Gazette, February 11th, 1927. Press cuttings. Royal Holloway, University
of London Archives, RF129/10, p. 123.
2 Bedford College Old Students’ Association, 1948–9, p. 6. RHUL Archives, AS903/1.
3 Times Educational Supplement, April 24th 1919, p.193. The article is unattributed but
I am fairly confident about the authorship.
4 Philosophy Department: Correspondence and papers, 1900–24. RHUL Archives,
AR332/6/1.
5 I am grateful to Professor Peter Warr for drawing this to my attention.
6 Bedford College Old Students’ Association, 1948–9, p. 6. RHUL Archives, AS903/1.
7 Daily Mail, July 4th 1913. RHUL Archives, RF129/1/4.
8 The Graphic, December 6th 1919. RHUL Archives: BC/RF 129/1/6, p. 7. I am grateful
to Dr Linna Bentley for drawing this to my attention.
9 Daily Sketch, January 3rd 1920; Sunday Companion, January 15th 1921; Daily Herald,
February 14th, 1920; Daily Herald, February 28th, 1921. RHUL Archives, BC/RF129/
1/7, pp. 32, 44, 125.
10 Nature, 4th July 1931.
11 Bedford College Old Students’ Association, 1933, p. 9. RHUL Archives, AS903/1.
12 Bedford College Old Students’ Association, 1948–49, p. 7. RHUL Archives, AS903/1.
13 The position of women in the University of London, the provincial universities, and
the University of Wales, p. 3. RHUL Archives, PP1/4.
14 Cited in Scarborough & Furumoto (1987), p. 105.
15 Sphere, February 26th 1927.
16 Nature, September 4th 1948, p. 63.
178 History
References
Bryant, M.E. (1969). Private education from the sixteenth century. In J. S. Cockburn,
H. P. F. King & K. G. T. McDonnell (Eds.), A history of the county of Middlesex: The
Victoria histories of the counties of England, (vol. 1), pp. 241–289. London: Oxford
University Press.
Edgell, B. (1947). The British Psychological Society. British Journal of Psychology, 37,
113–132.
Harrower, M. (1983). Molly R. Harrower. In A. N. O’Connell & N. F. Russo (Eds.), Models
of achievement: Reflections of eminent women in psychology. New York: Columbia
Press.
MacCracken, H. N. (1950). The hickory limb. New York: Scribner’s.
Pear, T. H. (1955). The Manchester University Department of Psychology (a) 1909–1951.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, No. 26, 21–30.
Scarborough, E. & Furumoto, L. (1987). Untold lives: The first generation of American
women psychologists. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Schneider, W. & Pressley, M. (1997). Memory development between two and twenty. (2nd
ed.) Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Smith, M., McFarlane, M. F. & Jenkin, A. (1949) Obituary notice: Beatrice Edgell
1871–1948. British Journal of Psychology, 39: 122.
Tuke, M. (1939). A history of Bedford College 1849–1937. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Walsh, M. R. (1977). ‘Doctors Wanted. No Women Need Apply’: Sexual Barriers in the
Medical Profession 1935–1975. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wennerås, C. & Wold, A. (1997). Nepotism and sexism in peer-review. Nature, 387,
341–343.
17 The founding of the
Psychological Laboratory,
University College London
“Dear Galton . . . Yours truly,
J Sully”

Abstract
The events leading up to the founding of the Psychological Laboratory at
University College London are examined in the light of correspondence from
James Sully to Francis Galton. The correspondence reveals the dependence of Sully
on Galton for detailed advice at every stage of the process, possible reasons for
which are discussed. It also provides sufficient clues to enable identification of a
hitherto anonymous donor. Although Galton may have inspired and advised on
the initial setting up of the laboratory, his influence on its work did not become
apparent until after his death.

The institutional development of experimental psychology in Britain began around

the turn of the century. The British Psychological Society was founded in 1901,
and the British Journal of Psychology was first published in 1904. Although
separate independent departments, designated chairs, and specialist degree
programs were generally not established for several decades, one of the first steps
toward a distinct discipline was taken at this time in the appointment of lecturers
to conduct practical classes in experimental psychology. Small laboratories were
set up in Cambridge in 1887 by J. McK. Cattell (Sokal, 1972) and in 1897 by
W. H. R. Rivers. London quickly followed suit with the founding of laboratories
at University College in 1898 by James Sully, at Bedford College in 1901 under
Beatrice Edgell, and at King’s College in 1903 under C. S. Myers. In Scotland, the
first laboratory was established in Edinburgh in 1906 under W. G. Smith (Hunter,
1998). Most of these pioneers had spent some time training in psychological
laboratories in Germany, which was notably more advanced in institutional
development than Britain, as was the United States. The first laboratory in the
United States was founded at Johns Hopkins in 1883 by G. Stanley Hall, and by
the turn of the century there were 40 laboratories in existence.
One of the avowed reasons for setting up the psychological laboratory at
University College London was the existence of psychological laboratories in other
countries, in particular the United States, Germany, and France. The Journal of
Education, in calling attention to the excellent work done by Dr. Macdonald,1 in its
May 1896 issue, asked: “Is it not a national disgrace that there does not exist one
psychological laboratory in England?”2 Two months later, it was able to declare that
180 History
we are very glad to say that there is every prospect of the removal of the
reproach. Professor Sully is, of course, the man to head the movement, and
we learn with satisfaction that he has the scheme in hand and will shortly issue
a circular letter calling attention to the urgent need for the establishment of a
pyscho-physical [sic] laboratory. Money is naturally one of the preliminary
stumbling-blocks, but by no means the greatest . . . University College has
not endowments sufficient for the purpose: the Government never vote
supplies till success has been proved . . . [I]s there no wealthy Londoner who
will emulate the Chambers and the MacEwans of Edinburgh, and come
forward at this juncture to supply a suitable home for the investigations of
Professor Sully and his assistants?3

Nature, in reporting the meeting held to discuss the setting up of the laboratory,
announced the following:

The science of experimental psychology, which is zealously pursued in

Germany, in the United States, and elsewhere, clearly deserves more attention
in this country than it has hitherto received, and it is now proposed that
facilities should be afforded for its study at University College.4

Hearnshaw (1964) offers several reasons for Britain’s backwardness in establish-

ing psychological laboratories: the lack of state organization of science, the
conservatism of British universities, and philosophical hostility to the human
sciences. The first reason stands in marked contrast to the situation in Germany at
the end of the nineteenth century. Scientific progress in Britain has typically been
the work of individuals, albeit working in collaboration. It is not without
significance that Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and James Sully were all men
of independent means. The early laboratories were generally dependent on the
benefactions of private individuals. The second factor, institutional conservatism,
may in some cases have been the result of financial caution. With regard to the third
factor, Daston (1978) has argued that the apparent philosophical hostility to
institutionalized psychology in Britain may be more accurately interpreted as the
lingering aftereffects of the debate over the perceived conflict between deter-
ministic mental science and traditional moral values, specifically the belief in
freedom of the will; and, moreover, that this came from inside the discipline rather
than outside. In this connection, it is interesting to note that the supposed
theological opposition to experimental psychology at Cambridge—that it would
“insult religion by putting the human soul in a pair of scales”—is now considered
to be apocryphal.5
The special significance that British intellectuals attached to morality during the
late Victorian period, which was exemplified in the close affiliation between ethics
and psychology; the use of the term mental and moral philosophy/science to refer
to the discipline; and the logic, psychology, and ethics courses that were normally
taught under this head, led to a concern with the moral implications of psy-
chological theories, especially as applied to education and penology (problems
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 181
such as child rearing and the treatment of the mentally defective and insane), and
led to a resultant practical cast of British psychology (Daston, 1978).
The psychological laboratory set up at University College London by James
Sully in 1898 contains elements of Danziger’s (1990) Galtonian model of
psychological investigation, in that one of the aims was to provide a rational
foundation for social planning. One of Sully’s particular interests was education.
He thought that the measurement of mental fatigue (a popular topic of investigation
at the time) could be expected to “lead to radical changes in our notions of
children’s mental work, and of the conditions most favourable to it.”6 Another
obvious area of application was the treatment of the mentally defective, whose
education had become a problem consequent on the introduction of compulsory
education in 1876. Sully claimed that

tests have been proposed to ascertain inherent defects in the mental con-
stitution of children and adults with more precision than is possible by unaided
observation; and it may be hoped that these investigations will lead to the
establishment of such rational modes of separate treatment of persons who
are mentally defective, as may conduce, in an important degree, to the good
of the community. An exact investigation of the true value of these and other
tests is of social importance.7

Thus, Sully’s motivation was the same as Binet’s and at the other end of the
spectrum from Terman’s meritocracy, which aimed to provide innately gifted
children with the right education so that they could lead society (Minton, 1988).
Sully would have agreed with J. McK. Cattell (1904, p. 106), who held that there
is no reason “why the application of systematic knowledge to the control of human
nature may not in the course of the present century accomplish results commen-
surate with the 19th century application of physical science to the natural world”.
.
Another of the avowed reasons for setting up the laboratory was that it would
enable precise measurement of psychological characteristics. In a letter published
in the Journal of Education, Sully argued that

the novelty of the researches lies wholly in its method. The new experimental
psychology no longer leaves a person to find out by introspective examination
how his mind is made: it offers to show him the working of his mind by
subjecting it to the action of certain physical appliances . . . In this way
experimental psychology, which is carried out by the help of the appliances
of the physicist and the physiologist, is making our knowledge of our minds
more exact, and is doing something towards removing from psychology the
reproach, cast upon it by Kant, that it could never be a quantitatively exact
science.8

Capshew (1992, p. 132) has argued that, in the case of the development of U.S.
psychology, the laboratory had a talismanic power, a symbolic potency as well as
182 History
a material significance, serving as an “icon of the transcendent power of scientific
knowledge,” signaling the “sacred space where scientific knowledge was created.”
It bestowed scientific respectability, provided legitimation, and was used to justify
separate resources. It is true that most of the early laboratories in England
were labeled psychophysical. McDougall’s space in the physiological laboratory
at Oxford was adorned by a brass plate announcing the “Department of
Psychophysics” (Oldfield, 1950). Technophilia, the pursuit of experimentation as
an ideology in order to gain scientific respectability, may well have played a role
in Sully’s motivation, but the situation is complicated by several factors. First,
separate departments were slow to develop in Britain, as indeed they were in the
United States, as Capshew (1992) indicates; thus, the extent of separate resources
gained by the establishment of a laboratory was limited. Furthermore, the financial
basis was frequently far from secure, depending as it did on the generosity of
private individuals. Second, although scientific in outlook, Sully was essentially
from a literary background: His interests inclined to the ‘soft’ rather than the ‘hard’
areas of psychology, for example, child development, humor, music, and esthetics.
In fact, he occupied an interesting, intermediate position between amateur and
professional science (see Gurjeva, 1998). He was concerned to incorporate lay
approaches (e.g., by encouraging parents and teachers to make observations of
children) but also to justify these to professional scientists. In this regard, the
laboratory may well have served the purposes of bestowing scientific credentials
and legitimating his activities, as indeed Gurjeva has argued. Third, cordial
relations existed between philosophy and psychology at University College
London and had done so since the college’s inception in 1826, in contradistinction
to the situation at Oxford, which was dominated by an internationally renowned
center for ratiocinative philosophy (Morrell, 1997), where practical work in
psychology was forbidden by the terms of the Wilde Readership.
A course on the philosophy of mind had been offered at University College
London since 1830. It was a mixture of philosophical analysis and scientific
findings, such as those resulting from studies of the nervous system. About half of
the course constituted what would properly be called psychology now, covering
such topics as sensation, perception, attention, volition, and emotion. The college
calendar described the course: “The Lectures on Philosophy of Mind form a Course
of Psychology: in which the phenomena of mind are made the subject of exact
analysis, with due reference to the cognate results of modern science.”9 The
occupant of the Grote Chair of Mind and Logic from 1867–92 was George Croom
Robertson. After his Aberdeen training under Bain, Robertson had studied under
DuBois Reymond in Berlin, Lotze in Göttingen, and Broca in Paris and was of the
opinion that “our psychology should be as physiological as we can make it”
(Robertson, 1896, p. 33). He had the distinction of being the first editor of the
journal Mind and was indeed responsible for its title, a “happy inspiration . . . which
commended itself at once to everyone” (Bain, 1893, p. 9).
A further factor, crucial to the development of laboratory psychology, was the
introduction of quantitative and experimental methods in other biological sciences
during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Physiology became a compulsory
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 183
subject for medical students in England in 1871, leading to the development and
expansion of laboratories. A chair in the subject was endowed at University College
London in 1874, the occupants of which virtually created physiology as a research
subject in England. Michael Foster went on to establish physiology as a subject in
Cambridge, and John Burden Sanderson did the same at Oxford. A significant
contribution lay in the introduction of experiments as part of the students’
education. William Sharpey and T. H. Huxley gave the first practical course
offered in biology. In zoology, Ray Lankester introduced practical work into the
subject—an innovation in British universities. In 1906, at a meeting of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, he remarked that the emergence of
psychology as a definite line of experimental research was “one of the most
important features in the progress of science in the past quarter of a century”
(Hearnshaw, 1964, p. 184). His successor, W. F. R. Weldon, introduced quanti-
tative methods into zoology; with Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, Weldon created
biometrics. Galton set up his anthropometric laboratory at the International
Health Exhibition in London in 1884, demonstrating his superiority by having
his subjects pay him rather than vice versa. His colleague and disciple, Pearson,
was in the 1890s becoming increasingly interested in applied statistics and the
correlation of biological and sociological data.
James Sully (1842–1923), the man who was responsible for setting up the
laboratory at University College London, like his predecessor in the Grote Chair,
had studied abroad – under Lotze in Göttingen and under Helmholtz and DuBois
Reymond in Berlin. A man of independent means, he had supplemented his income
with some teaching and examining but did not take up a full-time academic post
until relatively late in life. He was 50 years of age when he succeeded to the chair
in 1892, but his reputation as a writer was well established. In addition to being a
frequent contributor to Mind, he had by this time published four widely acclaimed
books: Pessimism (1877), said to have lost him the chair at Liverpool on account
of its title; Illusions (1881), a detailed study of illusions, dreams, hallucinations,
and delusions, commended by Freud and Wundt: “Among others, Wundt wrote to
me expressing satisfaction with the book” (Sully, 1918, p. 189); Sensation and
Intuition (1874), a collection of essays on psychology, esthetics, and ethics; and
Outlines of Psychology (1884), adopted as a class text by William James although
he thought it was too impartial (Sully, 1918, p. 190).
Sully was essentially a facilitator. He had many contacts and numbered among
his friends Alexander Bain, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, T. H. Huxley, John
Hughlings Jackson, William James, G. H. Lewes, Henry Sidgwick, James Ward,
and others. He was a member of the Sunday Tramps, a celebrated club of
pedestrians organized by Leslie Stephen, and of the Metaphysical Society, famed
for its vigorous debates between scientists and theologians. He was chosen as one
of the two secretaries for the Second International Congress of Psychology held in
London in 1892.
A set of correspondence from Sully to Galton10 provides a detailed account of
the events that led to the setting up of the laboratory. The proposal is first mentioned
in a letter dated July 7 1896:
184 History
Dear Galton,
A number of things have hindered my proceeding with the project I spoke to
you of last month. I have talked to Prof Weldon, Prof. Schafer (the
physiologist), Henry Sidgwick further. I enclose the rough draft of a circular
which I think we might send out at once. Will you kindly look through it,
suggest any alterations, & say whether you would be disposed to give your
signature to it . . . You will see that I have tried to define some of the main lines
of investigation carried out, with as little use as possible of technical language.
Yours very truly,
J Sully
Storr has a note on our project in the July No of their Journal of Education.11

There is further mention on 19 November: “. . . I hope soon to have the proposal

for founding a psycho-physical laboratory in a more acceptable form.”12
The prerequisites of a laboratory are space, equipment, and instructors. These
may depend on moral support (in the form of either favorable public opinion
or university approval) and financial support (from public funds or private
endowment). Sokal (1972) has demonstrated that the successful launch of J. McK.
Cattell’s unofficial psychological laboratory in Cambridge in 1887 depended on
the support of powerful members of the university and the fact that the venture
made no financial demands on the university. Cattell was supported by Michael
Foster, Henry Sidgwick, John Venn, and James Ward and provided his own
apparatus (brought from Leipzig where it had been made by Wundt’s technicians).
When he took it with him again, on his return to Pennsylvania to become the first
professor of psychology in the United States and the world, the Cambridge
laboratory was forced to close.
Similar factors can be seen in operation at University College London, the
difference perhaps being that in this case these prerequisites were systematically
orchestrated by Sully, who called a meeting to discuss his proposal in March 1897,
writing to Galton as follows:

Dear Galton,
A meeting of an informal character is to be held in the Council Rooms of
University College on Monday the 15th, at half past 4 oclock, in order to
discuss the desirability of establishing a Laboratory of Experimental
Psychology under the management of a trained teacher. It is felt by a number
of friends of the College that such an institution would greatly add to its
efficiency, and would probably attract not merely students of science but those
preparing to be teachers and others who would by means of such a laboratory
have the opportunity of acquiring familiarity with the methods now carried out
in Germany, America and France for measuring sense-capacity and the
simpler mental processes.
I shall feel greatly obliged if you can show your interest in the proposal by
attending the meeting.
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 185
Yours very faithfully,
James Sully
Thanks for your card. I really mean pushing on this time—if I see any chance
of success K. Pearson & others will attend the meeting.13

Both Galton and Pearson did attend the meeting, which in fact took place on 20
March. It was chaired by Sir Douglas Galton, K.C.B., Francis Galton’s cousin, who
had been president of the British Association two years previously, and was
attended by R. B. Haldane, Q.C., M.P.; John Hughlings Jackson, the neurologist;
W. H. R. Rivers; Francis Storr, editor of the Journal of Education; and all the
science professors at the College: George Carey Foster, professor of Physics (who
had introduced the systematic leaching of experimental physics to students);
William Ramsay, professor of Chemistry (subsequently a Nobel prize winner);
Edward H. Schäfer, professor of Human Physiology; and W. F. R. Weldon,
professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy. Karl Pearson was professor of
Applied Mathematics. All attendors except Haldane, Storr, and Sully either were
or were to become Fellows of the Royal Society. It was resolved unanimously that
it was “eminently desirable to establish a Laboratory for Experimental Psychology
in University College.”14
The professors of Physics and Physiology offered to lend accommodation and
apparatus, at least on a temporary basis. This seems to have been a general pattern.
In Cambridge, J. J. Thomson, professor of Experimental Physics and director of
the Cavendish Laboratory, had offered Cattell space, the use of some of his own
laboratory’s equipment, and even “a boy to wait” (Sokal, 1972, p. 146). Michael
Foster had given Rivers a room for his laboratory in the Physiology Department
in 1897. Likewise at Oxford, McDougall had been allowed to establish his
psychophysical laboratory in 1904 in the physiological laboratory, with support
from Gotch and later Sherrington (Oldfield, 1950).
However, Sully needed to raise funds to secure further apparatus and the services
of an instructor. It was thought advisable to attempt a course of instruction extending
over one term only in the first instance and that, in view of the assistance offered
by the physics and physiology departments, an outlay of about £100 would suffice.
A committee was formed, consisting of Galton, Pearson, Rivers, Carey Foster,
Schäfer, and Sully (as secretary), that was charged with ascertaining the probable
cost, and sending out a letter soliciting donations.15 Sully contrived to get reports
of the meeting and appeals for funds published. On 11 April he wrote to Galton:

I have sent out now about 80 letters, also one to each of the Editors of “Nature”
& the “Athenaeum,” asking him to call attention to the movement. I think that
this ought to make the thing known. Unfortunately I was not in time for this
month’s “Mind.” Ought I to send note to any other journal?16

Sully was successful in getting announcements in the Athenaeum, where it

appeared under “Science Gossip”;17 Nature, which carried a very full report;18 and
186 History
the Journal of Education, which published a long letter from him, despite his
protesting to Galton:

I cannot undertake to write an article on the Psychol. Laboratory. My work,

particularly heavy just now is in arrears, & I am worried by a troublesome
family business. Will you not write our article? You can do this kind of thing
so well, and it would have so much more might coming from you, an outsider,
so deeply interested in the subject. Do, please, consider this proposal. I can
readily supply you with notes which Rivers is drawing up for me . . .19

The letter to the Journal of Education, dated 20 May, which appeared under the
title: “Proposed Laboratory for Experimental Psychology at University College”
and ended with an appeal, explained the aims of the proposal:

The proposed laboratory is not, as one London journal appeared to think,

a place where confiding mothers may deposit their infants in order that a
learned professor may ascertain by experiment whether, for example, they
can discriminate what are to us offensive tastes, or, like their simian ancestors,
hang with their whole weight on to a bar.20 Nor does it intend to follow out
the rather exciting lines of investigation which busy themselves with the occult
phenomena or “visions” and the like.

The laboratory modestly proposes merely to study the familiar mental pro-
cesses as they can be observed in older children and adults.21

Although Sully is generally and correctly credited with the initiative in setting up
the laboratory (Bellot, 1969; Hearnshaw, 1964; Hicks, 1928), the correspondence
reveals that he sought Galton’s detailed advice at every stage of the process, as is
apparent from the following letters:

Will you kindly look through the enclosed? I have, as you see, finally
shortened my letter. Do you think that I now say enough?
I suggest a few words which might be added on p. 4. I have written down as
nearly as possible what you dictated to me.
Have you any suggestions as to the printing. Should my letter go on a second
page by itself? Should a single leaf, or a double leaf be used, & what sized
leaf, & type do you recommend?
I am sorry to trouble you about these details, but I have not had much
experience in this kind of thing.22
Of course I will send you a proof before getting the printer to strike off the
copies.
Yours very truly,
J Sully23
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 187
Very many thanks for your valuable suggestions as to the way of keeping
accounts which I will duly carry out—I do not understand that you wish me
to suggest in the letter that cheques should be payable to the Psychological
Laboratory Account at my bank. If you think this desirable & would send a
line for me to have tomorrow evening I could still add it, as I am to see a revisn.
In sending a note to “Nature,” “Mind,” & to the “Athenaeum” it might be well
to mention this. What do you think?
Thanks for the cheque. I enclose formal acknowledgement.
Yours very faithfully, J Sully24

Can you give me any suggestions as to sending out letters? Perhaps some
names have occurred to you. I propose to send a small number of letters to
each member of the Organizing Committee. The difficulty is, I suspect, to
awaken interest. Calling on people is normal according to Haldane, but I am
not sure that I should succeed in this kind of work.
I feel almost ashamed at giving you so much trouble in this matter.
Yours very truly, J Sully25

Why was Sully dependent on Galton in this way? Apart from the fact, already
noted, that it is generally a wise policy to gain the support of powerful others, there
are a number of other reasons why this was a sensible strategy for Sully and reasons
for his choice of Galton as an ally. Setting up the laboratory was only one incident
in a full and varied life. There is no mention of it at all in his autobiography (Sully,
1918). The University College period is dealt with in only one of the thirteen
chapters. The topics meriting discussion, and presumably therefore of greatest
importance to him, are the Grote Chair, the International Congress, his books
Studies of Childhood and the Essay on Laughter, and the founding of the British
Association (Education Section). Sully was a writer rather than an experimentalist.
His books and articles took precedence over everything else, witness the following
aside: “The lecturing, which I put into the afternoons so as to secure the morning
hours for writing, did not trouble me much” (Sully, 1918, p. 179). During his eleven
years in office, he was busy with many other things. In addition to the various
activities mentioned earlier, he was involved in the formation of the British
Association for Child Study in 1894 and convened the meeting at which the British
Psychological Society was formed in 1901. He also became embroiled in
administration:

Later on as the long-discussed proposal of a Teaching University approached

realization the administrative work of the college began to take up more and
more of my working hours. At one time I was Chairman of one Board of
Studies and a member of two other boards; and the frequent meetings . . . made
considerable inroads on my working day.
(Sully, 1918, p. 235–236)
188 History
It is the more remarkable that he managed to devote as much time and energy to
setting up the laboratory as he did. Finally, he was relatively inexperienced in
university politics, having only been in post for five years. Despite his sociability,
Hearnshaw (1962, p. 2) describes him as “not very forceful.” This accords with
Sully’s own self-description as “one whose spirit was apt to be clogged with
doubts” (Sully, 1918, p. 223). The correspondence evinces repeated evidence of
lack of confidence.
Galton was an obvious choice for his advisor. He was highly respected in the
scientific world (having twice been invited to become president of the British
Association). He had demonstrated his success as a scientific entrepreneur in
setting up his own laboratory, which was in existence in London from 1884 to 1891,
and had been engaged in psychological work for the previous thirty years. Sully
and Galton had known each other for some considerable time. In reviewing Croom
Robertson’s papers, Sully (1895) mentions that he and Galton were members of a
“small band of philosophic students” often to be found at Robertson’s house in
London. Several letters from Galton to Sully dating from 188026 reveal discussion
of a variety of psychological topics, including visualization, illusions, heredity,
dreams, seasickness, and child development. They had also collaborated on a
number of occasions, as in the visit to asylums with Alexander Bain in 1886 to
investigate the “prehension of idiots,” a study published in Mind (Galton, 1887).
The response to the appeal for funds was at first rather disappointing:

I regret to say that the responses to the letter are very few—disappointingly
so. The interest in the subject seems to be very limited. Can you suggest
anything else that I can do on my own authority, or would you advise me to
call another meeting of the committee just yet?27

But gradually donations and subscriptions came in. Henry Sidgwick contributed
£25, R. B. Haldane contributed £10 for five years, and A. J. Balfour, M.P.
(subsequently Prime Minister), contributed £5 for three years. Other contributors
were Francis Galton himself, Mr. Potter, Sir John Lubbock (the entomologist),
Shadworth Hodgson (the philosopher), and Dr. (Sir George) Savage (the psy-
chiatrist). By the end of the year, the donations totalled £162 and subscriptions
totalled £19 (rising to £25) for three to four years. However, by far the largest and
most important contribution was an anonymous donation.
Apart from that loaned by the Departments of Physics and Physiology, most of
the equipment came from Freiburg, whence Hugo Münsterberg was departing for
Harvard, as successor to William James. Münsterberg not only offered “cordial
assistance in planning a course of suitable instruction”28 but also equipment. The
purchase of this was enabled through the anonymous donation. Again, the details
are provided in the correspondence:

I have just had an offer from Münsterberg to let us have some of his apparatus
collected for some years & improved by himself for £150. He is, it seems,
going back to Harvard, & does not want to take his apparatus with him. I have
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 189
answered his note saying that I will let him know later, but that I fear we have
not have [sic] sufficient funds for accepting his tempting proposal.
Many thanks for your offer of pecuniary help.
Very truly yours, J Sully
I enclose Münsterberg’s letter.29

“I have a fresh offer from Münsterberg of selected apparatus for £90.1 have sent
it on to Rivers for him to see whether it will suffice for the scheme of work he has
drawn up. I will send it on to you later.”30
In fact, Rivers advised against:

Dr Rivers is strongly of opinion that we should not accept Prof. Münsterberg’s

second offer. Some of the apparatus he includes is not needed, other has been
improved upon & other again is too complex & special. Ought I, do you think,
on the strength of this opinion, to decline the offer, or to await the judgment
of the Committee?31

And then, on 9 May:

At last a little encouragement. A German lady a former student at Un. College

& a pupil of mine, who is now working with Prof Münsterberg at Freiburg
gives us a donation of £70 in order that we may buy Prof M’s apparatus. He
will come over next month & arrange things. I think we cannot but accept this
even if some of the apparatus may not be just what we want.
The lady’s name is to be known only to myself*, but we may use the fact of
the donation with a view to urge others to assist.32
Yours very truly, J Sully
*It is not to be known to Prof M.33

It has been possible to identify the lady in question, from the fees books that are
still in the college’s possession, as Mrs. Lucy Frentzen-Hoesch of Godesburg. She
studied mind and logic under Sully from 1893 to 1896 and was “over 21” on entry
to the college. There are no records of her subsequent career at Freiburg, only
documents concerned with problems over Münsterberg’s habilitation thesis.34
However, the address given for her in the University College London records,
of Villa Hoesch, Godesburg, suggests that either she or her husband was
wealthy. One can only speculate now about the particular motivation for her
gift. Perhaps a clue is afforded by Sully’s remarks about his teaching experi-
ences at the college:

Fortunately, classes were open to women, who numbered a good half of my

students . . . However small my class, it never diminished to a single student,
190 History
as it did when I was lecturing at a ladies’ college, when, of course, the student
was duly chaperoned.
(Sully, 1918, p. 235)

There is a parallel at Oxford, where an anonymous gift of £10,000 from Mrs. Hugh
Watts, a friend and patient of William Brown’s, enabled the founding of the
Institute of Experimental Psychology in 1936. At Cambridge too, C. S. Myers,
through his wife’s family, supplied most of the finances required for the develop-
ment of the laboratory there in 1912.
The equipment, whose purchase Mrs. Frentzen-Hoesch’s gift enabled, is
described by Flugel (1954, p. 24) as belonging to “what might be called the
classical period of experimental psychology,” still in existence at the time of his
writing, and “in some cases rather crude in workmanship.” According to the present
curator, Jim Chambers, the collection is still in the department’s possession. Of
the pieces currently on display, the Hipp chronoscope, Universal Kontakt apparatus
enabling sequential presentation of lights and sounds, aesthesiometer, auditory
acuity tester, and self-sustained tuning fork are almost certainly survivors from
the original set.
By the time the announcement appeared in Mind in July 1897, things were pretty
well sewn up:

A laboratory for experimental psychology will be opened in University

College, London, in October next. The committee have secured a considerable
part of the apparatus collected by Prof. Hugo Münsterberg of Freiburg, who
is about to migrate permanently to Harvard College. Among those who have
contributed to the movement are Mr F. Galton, Prof. H. Sidgwick, Mr A. J.
Balfour, Mr R. B. Haldane, Sir John Lubbock, Mr Shadworth Hodgson, and
Dr Savage. It is hoped that the name of George Croom Robertson may in some
way be connected with the laboratory. It is further hoped that Dr W. H. R.
Rivers whose work as a teacher in Cambridge and elsewhere is well known
will be able to start the work of the laboratory and superintend it during the
October term.35

In fact, the laboratory did not open until the following year.
Rivers had given occasional lectures on experimental psychology at the college
prior to his appointment in Cambridge as Lecturer in the Physiology of the Special
Senses in 1893 (Hearnshaw, 1964). He had published experimental work on tactile
sensations from crossed fingers (Rivers, 1894) and with Kraepelin on addition and
fatigue (published in Psychologische Arbeiten [1897]), as well as a number of
important papers on color vision.
In February 1898, the following report was issued:

The Committee have much pleasure in stating that the work of the Laboratory
commenced on the 17th of January. Dr W. H. R. Rivers of Cambridge, who
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 191
has undertaken the direction of the work for the present Session, is now
meeting a class of seven students on Monday and Thursday afternoons . . .36

Details of the work that was carried out are to be found in the Annual Report of
the College for 1897–98:

The work consisted of the experimental investigation of such points as the

following:—The discovery of the spots of the skin of the fore-arm sensi-
tive to pressure, and to hot and to cold objects respectively: the estimation of
length of line by sight and by touch: the discrimination of lifted weights: the
estimation of the pitch of tones: the estimation of very short time-intervals.
The students themselves were the subjects of these experiments, and they
appeared to be greatly interested in the researches. As Dr Rivers was
unfortunately unable to continue teaching,37 Mr E. T. Dixon of Cambridge
conducted the class during the first term of the 1898–9 session. There were
seven students, two of whom were Medical graduates.

The Laboratory is now located in its own room. The Committee are very
desirous of purchasing additional apparatus and of securing the services of a
permanent instructor. In order that this plan may be carried out, more funds
are needed . . . [The committee] are the more anxious to do this as there is
reason to hope that the University of London is disposed to include the Subject
of Experimental Psychology in the Schedule for the Final B.Sc. Examination.38

Experimental psychology was included among the subjects for the London
University final bachelor of science examination in 1903. The assessment included
a written examination, a full day’s practical examination incorporating a viva voce,
and submission of a laboratory notebook.
E. T. Dixon is infamous for his offer to Haddon of a Hipp chronoscope that,
though “it would not do for very accurate experiments,” he thought would “be
suitable for savages” (Mollon & Polden, 1978, p. 555). Although most of his work
was on logic and geometry, he was collaborating with Rivers in true Leipzig style
(Danziger, 1990) and had published an important study on depth perception
(Dixon, 1895), for which Rivers and Venn had served as observers (Rivers, 1896).
E. T. Dixon remained as director of the laboratory for the next two years, being
succeeded by William McDougall in 1900 (appointed Reader in Experimental
Psychology in 1903). McDougall seems to have spent only one day a week in the
cramped conditions (one room used as a library store), carrying out most of his
experimental work on vision in two attic rooms in his house (McDougall, 1930);39
by 1904, he was working at Oxford as Wilde Reader and was undertaking experi-
mental work, despite the terms of his appointment. Charles Spearman succeeded
McDougall as director of the laboratory at the college in 1907, which was shortly
thereafter rehoused in more commodious and appropriate quarters (Flugel, 1954).
One of the ablest researchers before World War I was A. Wohlgemuth, skilled in
the construction and use of apparatus, whose doctoral work on the aftereffects of
192 History
seen movement was published as the first monograph supplement of the British
Journal of Psychology (Wohlgemuth, 1911).
Sully resigned his chair in 1903, spending some of his remaining twenty years
abroad in Italy and contributing less to intellectual life in London. He was
succeeded by Carveth Read, who had studied under Wundt in Leipzig and Kuno
Fischer in Heidelberg. Another frequent contributor to Mind, his interests became
increasingly psychological. He gave a course of 80 lectures on general psychology,
covering special psychological topics in the third term. Although full of admiration
for experimental methodology, he had little aptitude for dealing with apparatus
himself. Flugel (1954, p. 24) describes him as “a man of conceptual and verbal
rather than practical or manipulative capacity.”
Spearman succeeded to the Grote Chair in 1911, finally becoming professor of
psychology in 1928. He was followed by Cyril Burt who, writing of his work at
the college, stated that his main aim had been “to make it a focus for that branch
of psychology which was founded and developed there by Galton—‘individual’
or, as Stern used to call it, ‘differential’ psychology” (Burt, 1952, p. 72). The work
of Spearman and Burt constituted the London School of differential psychology
and psychometrics. During his lifetime, Galton’s activities were somewhat separate
from psychology at University College London; his own laboratory was in South
Kensington, his guiding interest was eugenics, and his direct influence at the
college was through Karl Pearson (neither Galton nor Pearson were ever members
of the Psychology Department). Nevertheless, in the longer term, his interests came
to be pursued in the Department of Psychology at University College London.

Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge permission to reproduce material from the Galton Papers
325, University College London Library, and I thank Gill Furlong, college
archivist, and Kate Manners, assistant archivist, for their guidance and assistance
with the correspondence. I am indebted to Joanna Shaddock, superintendent of the
Records Office, for searching the fees books for the anonymous donor.

Notes
1 Arthur MacDonald, who established a laboratory at the U.S. Bureau of Education in
Washington, D.C. See Gilbert (1977).
2 Journal of Education, May 1896, p. 293.
3 Journal of Education, July 1896, p. 496.
4 Nature, 55, no. 1433, April 1897, p. 564.
5 Whittle, P. (1998). W. H. R. Rivers: A Founding Father Worth Remembering. Talk
given to the Zangwill Club, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of
Cambridge.
6 Journal of Education, June 1897, p. 355.
7 Report of the meeting held to discuss setting up the laboratory, 5 April 1897. Galton
Papers 325, University College London Library.
8 Journal of Education, June 1897, p. 355.
9 University College London Calendar, 1868–9, p. 34.
 “Dear Galton . . . Yours truly, J Sully” 193
10 Correspondence from Sully to Galton. Galton Papers 325, University College London
Library.
11 See Note 10.
12 Letter from Sully to Galton, 19 November 1896. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
13 Letter from Sully to Galton, 4 March 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
14 Proposed Psychological Laboratory at University College London, p. 2. Galton Papers
325, University College London Library.
15 See Note 14.
16 Letter from Sully to Galton, 11 April 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
17 Athenaeum, no. 3624, 10 April 1897, pp. 483–484.
18 Nature, 55, no. 1433, April 1897, p. 564.
19 Letter from Sully to Galton, 17 May 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
20 Oliver Braddick, co-director of the Visual Development Unit, University College
London, observes that this is precisely what happens now, drawing my attention to the
well-known picture of Watson testing a neonate’s grasp reflex in this way.
21 Journal of Education, June 1897, p. 355.
22 These protestations are all the more surprising given Sully’s long experience in
journalism. His first job, and entree to the world of publishing, was as assistant to John
Morley, editor of the Fortnightly Review.
23 Letter from Sully to Galton, 23 March 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
24 Letter from Sully to Galton, 2 April 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
25 Letter from Sully to Galton, 3 April 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
26 Miscellaneous letters to Sully. MS Add. 158, no. 3, University College London Library.
27 Letter from Sully to Galton, 27 April 1897, Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
28 Proposed Psychological Laboratory at University College London, p. 3. Galton Papers
325, University College London Library.
29 Letter from Sully to Galton, 26 March 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library. Alas, Münsterberg’s letter no longer accompanies Sully’s.
30 Letter from Sully to Galton, 11 April 1897, Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
31 Letter from Sully to Galton, 27 April 1897, Galton Papers 325, University College
London Library.
32 The ploy was indeed used in the appeal that ended the letter to the Journal of Education:
“In order that the laboratory may be started and kept going till it is self-supporting,
annual subscriptions for three or four years are needed. One former student of the
College, a lady, has given £70 for the purchase of apparatus. Are there no old students
among the readers of your Journal who would like to do a good turn at once to their
College and to the cause of education?” Journal of Education, June 1897, p. 356.
33 Letter from Sully to Galton, 9 May 1897. Galton Papers 325, University College London
Library.
34 I am indebted to Robin Rollinger for pursuing this for me.
35 Mind, VI, 1897, p. 448.
36 Report of the Psychological Laboratory Committee, February 1898. Galton Papers 325,
University College London Library.
37 Rivers set off with C. S. Myers and William McDougall on the Cambridge
anthropological expedition to the Torres Straits.
194 History
38 University College London, Annual Report (1897–1898), 17.
39 N.B. his confession in a footnote: “My work was chiefly done where there was no
electric current at my disposal” (McDougall, 1904, p. 162).

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18 Spooks and spoofs
Relations between psychical research
and academic psychology in Britain
in the inter-war period

Abstract
This article describes the relations between academic psychology and psychical
research in Britain during the inter-war period, in the context of the fluid boundaries
between mainstream psychology and both psychical research and popular
psychology. Specifically, the involvement with Harry Price of six senior academic
psychologists: William McDougall, William Brown, J. C. Flugel, Cyril Burt,
C. Alec Mace and Francis Aveling, is described. Personal, metaphysical and socio-
historical factors in their collaboration are discussed. It is suggested that the main
reason for their mutual attraction was their common engagement in a delicate
balancing act between courting popular appeal on the one hand and the assertion
of scientific expertise and authority on the other. Their interaction is typical of
the boundary work performed at this transitional stage in the development
of psychology as a discipline.

Psychology in Britain in the early 20th century

Although psychology as a discipline began at the turn of the century—marked by
the founding of laboratories, a professional society and a journal—it was an
extremely small-scale operation in a primitive state of development for several
decades. By about 1920, there were growing signs of independence. A separate
Psychology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science was
formed in 1921; the following year the British Psychological Society abandoned
joint meetings with philosophical societies since “the divergence of interest was
becoming too wide for common . . . meetings to be profitable” (Edgell, 1947, p.
112). But in 1939 there were still only about 30 university posts in psychology
(Hearnshaw, 1964, p. 208); it did not become established as a recognized
occupation until after the Second World War. Hence, as Aveling (1937, p. v),
writing on the position of psychology in the 1930s, remarked: “Scientific psy-
chology must still be said to be in a state of transition, and not yet fully to have
found its feet.”
Its progress has been beset by two perennial problems. The first is what Bunn
(2001, p. 3) refers to as “the variegated character of the new discipline”: its diversity
 Psychical research and academic psychology 197
and fragmented nature. Aveling (1937, p. 84), having reviewed six different
approaches, commented: “Neither on its scope, its definition, nor its method are
all psychologists entirely agreed.” Likewise, Flugel, engaged in a similar project,
after discussing nine different schools, observed that, although psychology “has
made great progress” (Flugel, 1933, p. 357), it is “still infantile, still relatively
unco-ordinated” (ibid., p. 358), admitting that it “may still be uncertain about its
own nature” (ibid., p. 360). As Richards (2001, p. 49) remarks, “Psychology’s
understanding of what constituted its appropriate subject matter was itself some-
thing which had to be forged within specific historical and social contexts”. Some
are of the opinion that the situation has not been ameliorated, Smith (1988,
p. 154–155) going so far as to claim that “‘psychology’ is not a unified body of
knowledge with a common core of mutually consistent concepts; indeed, it is a
highly contentious philosophical question whether it could ever achieve a unified
theory”.
The second problem is insecurity with respect to its scientific status. It is seen
as continually struggling to establish its scientific credentials (Richards, 1987,
p. 202): “a discipline anxious to defend its own rather tenuous claims to scien-
tific authority and firm disciplinary boundaries” (Thomson, 2006, p. 6). Both these
factors—its ill-defined nature and its precarious position as a science—contributed
to the importance of what has been called boundary work in the development of
psychology (Derksen, 1997; Thomson, 2006).

Boundary work
The post-Kuhnian view is that science is distinguished from non-science not by
criteria of falsification and repeatability but by dynamic and complex social
manoeuvres. As Kohler (1982, p. 1) observed, “Disciplines are political institutions
that demarcate areas of academic territory, allocate privileges and responsibilities
of expertise, and structure claims on resources”. Boundary work is an attempt to
create a public image for science by contrasting it favourably with non-scientific
activities, in order to justify claims to authority and resources. Such activity may
be used to achieve expansion, monopolization, or protection of autonomy over
professional activities (Gieryn, 1983). In the present context, two boundaries are
of particular interest: that between professional and popular psychology, and that
between academic psychology and psychical research.
The proximity of professional to popular or lay psychology is particularly close.
Many scholars have drawn attention to psychology’s cultural embeddedness.
Thomson (2006) even questions the division between professional and amateur
up to the Second World War. Richards (1987, p. 211) has pointed to the ambiguity
of the term ‘psychology’ to refer to both the discipline and its subject matter; and
Derksen reveals the resulting tension in demarcating professional psychology from
common sense when the latter forms its subject matter. Paradoxically, demarcation
necessitates popularization, in order to “reap the rewards of funds, clients, students,
and trust” (Derksen, 1997, p. 436). As psychology shifted away from philosophy
towards the natural sciences, great emphasis was placed on detached observation,
198 History
accurate measurement and recording. Boundary work often involved the creation
of material and social spaces such as laboratories, which defined scientific work
(Bordogna, 2008, p. 27). Technical equipment and specialized training became
the hallmarks of scientific activity.

Academic psychology and psychical research

For the first part of the 20th century, there were also fluid boundaries between
academic psychology and psychical research. The terms ‘psychological’ and
‘psychical’ were used interchangeably up to 1920 to mean mental as opposed to
physical, ‘psychological’ sometimes being used to refer to what later became
known as the paranormal (Coon, 1992). In 1906 the British Psychological Society
changed its name from the ‘Psychological Society’ to “prevent confusion” with
an “unacademic group” (Edgell, 1947, p. 116). It is likely that this group was the
London Psycho-Therapeutic Society, also founded in 1901, and that members
of the professional society wished to dissociate themselves from any taint of
mysticism belonging to this eccentric fringe (Bunn, 2001, p. 18).
Coon (1992) has described three strategies that American experimental
psychologists used to create and maintain boundaries between psychology and
psychical research (regarded as pseudo-scientific), at the turn of the 20th century.
These were demonstrating the fraudulence of, and/or providing naturalistic
explanations for, claimed psychical phenomena (strategies pursued by Hugo
Münsterberg) or investigating how people could possibly believe in such
phenomena, through the psychology of deception and belief (developed by Joseph
Jastrow). Coon argues that they used these “modes of combat” to legitimate
scientific psychology and to create a new role for themselves as guardians of the
scientific worldview. They were thus able to satisfy the public’s interest in
spiritualism and psychic phenomena, but at the same time assert their authority as
experts.
Wolffram (2009) has explored the multiple boundary disputes that surrounded
the emergence of psychical research and parapsychology in Imperial and inter-
war Germany. She sees psychical research as a border science between psychology
and spiritualism: psychologists distanced themselves from psychical research and
psychical researchers distanced themselves from spiritualism. Although the initial
development of psychical research in Germany during the late 19th century was
an attempt to expand the frontiers of psychology to counter the prevailing
materialistic Weltanschauung, it trespassed on the territory and epistemic authority
of other disciplines, leading to counter-attacks, thus helping both their practitioners
and their opponents to highlight, negotiate and remedy methodological and
epistemological problems within contemporary science. Lachapelle (2005), in
discussing psychical research in France in the 1920s, takes a slightly different view.
She suggests that psychical research is destined to remain at the margins. Since
much of its audience and frequently its financial support come from those outside
the scientific world, who may hold spiritualist beliefs, it is impossible for it to
achieve acceptance by mainstream science.
 Psychical research and academic psychology 199
Indeed, psychical researchers have been ambivalent in their attitude towards
mainstream science. Some have seen psychical research as part of mainstream
science. Frederic Myers, one of the prime movers of the Society for Psychical
Research (SPR), wrote: “So far from aiming at any paradoxical reversion of
established scientific conclusions, we conceive ourselves to be working (however
imperfectly) in the main track of discovery, and assailing a problem which, though
strange and hard, does yet stand next in order among the new adventures on which
Science must needs set forth” (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886, p. xxxvi). On
the other hand, for others what came to be known as parapsychology was defined
as being in opposition to science: “Parapsychology means the scientific study of
the ‘paranormal’, that is, of phenomena which in one or more respects conflict
with accepted scientific opinion as to what is physically possible” (Beloff, 1974,
p. 1). For these researchers psychical research was an attempt to study phenomena
not so far explained by mainstream science and motivated by the perceived
limitations of the latter. On this view, seeking recognition by mainstream science
is misguided.
The attitude of mainstream psychologists towards psychical research has
generally been hostile. A notable exception is the active involvement of a number
of senior academic psychologists with Harry Price’s National Laboratory of
Psychical Research and the University of London Council for Psychical
Investigation in the inter-war years in Britain. After sketching the early period,
this article will describe Price’s attempts to cultivate academic psychologists, and
the role of several of these in psychical research in the inter-war period. Finally,
the question is addressed of why academic psychologists cooperated with someone
of dubious integrity and lacking scientific credentials.

The early days of the Society for Psychical Research

The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in 1882 (see Gauld, 1968;
Haynes, 1982; and Oppenheim, 1985 for detailed accounts), in an era of spiri-
tualism, to study “phenomena which are prima facie inexplicable on any generally
recognised hypothesis” (Sidgwick, 1882–3, p. 3). The aim of the society was “to
approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind,
and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled
Science to solve so many problems” (ibid., p. 4).
In this early period, there were close links between psychical research and
mainstream psychology. Many psychologists were members of the SPR. The
following were presidents of the society: William James (1894–5), William
McDougall (1920–1), T. W. Mitchell (1922), R. H. Thouless (1942–4), Gardner
Murphy (1949–50).1 C. S. Myers and G. F. Stout were associate members. R. A.
Fisher, who assisted with the statistical analysis of a number of the experiments,
was an honorary member. Théodore Flournoy, Sigmund Freud, Pierre Janet, Carl
Jung, G. Stanley Hall and Morton Prince were corresponding members.
Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder member and chief researcher of the SPR, was
joint secretary of the Second International Congress of Experimental Psychology,
200 History
held in London in 1892, half of which was devoted to hypnotism and related
topics.2 Speakers included Henry Sidgwick and Frederic Myers on hallucinations,
and Eleanor Sidgwick on experiments in thought transference.
There were also close relations between psychical research and psychoanalysis.
Keeley (2002) has cogently argued that Freud had a lifelong interest in psychical
research, and that it played a crucial role in the development of psychoanalytic
theory, providing Freud both with many of his ideas and with the stimulus for their
development. The SPR was the route by which Freud’s work became known in
England. Frederic Myers gave an account of the 1893 paper on hysteria by Breuer
and Freud at a general meeting of the society three months after it appeared. Freud
was invited to contribute a paper to a special ‘medical’ issue of the Proceedings,
which he wrote in English (Freud, 1912). Among psychologists who became
interested in psychoanalysis in this way were James Strachey, Freud’s translator,
who was present when this paper was read. It is possible that William McDougall
and J. C. Flugel also first came across psychoanalysis through membership of the
society (Hinshelwood, 1995).

The inter-war period

Although psychical research was born in the spiritualist era towards the end of the
19th century, there was considerable activity in this area in the inter-war period.
An examination of the relevant databases for occurrences of ‘psychical research’
in both Nature and The Times, shows they peaked during the 1920s and 1930s (see
Figures 18.1 and 18.2), contrary to Inglis’s (1984, p. 314) claim that Nature rarely
permitted itself to consider the topic.

140

120

100
Frequency

80

60

40

20

Figure 18.1 Articles on psychical research in Nature

 Psychical research and academic psychology 201

120

100

80
Frequency

60

40

20

Figure 18.2 References to psychical research in The Times

The First World War led to an increased interest in telepathy and the possibility
of survival after death, as a result of the massive number of bereavements. It is
perhaps not without significance that many of those interested in psychical research,
notably Oliver Lodge, Arthur Conan Doyle and Samuel Soal, had lost relatives in
the trenches, though it may be oversimplified to suggest that a hope of contacting
the deceased was their sole motive. Lodge became interested in psychical research
long before his son’s death and Soal remained sceptical about survival.3 Member-
ship of the SPR reached a peak in 1920, but by 1930 it had dropped to almost half
this figure (Inglis, 1984). The society was in disarray, split by factions (Mauskopf
and McVaugh, 1980, p. 211). There were disputes about both metaphysical and
methodological issues. The so-called left wing contained spiritualists or others
dedicated to seeking evidence for survival after death, while members of the more
conservative right wing were intent merely on demonstrating the inadequacy of what
they regarded as materialistic and mechanistic dogmas. The ‘High-and-Dry’ faction
of the SPR strove to maintain rigorous scientific standards, whereas the Not-High-
and-Dry school questioned the appropriateness of such methods for the study of
psychical phenomena, arguing that the craving for scientific respectability had
distracted attention from spontaneous phenomena. Many considered the experi-
mental approach counter-productive in this area, and that introducing the necessary
controls militates against the production of supernormal phenomena. The study of
‘physical’ mediums4 demonstrated the impossibility of full control and the con-
sequent difficulty of conclusively ruling out fraud—often compounded by financial
interests on the part of the mediums. The division of opinion over subject matter,
methods of investigation and theoretical explanations, as in the case of academic
psychology, resulted in incoherence and vulnerability to boundary disputes.
202 History
A number of rival institutions stepped into the breach. The British College of
Psychic Science was founded in 1920.5 Its members felt that the SPR was failing
in its duty, and wanted to encourage the study of mediums. It had three departments
of work: instruction, demonstrations and research. Although eclectic in spirit, it
favoured “a human and practical approach rather than a cold and often negative
scientific attitude”;6 and most of the reports in its journal, Psychic Science, relied
on personal experiences and anecdotal evidence. The International Institute for
Psychical Research was established in 1934,7 also spiritualist in inspiration while
claiming to be scientific. Although it was initially supported by reputable scientists,
including the biologist Julian Huxley, they resigned after a few months when its
survivalist leanings became clear, and the institute merged with the British College
of Psychic Science. In between these, the National Laboratory of Psychical
Research was set up in 1926 by Harry Price.
Harry Price (1881–1948) was a businessman and amateur psychical researcher.
A salesman for 40 years for paper merchants, he was a man with many skills:
conjuror (and member of the Inner Magic Circle), photographer, engineer,
numismatist, writer, journalist and bibliophile. Morris (2006, p. 213), in a recent
biography, describes him as “a supreme bluffer, a hedonistic con man, a terrific
raconteur, a great conjuror, a gifted writer and a wonderful eccentric”. Defensive
about his working-class origins, Price sought academic recognition. His lifelong
passion was psychical research to which he devoted an enormous amount of energy
and finances but his approach and values were those of a businessman rather than
a scientist. He craved fame and publicity, and was prepared to sacrifice truth and
integrity in pursuit of them if necessary. Although he was a lifelong member of
the Society for Psychical Research, which he joined in 1920, the two were at
daggers drawn.

The National Laboratory of Psychical Research

The National Laboratory of Psychical Research was founded “to investigate in a
dispassionate manner and by purely scientific means, every phase of psychic or
alleged psychic phenomena” and “to provide facilities for experimentation” (Price,
1931, endpapers). It was formally opened “in a flurry of media attention”
(Randall, 2000, p. 163). A. A. Campbell Swinton, the television pioneer and an
F.R.S., suggested that Price had named it thus so that people would think it was
on a par with the National Physical Laboratory!8 Honorary membership entitled
people to use the laboratory and participate in seances; lectures were also
organized. Within a very short time the membership of the laboratory topped the
800 mark, rivalling that of the SPR (Randall, 2000). Several of the world’s leading
parapsychologists, including the German Albert Schrenck-Notzing and the
Frenchmen Eugène Osty and René Sudre, were on its council. The psychologists
William Brown, William McDougall and J. C. Flugel were members of a “London
group available for participating in experimental work” (Price, 1931, endpapers)
and Flugel was on its board. Between 1926 and 1932 the laboratory carried out
series of sittings with (mostly physical) mediums, including the Austrian Rudi
 Psychical research and academic psychology 203
Schneider and the Scotswoman Helen Duncan. Physical mediums had the dual
advantage of providing objectively observable ‘hard’ data to satisfy scientists and
suitable fodder for newspaper publicity to satisfy the general populace. Reports
were published in research bulletins, a journal, books and newspaper articles.
Articles were also submitted to the Revue Métapsychique and Zeitschrift für
Parapsychologie.
Price aimed to appeal both to scientists and to the lay public: “It has always
been the policy of the Laboratory to invite both the Press and official science to
our tests” (Price, 1930, p. 19). In fact, initially ‘experimental’ seances to which
scientists were invited alternated with ‘demonstrations’ for ‘interested others’.
Reporters from several national newspapers and a representative from the British
Broadcasting Corporation attended some of the seances; and articles were sub-
mitted to other newspapers.
Price (1931, p. 3) maintained that “modern scientific psychical research
necessitates a great technical knowledge in many branches of science and the use
of instruments and apparatus which must astound the layman”. This is borne out
by the description of his “properly equipped séance room”: “A number of
photographic cameras, Dictaphones, time clock etc. are at hand for recording
purposes. . . . A special teak note-taker’s table, on pentagraph rubber wheels,
supports Dictaphone, rheostats, luminous watch for timing, etc. Thermographs,
barographs, and other instruments are installed for recording the meteorological
conditions” (ibid., p. 15). In addition, “ultra-violet and infra-red installations are
available and X-ray apparatus is at hand, if necessary” (ibid., p. 14). The laboratory
owned 14 cameras; the Dictaphone was used on one occasion to record the voice
of a ‘trance personality’; and the infra-red apparatus could be used to detect apports
(objects moving supernaturally)—a bell rang if the beam was interrupted.
A number of precautions were aimed at preventing cheating. The medium was
searched internally and externally. Helen Duncan’s “rectum was examined for
some distance up the alimentary canal and a very thorough vaginal examination
given” by Mollie Goldney who had “trained and worked for many months in a
midwifery hospital” (Price, 1931, p. 30). McDougall and Brown, both qualified
doctors, performed ‘medical examinations’, examining her throat, mouth and teeth.
Duncan was then sewn into a special one-piece garment,9 to which luminous strips
were attached, as they were to various objects in the seance room. In the case of
Rudi Schneider, a method of electrical control was used. The medium and sitters
wore gloves and socks containing metallic strips. They placed their feet on metal
plates and grasped the hands of their neighbours. If the circuit (a diagram of which
was reproduced in the report) was broken, a light came on. In addition, the
medium’s hands and feet were also held by two ‘controllers’. Seances took place
in the evening and lasted for three or four hours, usually with a short break at some
point. Notes were taken by Price’s secretary, using either the Dictaphone or
shorthand, and a protocol plus comments were typed up within a few days of the
sitting “when details of the incident were fresh in our memories” (ibid., p. 3). At
a later stage the note-taker was even separated from the sitters by a gauze net, after
criticisms that she might have been an accomplice.
204 History
The principal reason given for studying Schneider was Price’s determination
“that official science should have an opportunity of witnessing for itself phenomena
of unimpeachable genuineness under control conditions which had never pre-
viously been imposed upon any medium in this country” (Price, 1930, p. viii). His
efforts were indeed hailed as truly scientific by newspapers all over the world. It
was also felt “highly desirable that the Press and the public should be informed
as to what psychical research really meant under modern scientific methods of
investigation” (ibid., p. vii).
Two series of sittings, totalling 25 seances, were held with Schneider in
1929–30. William Brown was present at three of them. He took part in searching
the medium, acted as one of the controllers, and took some physiological measures.
A third series of 27 seances took place in 1932, at four of which Brown was present.
At the 26th seance, he witnessed “magnificent phenomena” (Price, 1931, p. 189):
moving curtains, ringing bells, cold breezes, table knocks, a flower taken out of
his hand, and a basket moving on his knee. Price (ibid., p. 174) commented: “Dr.
Brown was the one to whom Olga’s [Schneider’s ‘trance personality’] best
phenomena were directed and, like the rest of us, was much impressed.” Brown
was so impressed that he wrote to The Times. In a long letter giving a detailed
account of his experiences at the seance, he referred to “some unseen agency” and
“some mysterious power”, concluding that “undoubtedly the phenomena are
worthy of the closest scientific investigation”.10 The following week there was a
partial recant. Anita Gregory provides evidence that Brown was ridiculed by
colleagues at Oxford.11 In his second letter Brown said that although he had
originally been convinced that the phenomena were “supernormal”, “intellectual
conviction can only come, if at all, after much more stringent scientific investi-
gation carried out in a university laboratory, or in the séance room of the S.P.R.,
with trained scientists and psychical researchers as sitters”.12 This infuriated Price,
who felt that his work was being denigrated.13 The phenomena were initially
heralded as genuine by Price, though he later revealed that photographs taken at
the 25th seance showed Rudi to have broken control.
A series of five seances with Helen Duncan was held in 1931.14 McDougall and
Flugel each attended two, Brown three. Duncan’s act was to enter a cabinet (a
curtained-off recess in the seance room), go into trance, get taken over by a ‘con-
trol’ (or ‘trance personality’), and produce ectoplasm—taken as materializations
of the dead by bereaved sitters. After the first ‘informal’ seance, Price wrote to
McDougall (who had been unable to attend):

We had a brilliant evening last night; the medium underwent a rectal and
vaginal examination with Dr. William Brown and Mrs Goldney and was sewn
up into a one-piece garment. In thirty seconds after going into trance the
teleplasm streamed from her and I secured five magnificent photographs.15

It rapidly became clear, however, that what Duncan was doing was swallowing and
regurgitating cheesecloth when in the cabinet, unseen by sitters in the red light.
Photographs showed the warp and weft, selvedge and rents in the material. On
 Psychical research and academic psychology 205
being threatened with an X-ray machine after the fourth seance, Duncan staged a
hysterical fit. She “made a lunge at Dr. William Brown who fortunately avoided
the blow” (Price, 1931, p. 61), and dashed into the street where she was able to
pass the cloth to her husband (who subsequently refused to be searched). Price’s
report concluded that all the manifestations were “produced by normal—though
exceedingly unusual—means” (ibid., p. 83). The story was published in the
Morning Post.16 Both McDougall and Brown also wrote reports, published
as appendices to Price’s Regurgitation and the Duncan Mediumship (1931).
McDougall pronounced Duncan’s “whole performance fraudulent” (ibid., p. 111).
Brown concurred: “Nothing that I saw would have led me to attribute to her any
supernormal or ‘psychic’ power whatever” (ibid., p. 112). As early as 1899,
McDougall had warned about “‘sittings’ conducted in the dark by professional
mediums who work for pay”.17 He was also a sceptical member of the Scientific
American committee appointed to examine the Bostonian medium Margery, after
which he wrote: “I have taken part in a considerable number of investigations of
alleged supernormal phenomena; but hitherto have failed to find convincing
evidence in any case, but have found rather much evidence of fraud and trickery”
(McDougall, 1926, p. 23).

The University of London

Price attempted to develop collaborative links with a number of institutions. He
first approached the London Spiritualist Alliance and the Institut Métapsychique
International in 1929.18 The institut had been founded in Paris in 1919 with similar
aims to the SPR; its director was Eugène Osty and its president Charles Richet
(for further details, see Lachapelle, 2005). The following year Price approached
the British College of Psychic Science and the SPR. None came to fruition.19 When
these approaches failed, he made a formal offer to the University of London in 1933
to found a Department of Psychical Research. The offer included his laboratory
and library (an extensive collection of books including many rarities on psychical
research) and a guaranteed income of £500 per annum. The proposal was
considered by the Academic Council, the Board of the Faculty of Science, and the
Boards of Study in Advanced Medical Studies, Physiology, Psychology,
Philosophy, Physics and Theology. Advanced Medical Studies and Philosophy
were in favour. Physics thought it should be considered by Psychology. Theology
gave general approval, stating that its members would communicate certain
conditions to the Board of Studies in Psychology. Physiology objected, noting in
passing that “certain members of the Board of Studies in Psychology had voted
against the proposals”, on the grounds that “psychical research holds an unenviable
reputation because of its association with misrepresentation and fraud”:
“acceptance of the offer on any terms whatever by the University might easily lead
to publicity and propaganda of a type which would not bring credit to the
University” and “researches so contaminated with trickery are not suitable for
investigation in a university laboratory and should only be dealt with by specially
selected men of science”.20 Notwithstanding, with all the reports in mind, the
206 History
Academic Council concurred with the judgement of the Board of the Faculty of
Science, subsequently ratified by the Senate, that “Psychical Research is a subject
which can properly be included among the subjects of study of the University”.21
However, in the final analysis, the Senate deemed that space22 and financial
limitations prevented its implementation in practice. Mauskopf and McVaugh
(1980, p. 212) suggest that Price’s plans constituted a threat to the university’s
resources and reputation.

The University of London Council for Psychical Investigation

Nevertheless, the following year Price managed to organize a so-called University
of London Council for Psychical Investigation (ULCPI) of 10 academics, including
four psychologists: Francis A. P. Aveling, Professor of Psychology at King’s
College; Cyril Burt, Professor of Psychology at University College; J. C. Flugel,
Assistant Professor of Psychology, University College; and C. Alec Mace, Lecturer
in Philosophy and Psychology, Bedford College London. The council undertook
to supervise the work of the laboratory and to direct students in psychical research
for higher degrees.
For a while Price succeeded in engaging both mainstream scientists and the
general public, by cultivating academics and courting journalists, such as the
editors of Nature, The Listener and the Daily Mail. During this time he transferred
his assets to the university. His library, having been rejected by the SPR, was
handed over in November 1936.23 In July 1937, he was the guest of the university
at a dinner at the Athenaeum;24 but the following year the council was disbanded.
Price’s behaviour upset several of his council members on account of his disregard
for scientific integrity, his seeking of press publicity and his failure to consult them
before going ahead on such matters.25 In the end his headstrong pursuit of publicity,
if necessary at the expense of honesty, lost him academic support. So ultimately
the attempt to link psychical research with universities failed; the SPR was left to
carry on research (Mauskopf & McVaugh, 1980, p. 215).
By contrast, in the United States, William McDougall, who had emigrated there
in 1920, successfully shifted his focus from societies to universities with enormous
implications for the field. It is intriguing to speculate on what might have happened
if he had stayed in England.

The psychologists
Six academic psychologists became associated with Harry Price’s work on
psychical research. As we have seen, William McDougall, William Brown and J.
C. Flugel attended seances at his laboratory. Flugel, Cyril Burt, Alec Mace and
Francis Aveling were members of his University of London Council. All except
Aveling were members of the SPR. How did they become interested and what
exactly was their involvement in psychical research?
William McDougall (1871–1938)26 first became interested in psychical research
by reading about William James’s work with the medium Leonora Piper (Garrett,
 Psychical research and academic psychology 207
1967). He was a frequent visitor to the College of Psychic Science in London and
lectured and demonstrated on hypnotism while at Oxford. He carried out experi-
ments on telepathy with Cyril Burt and J. C. Flugel shortly after his arrival in
Oxford (Evans, 1967, p. 25). He was on the council of the SPR for over 20 years
and president of both that (1920–1) and the American Society for Psychical
Research, also playing a leading role in the founding of the Boston Society for
Psychical Research. On moving to Duke, he developed work on parapsychology,
encouraging J. B. Rhine (having been instrumental in his appointment), and was
coeditor of the Journal of Parapsychology. Asprem (2010, p. 125) justifiably
suggests he should be considered “the father of the professionalization of modern
parapsychology”. He was in the habit of spending the summers in England, which
enabled him, on occasion, to attend seances at Harry Price’s laboratory. Towards
the end of his life, he confessed that had it not been necessary to earn a living, he
might have chosen to devote all his time and energy to the field of psychical
research (McDougall, 1930, p. 220). Freud made a similar confession.27
William Brown (1881–1952)28 first became interested in psychical research by
reading Frederic Myers’s Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death as
an undergraduate, which caused him to switch from science to classics (‘Greats’),
with psychology as a special subject (Brown, 1932–3, p. 74). He was a council
member of the SPR, delivering a lecture to them on ‘Psychology and Psychical
Research’ (Brown, 1932–3), which provides a useful summary of his views. In it
he explains how he was particularly impressed by personal experiences of incog-
nito sittings with the medium Mrs Leonard, by shell-shock victims 15 per cent of
whom he estimated had mediumistic powers of telepathy and clairvoyance under
light self-hypnosis, and by sittings with Rudi Schneider. He was a member of the
Consultative Committee of the International Institute for Psychical Research when
it was founded in 193429 and served as a member of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s
inquiry into psychical research and spiritualism in 1937 (Price, 1942, p. 301).
Brown became associated with Harry Price, attending seances at the laboratory
on 10 occasions. He took an active part in sittings with both Rudi Schneider and
Helen Duncan, as described above; Price (1942) acknowledges his help. He was
also present at the Kuda Bux firewalk in 1935.
J. C. (‘Jack’) Flugel (1884–1955),30 as a young Oxford undergraduate, had
shown an “inquiringly original mind” and a “penchant for unconventionality”
(Jones, 1956, p. 193). Here he studied hypnotism, conducted seances, joined the
SPR, and became one of the small group of William McDougall’s students, along
with Cyril Burt, William Brown and others.
Flugel became well acquainted with Harry Price. Their correspondence amounts
to over 50 letters;31 and on at least one occasion the hospitable Jack and his wife
Ingeborg invited Price to dinner. As secretary to the University of London’s Board
of Studies in Psychology, Flugel played a key role in steering Price’s offer through
the university’s labyrinth of boards and subcommittees. He was a member of the
executive committee of the ULCPI.32 He was involved in the investigations of
Pasquale Erto, Willi Schneider, Helen Duncan, Frederick Marion, telepathy
experiments and a poltergeist in Wimbledon. He and his wife were present at
208 History
Ahmed Hussein’s firewalk at Alexandra Palace televised by the BBC in 1937, as
well as numerous dinners arranged by Harry Price or held in his honour, at one of
which he spoke. He and his wife also visited Borley Rectory, ‘the most haunted
house in England’, with Price and later read his book The End of Borley Rectory
(1946).
Cyril Burt (1883–1971)33 possessed several qualities relevant to the pursuit of
psychical research: interests in personal experience, consciousness and the
application of mathematics to psychology. Although he did not become a member
of the SPR until 1959 (perhaps for reasons of professional caution), Burt had had
an interest in psychical research since his time as a student of McDougall’s at
Oxford. Burt and Flugel read Myers’s Human Personality and Its Survival of
Bodily Death “chapter by chapter”. “We were fascinated, but at first decidedly
sceptical . . . Nevertheless, both Flugel and I were sufficiently impressed to embark
on a few private trials of our own” (Burt, 1968, p. 3). He confesses to having
“dabbled in the matter quite a lot”34 as a junior lecturer at Liverpool.
Burt also became associated with Price, though he was limited in what he could
do by his other commitments. He was a member of the ULCPI and provided
facilities in his laboratory for Soal to carry out card-guessing experiments. He
describes himself as “an observer and occasional assistant during the experiments
carried out by Dr Soal while he was a research student in my laboratory at
University College” (1968, p. 4). Both Price and Soal acknowledge his help, which
included getting hold of subjects. He also had his wife “carrying out a few
experiments [with him] on card guessing”.35 He was present at sittings with Marion,
and he and his wife were present at the dinner arranged by Price for René Sudre36
and the Ahmed Hussein firewalk, and read Price’s (1933) Leaves from a Psychist’s
Case-Book and (1946) The End of Borley Rectory. In his role as head of the
psychology department at University College, he was the (cautious) recipient of
equipment on the winding-up of the ULCPI.
C. Alec Mace (1894–1971)37 was a member of the ULCPI. Both Samuel Soal
and K. M. Goldney conducted experiments on ESP in his laboratory for a number
of years (Goldney, 1973). He served as an observer in some of the experiments
and made methodological suggestions to Soal. In 1935 Mace paid a visit to a Mr
Loweman in Ipswich, suspected of a secondary personality, sending this report to
Price:

I spent some two hours with Loweman yesterday for the greater part of which
time I listened to a discourse from Flammarion.38 . . . Loweman goes into a
trance, sweats profusely, then a rather dramatic change of appearance takes
place and ‘the Professor’ announces the presence with a characteristic pro-
fessorial cough. I invited him to discourse on psychical research—which he
did, quite intelligently but without great originality. He deliberated at length
on the method of the fraudulent medium—and expressed his opinion that the
most interesting phenomena were the apparitions & thought transferences that
occur at the moment of death . . . I certainly think it would be worth while
having him up to London for a week.39
 Psychical research and academic psychology 209
The following year he gave the F. W. H. Myers Memorial Lecture on ‘Supernormal
Faculty and the Structure of the Mind’ (Mace, 1937), in which he hypothesized that
the collective unconscious leaves engrams in some interpersonal stuff, a ‘psychic
ether’ or better a more non-committal ‘Tertium Quid’, which might on occasion
influence the experience and behaviour of others and thus provide an explanation
for telepathy.
Francis Aveling (1875–1941)40 employed hypnosis with patients at the Medico-
Psychological Clinic, where he was head of the Psycho-Therapeutic Department
from 1913 to 1920. He was a reluctant member of Price’s ULCPI, agreeing to serve
provided he could play devil’s advocate.41 After repeated failure to attend the
council’s meetings, he finally resigned in October 1936. He supervised John
Hettinger’s PhD (awarded 1939) on ‘The Ultra-perceptive Capacity’ (Hettinger,
1940).

Reasons for the psychologists’ involvement with Harry Price

Price was a controversial figure, frequently subject to charges of fraud and
deception. Dingwall et al.’s (1956) report on Borley Rectory accused him of
creating some of the phenomena himself.42 The case for his defence was mounted
by Hastings (1969), who concluded that the allegations made against Price were
“very grossly exaggerated”. Gregory (1977), after a careful examination of the
evidence, concluded that the supposed incriminating photograph purporting to
show Rudi Schneider cheating, was a “cleverly contrived fake”; Price’s lack of
scruple and duplicitous behaviour were motivated by the desire to embarrass
Charles Hope who had arranged sittings with Schneider independently of Price.
Hall (1978) has documented numerous cases in which Price manipulated evidence,
perpetrated fraud, or distorted the truth if it suited him.
It is true that some of Price’s exploits were daft, such as the attempt to turn a
goat into a man on the Brocken in the Harz Mountains in Germany, a black magic
experiment in connection with the Goethe centenary, attended by the BBC’s
outside broadcast unit; and the investigation of Gef, the supposed talking mongoose
at Cashen Gap on the Isle of Man. On the other hand, he was genuinely passionate
about psychical research—to which he devoted a very considerable amount of time,
energy and money—and critical. After all, most of his investigations turned out to
be exposés.
So why did reputable scientists and the University of London become involved
with Price? How did the enigmatic and controversial “father of modern ghost
hunting” (Morris, 2006, p. 213) manage to inveigle a number of senior academic
psychologists into collaborating with him? Personal, philosophical and socio-
historical factors are discussed below.

Personality factors
The personalities of certain of the characters involved may go some way towards
explaining the turn of events. Harry Price was charismatic and gave the appearance
210 History
of honesty and plausibility. Charles Sutton of the Daily Mail said of him, “Harry
was one of the most plausible rascals I ever had the pleasure of meeting”.43
Frequently a kind and generous friend, he enjoyed wining and dining his guests.
As Morris (2006, p. 212) observes, “He was an extremely likeable and clubbable
man, so few bothered to look beyond his affability”. Perhaps the psychologists
were gullible; Morris (ibid., p. 171) describes them as “less circumspect”.
Some of the psychologists were affable too and keen to help. Their corres-
pondence with Price was almost always cordial, expressing mutual interest in the
phenomena under investigation. Flugel is described as “a most lovable person. He
invariably radiated cheerfulness and friendliness, and his modesty, patience and
tolerance made his friendship easy to win and easy to keep . . . Few men could have
been so universally liked” (Jones, 1956, p. 194). He was well known as a mediator,
and his excellent interpersonal skills meant that he was often sought as a confidant
and adviser (Russell, 1956, p. 329) and frequently asked to perform the role of chair
in potentially conflict-ridden situations (Sutherland, 1956, p. 1). Concerning the
discussion of Price’s offer to the University of London, by the Board of Studies in
Psychology, Flugel assures him: “I hope very much that they will be able to give
a positive recommendation to the University . . . Naturally I shall use any personal
influence I have in this direction.”44

McDougall’s influence
One psychologist in particular was largely responsible: William McDougall. It is
significant that William Brown, J. C. Flugel and Cyril Burt were all students of his
at Oxford. As Burt wrote to Robert Thouless: “Even as students he started us taking
an interest in such problems.”45 In his paper on the implications of parapsychology
for general psychology, originally delivered to a meeting of the Institute for
Parapsychology in Durham, NC, he confesses that the subject “is one that has
always intrigued me since I first served as guinea pig in some of McDougall’s
early experiments” (Burt, 1967, p. 1).
Indeed Knight Dunlap reached a similar conclusion concerning McDougall’s
influence in regard to supporters of J. B. Rhine:

We can understand the attitudes of the two or three middle-aged psychologists

who have rushed into print with acclaims for Rhine, and confession of long-
standing beliefs which they now feel it safe to proclaim. These men have in
other regards been open to suspicion, and considered on the fringe of
psychological respectability. Furthermore, I believe, they have all been, in the
past and at impressionable ages, apprentices of McDougall, and came under
the spell of his attractive personality.46

Metaphysical position of the psychologists

The psychologists may be considered broad-minded or ‘flakey’ according to one’s
theoretical position. But perhaps there are deeper philosophical reasons beyond
 Psychical research and academic psychology 211
mere flakiness or gullibility. McDougall and Brown were in the vitalist tradition.
In this regard, it is interesting to note that there has been a strong connection
between psychical research and neo-vitalism, exemplified by Henri Bergson and
Hans Driesch (see Asprem, 2010, p. 137). McDougall and Burt held explicitly
dualist metaphysical theories about the relations between mental and physical.
Brown and Burt put their faith in quantum theory. McDougall, Burt and Mace put
forward ideas about possible mechanisms for supernormal phenomena.
McDougall’s psychology was based on the hormic principle: “I had become
more and more convinced that the mechanistic biology was unsound . . . that in
all living things there is some factor which does not work in accordance with
mechanistic principles and which has its own peculiar nature and organization”
(McDougall, 1930, p. 209). He regarded the principal importance of the results
achieved by psychical research “as having established the occurrence of phe-
nomena which cannot be reconciled with the mechanistic scheme of things”
(McDougall, 1918, p. 350). He was persuaded of this by the evidence for telepathy
which he considered to be “of such a nature as to compel the assent of any
competent person who studies it impartially” (ibid., p. 349) and the mind’s power
to influence the body as demonstrated in healing and hypnosis.
McDougall states that the reason for “dabbling in psychical research” was his
“desire to know the truth” (1930, p. 219). He felt that orthodox science’s assump-
tions of mechanism and materialism were dogmas, that it had denied the existence
of parapsychological phenomena without adequate justification, and that empirical
investigation was necessary to determine the truth or falsity of such claims.
Pastore (1944) has argued that McDougall’s rejection of materialism was part
of a package of attitudes motivated by a conservative desire to preserve the status
quo—the existing moral order in general and his position in a hierarchical society
in particular—which were threatened by destabilization.47 For McDougall, the
replacement of the “two pillars of dogmatism” (McDougall, 1921, p. 108), ortho-
dox religion and scientific materialism, was a moral imperative. The decay of
religion and the spread of materialism demanded a new basis for morality.
Asprem (2010) has drawn links among what he calls the “nice arrangement of
heterodoxies” that McDougall espoused: psychical research, neo-vitalism,
Lamarckism and eugenics. Vitalism and dualism provided a philosophical basis
for a non-mechanistic, anti-materialist view of life and mind, while psychical
research and Lamarckism offered the promise of empirical support.48 Each,
McDougall believed, would help counter the threats of biological and moral
degeneration and the decline of civilization, feared by so many intellectuals of his
generation.
Burt expressed his dualist views on a number of occasions, e.g. “normal
psychology reveals within itself an inescapable dualism” (Burt, 1961a, p. 86);
“there must be a ghost in the machine”;49 “I believe that many, if not all, the
processes of consciousness which are at present regarded as normal, will, in many
of their aspects, turn out to be quite as independent of the physiological processes
of the brain as those which at present are classed as paranormal” (Burt, 1961b,
p. 30). He considered mechanism outmoded, invoking quantum theory: “it would
212 History
seem there is nothing whatever in contemporary physics which would preclude
the apparent anomalies presented by psi phenomena” (ibid., p. 29). Brown (1929,
p. 17) likewise drew attention to the significance of Bohr’s discovery that electrons
could move from one orbit to another, without apparently traversing the inter-
mediate space, though he considered reliance on quantum theory to support
parapsychological phenomena was premature (Brown, 1932–3, p. 75).
Burt’s suggestion was to posit some kind of field theory. He argued that
substituting a field theory for causal theories in the psychical sphere would be a
way of “escaping many of the dilemmas which causal theories inevitably raise,
and at the same time bringing both normal and paranormal psychology more into
line with the cosmological theories of modern physics” (Burt, 1959a, p. 86). It
would accommodate action at a distance.

Not only telepathy (if it exists) but also every form of cognition is essentially
a mode of action at a distance. Now in physics a common reason for
postulating a ‘field’ is to furnish a convenient model for interpreting action at
a distance. And in my view this is one of the many advantages of adopting a
similar model in interpreting the phenomena of consciousness.
(Burt, 1961b, p. 167, note 1)50

His further explanation has a peculiarly current ring:

. . . the essence of a field-theory consisted in supposing that the electric charge

of a body lies not within the body, but in a spatial continuum around it. In much
the same way we might suppose that the consciousness of a given individual,
so far as it has location, resides in the environment around him rather than
inside his head.
(Burt, 1959a, p. 86; see also Burt, 1959b for more detailed discussion)

Thus, “we can regard the mind as a kind of ‘field’ existing in the neighbourhood
of an individual brain, much as the physicist conceives of an electromagnetic field
existing in the neighbourhood of a set of electric currents” (Burt, 1961b, p. 167).
His final suggestion is that “. . . the transmitter’s brain might include a mechanism
which, like the laser, could produce amplification by stimulated emission of the
relevant radiation. The radiation could then perhaps be concentrated and directed
in almost linear fashion towards the recipient . . .” (Burt, 1966, p. 373).
Some of his conjectures may have been rather speculative but he was at least
wrestling with the question of possible mechanisms.

Fluidity of boundaries
As previously discussed, psychology was in a state of transition in the inter-war
period, with fluid boundaries between academic psychology and both psychical
research and popular psychology. Burt considered the phenomena of psychical
research to fall within the remit of psychology: “all the various manifestations
 Psychical research and academic psychology 213
which have formed the subject of ‘psychical research’—are essentially psycho-
logical phenomena” (Burt, 1961a, p. 29); “psychical processes and psychical
phenomena [form] . . . the very crux of psychology as a separate branch of science”
(Burt, 1967, p. 16). The relation between supernormal phenomena and abnormal
psychology was particularly close. As Price himself remarked at the ULCPI dinner
held in his honour: “departments of abnormal psychology or psychical research—
they mean much the same thing”.51 Theories of levels of consciousness, including
Frederic Myers’s own, were regarded as part of abnormal psychology. The trance
states entered (or supposedly entered) by mediums were considered altered states
of consciousness, abnormal phenomena worthy of scientific investigation. William
Brown’s interest in such phenomena was largely motivated by his concern with
the nature of personality or the ‘self’. Writing of Mrs Leonard’s ‘control’ Feda, he
says: “A possible psychological theory is that Feda is a secondary personality of
Mrs. Leonard, part of her subconscious self—working as a dramatization of her
subconscious self” (Brown, 1929, p. 217).
Possibly the most significant reason for the cooperation between the psy-
chologists and Harry Price was their mutual position poised between scientific and
popular psychology. As noted above, Price was explicitly committed to engag-
ing—even educating (as he saw it)—both scientists and the general population.
He was continually involved in a balancing act to appeal to both constituencies.
His laboratory, equipment and elaborate method of control designed to eliminate
fraud were hallmarks of science. To the psychologists he appeared as an impartial
investigator. On the other hand, his publications in the popular press were aimed
at gaining the support (financial and otherwise) of the general public, including
spiritualists.
The psychologists too were concerned to demonstrate the relevance of their work
to everyday life while asserting their authority and expertise. They cultivated mass
audiences and sought practical applications for their research. They were all
enthusiastic about what the new psychology could offer, and wrote books aimed
at educating the public in this regard (Thomson, 2006, p. 74). McDougall and Burt
were regular broadcasters. Brown and Flugel wrote frequent letters to The Times.
Brown, Burt and Flugel were all consulted by government officials at various times.
McDougall and Burt became particularly well known and were highly
influential. Thomson (2006, p. 55) describes McDougall as crossing the divide
from the academic arena to the semi-popular realm of teaching and training, to the
popular sphere of practical and even spiritual psychology. He wrote books of
practical advice, and published in popular series. A series of talks on ‘Love and
Hate: a Study of the Energies of Men and Nations’, broadcast in 1931, was
subsequently published (McDougall, 1931).
Burt too came to be regarded as an expert by the public, contributing to lectures
and debates, as well as writing and broadcasting. His popularity was established
by books such as The Young Delinquent (Burt, 1925), which ran to many editions.
He was regarded as having a natural and easy microphone manner (Hearnshaw,
1979, p. 189), broadcasting series on ‘The Study of the Mind’ and ‘The Mind of
the Child’ in the 1930s. He collaborated on a project on aesthetics sponsored by
214 History
the BBC, in which the judgements of 6,000 members of the public (readers of The
Listener) were compared with those of six art experts (Bulley, 1933).
Thomson (2001) singles out Burt as an example of a psychologist who engaged
in the balancing act of courting public appeal at the same time as asserting
disciplinary authority, citing this example: “to follow the workings of the growing
mind, to guide its development and correct its faults . . . we imagine . . . nothing
but common sense is needed. No view could be more mistaken” (Burt, 1945, p. 8;
cited in Thomson, 2001, p. 127; original emphases). Likewise, Aveling (1937, p.
115) emphasizes that his reader “unless he is himself a psychologist . . . will need
the service of an expert” to administer vocational guidance tests or to analyse and
interpret work curves. Guy Brown, a physicist member of Price’s ULCPI, taking
exception to the mention of Price’s secretary in a research report, protests: “[W]e
cannot allow people to say that we leave a difficult physical measurement to an
untrained person.”52
In sum, Price offered the psychologists access to subjects who apparently
exhibited paranormal phenomena. He was able and willing to engage in the
publicity necessary to secure them and to provide the funds necessary to maintain
their services. The psychologists were thus able to acquire data under the controlled
conditions of his laboratory relevant to their theories of the mind. Furthermore,
for most of them, such data held the additional promise of supporting metaphysical
positions to which they were wedded. Both Price and the psychologists in their
different ways courted public appeal while asserting scientific expertise and
authority. A study of their interactions is thus of historical significance in revealing
the interplay between the professional and the popular at this transitional period in
the development of psychology as a discipline.

Notes
I am grateful to Gustav Jahoda, Andreas Sommer, Joanna Timms and John Valentine for
help at various stages of this project, and should like to thank the editor and four anonymous
reviewers for constructive comments on an earlier version of this article. This article is
dedicated to the memory of Joanna Timms who, sadly, did not live to see its final version
but who, had she lived, would have made a significant contribution to scholarship in this
area.
1 Presidents in later decades include John Beloff (1974–6), Donald James West (1963–5,
1984–8, 1998–9), Alan Gauld (1989–92), David Fontana (1995–8) and Deborah
Delanoy (2007–11).
2 Albert Schrenck-Notzing, a leading psychical researcher, was general secretary of the
subsequent congress in Munich in 1896.
3 I am indebted to Andreas Sommer for these observations.
4 That is, those demonstrating phenomena such as telekinesis, apports, the production of
ectoplasm and pseudopods.
5 Library catalogue of the British College of Psychic Science, 1921. Harry Price Library,
University of London Research Library Services (hereafter cited as HPL): Pam. 21(12).
6 Psychic Science 17 (1939), p. 174.
7 Nature, 133, 6 January 1934, p. 18–19.
8 Letter to Nature, 118, 25 September 1926, p. 443.
9 Later found not to be foolproof.
 Psychical research and academic psychology 215
10 Letter from William Brown to The Times, 7 May 1932, p. 8, col. C.
11 “Dr. Brown has since then been having rather a time of it at Oxford being laughed at
by Lindemann and even Einstein, among others. Of course they will not ever hear
of such phenomena being genuine . . .”: letter from Charles Hope to Clive Gregory,
13 May 1932; cited in Gregory (1977, p. 506).
12 Letter from William Brown to The Times, 14 May 1932, p. 6, col. F.
13 See letter from Price to Brown, 14 May 1932 (HPL: HPC/4A/11).
14 For further details of Duncan, see Gaskill (2001).
15 Letter from Harry Price to William McDougall, 15 May 1931 (HPL: HPC/4A/77).
16 14 July 1931.
17 Letter in Two Worlds, 23 July 1899, p. 486.
18 Letter from Harry Price to Eugène Osty, 25 October 1929 (HPL: HPC/4A/86).
19 Price also approached the University of Göttingen. At first Narziß Ach was favourably
disposed but appears to have got cold feet, perhaps as a result of reports of the proposed
Brocken stunt. (Letter from Harry Price to Narziß Ach, 13 June 1932 [HPL:
HPC/4A/135].)
20 Meeting of the Senate, 24 January 1934, minute 1306. Flugel, as secretary to the Board
of Studies in Psychology, had noted in a covering letter with his report that his board
had benefited from a joint meeting with Physiology.
21 Meeting of the Senate, 24 January 1934, minute 1306.
22 No school of the university containing a Psychology Department was willing to
accommodate the laboratory.
23 Letter from Harry Price to J. C. Flugel, 30 November 1936 (HPL: HPC/4A/33).
24 Accessed 10 February 2009 at: http://www.harryprice.co.uk/Timeline/1920-1924.htm
25 See letter from Guy Brown to Harry Price, 19 April 1935 (HPL: HPC/4B/30).
26 McDougall was a dominating force in British psychology for the first part of the 20th
century. Trained in medicine and science, he held posts at University College London
and Oxford University (the Wilde Readership in Mental Philosophy) before emigrating
to the United States in 1920, working first at Harvard, before moving to Duke University
in 1927, where he remained until his death. He gave as two of the reasons for his
emigration that income tax was taking a third of his income and that he was “savage
against the English climate” (McDougall, 1930, p. 212).
27 Letter from Freud to Hereward Carrington, 1921, quoted in Jones (1957, p. 392).
28 Brown, like McDougall, had a broad education, ranging from the classics and
philosophy to physiology and medicine. With interests in psychometrics and psycho-
analysis, and experience of treating First World War ‘shell-shock’ patients, he held
academic posts at King’s College London and at Oxford University (where he
succeeded McDougall as Wilde Reader in 1921), and was a consultant at the Royal
Bethlem Hospital as well as conducting a private psychotherapy practice in Harley
Street, London.
29 The Times, 7 April 1934, p. 12, col. F.
30 Flugel was an important figure in British psychology in the inter-war years, playing
key roles in both the psychoanalytic movement and the British Psychological Society.
He had wide-ranging, nonconformist interests. Almost his entire career was spent at
University College London, “serving the Department with devoted faithfulness until the
day of his death” (Pear, 1956, p. 1).
31 HPL: HPC/4B/73.
32 Minutes of the meeting of the ULCPI, 6 June 1934 (HPL: HPC/6/1).
33 Burt was the first professional psychologist in Britain, as Psychologist to the London
County Council (Education Department) 1913–32. He was Professor of Psychology at
University College London from 1931 to 1950.
34 Letter to R. H. Thouless, 13 April 1948; cited in Hearnshaw (1979, p. 222).
35 Letter from Cyril Burt to Ethel Beenham, 6 July 1935 (HPL: HPC/4C/1).
36 Sudre was science editor of the Parisian Le Journal. The dinner was arranged to promote
216 History
scientific psychical research and in the hope of establishing an international journal.
A full account is given in NLPR bulletin VI.
37 Mace trained under C. S. Myers at Cambridge University. Having set up a psychology
laboratory at St Andrews University in Scotland, he was appointed Reader in
Psychology at Bedford College, London in 1933, subsequently being promoted to the
Chair of Psychology at Birkbeck College, London. He had wide-ranging interests from
philosophy (he had the rare distinction of being president of both the Aristotelian Society
and the British Psychological Society) and aesthetics to industrial psychology.
38 (Nicolas) Camille Flammarion (1842–1925), French astronomer and writer on science
fiction and spiritualism; brother of Ernest Flammarion, founder of the publishing house.
39 Letter from C. A. Mace to Harry Price, 14 August 1935 (HPL: HPC/4B/153).
40 Aveling studied philosophy, theology and psychology in Canada (where he was born)
and on the Continent. For a time a Roman Catholic priest, he wrote books on conceptual
processes (Aveling, 1912) and volition (Aveling, 1931). In 1922 he was appointed
Reader in Psychology at King’s College London, following William Brown as head of
department, succeeding to a chair in 1932, which he held until his death in 1941.
41 Letter from Cyril Burt to Harry Price, 8 May 1934 (HPL: HPC/4B/34).
42 For a discussion of some of the complexities of the situation, see Owen and Mitchell
(1979). I am grateful to Joanna Timms for drawing this article to my attention.
43 Charles Sutton to Mollie Goldney, 15 January 1951 (Society for Psychical Research
Archives); cited in Morris (2006, p. 208).
44 Letter from J. C. Flugel to Harry Price, 17 November 1933 (HPL: HPC/4B/73).
45 Letter from Cyril Burt to R. H. Thouless, 13 April 1948; cited in Hearnshaw (1979,
p. 222).
46 Extra-sensory Perception. Paper delivered at meeting of Western Psychological
Association, Eugene, Oregon, 17–18 June 1939 (Dunlap papers, Archives of the History
of American Psychology); cited in Mauskopf and McVaugh (1980, p. 275).
47 See also Soffer (1969) on McDougall’s elitism.
48 Lamarckism appeared incompatible with the contemporary mechanistic views and
Lamarck himself postulated an ‘inner striving’ or ‘motivational force’ in his model of
evolution.
49 Letter to Arthur Koestler, 2 May 1967; cited in Hearnshaw (1979, p. 224).
50 Burt’s field theory of consciousness is similar to explanations proposed earlier by
physicists interested in psychical research, e.g. Oliver Lodge’s electromagnetic theory
of telepathy.
51 Price at the ULCPI dinner held in his honour (HPL: HPC: HPF/4/14, p. 8).
52 Letter from Guy Brown to Harry Price, 3 December 1935 (HPL: HPC/4B/30).

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19 To care or to understand?
Women members of the British
Psychological Society 1901–1918

Abstract
This paper presents initial data on the sixteen women who were elected to
membership of the British Psychological Society between its formation in 1901
and the dramatic expansion of membership in 1919. Born in the second half of the
19th century, they came predominantly from middle-class backgrounds. The
proportions that married and/or had children, though low by current standards, are
higher than those for women academics in general during this period. Most sought
further qualifications after their first degree; half were awarded doctorates (again
a relatively high proportion). They showed flexibility and diversity in their career
paths. They were productive as authors and some at least received due recognition
for their work. The most striking feature of the sample is the high proportion
(almost half) employed as lecturers in teacher training colleges or university
departments of education. This underlines not only the relative accessibility of
university teaching as a profession for women in the early 20th century but also
the key role that departments of education played in providing employment
opportunities for women in higher education prior to the development of university
departments of psychology in Britain.

Introduction
This study was undertaken for two main reasons: (1) to provide a larger database
in which to situate my earlier work on Edgell (Valentine, 2001; 2006); and (2) to
increase the visibility of some of the earliest women psychologists in Britain.
The British Psychological Society, founded in 1901 as the ‘Psychological
Society’ was modelled on the Physiological Society, with the aims of advancing
psychological research and furthering the cooperation of investigations in the
different branches of psychology. The initial criteria for admission to the Society
restricted membership to “those who are recognised teachers in some branch of
psychology or who have published work of recognised value”.1 Nominations had
to be approved by the committee of five (later seven) and supported by at least
80 per cent of the voting membership.
Women psychologists were accepted by their professional society and formed
a higher proportion of the membership than was the case for most other sciences
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 221
in both Britain and America. In Britain, women were initially explicitly excluded
from the Chemical, Biochemical and Pharmacological Societies and the Royal
Society. The British Psychological Society is distinguished by having admitted
women from its inception. Possible reasons for this are that women were accepted
to swell the numbers as Furumoto (1987) has noted in the American context, and/or
that male dominance was not yet established in a relatively new science, so that
women could gain a foothold (Wilson, 1998). The situation contrasts particularly
sharply with that in what might be considered an allied discipline, physiology,
where women were not formally admitted as members of the Physiological Society
until 1915, after forty years of its existence (Bindman, Brading & Tansey, 1993).
No doubt there are a number of factors contributing to the difference between the
acceptance of women in psychology and physiology. Amongst these are the
connotation of psychology as a female subject, with much of applied psychology
potentially falling into the category of the ‘caring professions’; the close asso-
ciation of physiology with medicine, renowned for its authoritarian attitudes; and
the lingering idea that it was not quite seemly for women to be studying physiology.
One of the ten founder members of the British Psychological Society was a
woman (Sophie Bryant), as were two of the thirteen people invited to become
original members (Beatrice Edgell and Alice Woods). Another thirteen women
are recorded as having been elected to membership by the end of 1918, when the
total membership stood at 98. Thus, women formed about 16 per cent of the
membership in the early days. At that time the Society was a small select group
with about a dozen people (mostly men) attending meetings. Now the membership
exceeds 40,000 of whom 75 per cent are women. In 1919, there was a dramatic
expansion of membership, following relaxation of the admission criteria to include
“those interested in psychology as well as those actually engaged in psychological
work”.2 When the first list of members was published in 1921, there were 203
women (31 per cent) out of a total membership of 645. They played an active role
from the Society’s foundation, reading papers at meetings, publishing articles in
the associated journal (the British Journal of Psychology, first published in 1904)
and serving on committees.
There was a limited number of about eleven independent psychology depart-
ments in British universities up to World War II: at University College, King’s
College and Bedford College in London; Cambridge, Manchester, Liverpool and
Reading in other parts of England; and Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and St
Andrews in Scotland. Some psychology was also taught at Bristol, Oxford, Cardiff
and Aberystwyth. There were only six chairs of psychology (three at London
colleges: University, King’s and Bedford, and one each at the universities of
Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh) and about 30 lecturing posts in psy-
chology in Britain in 1939 (Hearnshaw, 1964).
Estimates for the proportion of female university teachers in 1931 range from
10.7 per cent for British universities excluding Oxbridge (11.7 per cent in London
colleges) obtained from statistics in the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook by
Rendel (1980)—through 13 per cent, from a survey carried out by the British
Federation of University Women,3 to 14 per cent overall in England (21 per cent
222 History
in London), obtained by Perrone (1993). It has been suggested that Rendel’s figures
are too low because they are restricted to established teachers, whereas Perrone’s
are too high because they include part-time teachers (Dyhouse, 1995, p. 138).

The sample
The sixteen women elected to membership of the British Psychological Society
between 1901 and 1918 are listed in Table 19.1.4
Some of the women, such as Sophie Bryant, Beatrice Edgell, Susan Isaacs, May
Smith and Alice Woods, are well known, at least in certain circles; others, like
Nellie Carey and Nina Taylor, are virtually unheard of. Using a variety of sources5
it was possible to collect reasonably comprehensive data, that is, skeleton cur-
riculum vitae, for all of them.
The women were born in the latter half of the 19th century. The oldest, Alice
Woods, was born in 1849; the youngest, Victoria Hazlitt, in 1887. Given that some
of them were born before educational and career opportunities opened up to
women, they are not a birth cohort. The average age of becoming a member of the
Society was 38 and ranges from 28 to 52 years. Mary Smith, May Smith and Alice
Woods lived until at least their late eighties.
Most of the women were from middle-class families. Their fathers were pro-
fessional or skilled workers. They included: four ministers of religion (an Anglican,
a Wesleyan/Methodist, an Independent/Congregationalist, and a Quaker, plus a
lay preacher); two university teachers (a mathematician and a classicist); two
solicitors; a soldier; a stockbroker; a banker; a journalist; a military equipment and
uniform manufacturer; a woollens manufacturer; a fancy goods importer; a grocer
(the lay preacher); an iron turner; and a carpenter. Of the mothers, one was a
university teacher, one an author and one a silk-weaver. Half of the sample were
eldest children but three were youngest; the latter were not necessarily from the
wealthier families. Family size ranged from one to ten.
Eleven of the women (two-thirds of the sample) remained single. Of the five who
married, three had children (one of them prior to marriage). The figures for

Table 19.1 Names and dates of women members of the British Psychological Society
1901–1918, together with the year of joining the Society

Year Name and dates Year Name and dates

joined joined

1901 Sophie Bryant (1850–1922) 1914 Nellie Carey (1886–1960)

1901 Beatrice Edgell (1871–1948) 1915 Jessie Murray (1867–1920)
1901 Alice Woods (1849–1941) 1915 Julia Turner (1863–1946)
1907 Caroline Graveson (1874–1958) 1915 Jane Reaney (1874–1936)
1912 Mary Smith (1886–1974) 1916 Laura Brackenbury (1868–1937)
1913 Nina Taylor (1876–1951) 1916 Ida Saxby (1883–1949)
1913 May Smith (1879–1968) 1917 Susan Isaacs (1885–1948)
1913 Helen Verrall (1883–1959) 1918 Victoria Hazlitt (1887–1932)
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 223
marriage and maternity are higher than those of Perrone’s (1993) estimates for
women academics in English universities during the period 1870–1930 based
on university calendars. Thirty-one per cent of the present sample married in
comparison with Perrone’s estimates of 9 per cent in 1914 and 14 per cent in 1924;
19 per cent of the present sample had children compared with the 2 per cent of
Perrone’s sample known to have brought up children while they were teaching. In
the present group, of those who had children, Mary Smith gave up her promising
research career, though she remained a Director of Studies at Newnham; Nellie
Carey probably gave up her post as a London County Council school teacher;6 and
Helen Verrall divided her time between voluntary work for the Society for
Psychical Research and public service. Of those who married but did not have
children: Sophie Bryant was widowed after a year of marriage; Susan Isaacs was
married twice but by the time she had overcome her fear of childbirth it was too
late;7 in any case, her first husband did not want children. Even though no official
marriage bar was imposed on women university teachers (although Liverpool
University tried hard to do so), as was the case for most female school teachers
(many local authorities introducing a marriage bar in the 1920s), the difficulty of
reconciling academic life with marriage probably restricted more than anything
else the number of women who were able to have academic careers.

Education, training and qualifications

Sophie Bryant, Helen Verrall and Alice Woods were educated largely at home.
According to Perrone (1993) this was true for 21 per cent of Oxford female
academics in 1914. The women frequently studied a number of subjects for their
first degree, which did not necessarily include psychology. Jane Reaney was a
natural scientist by training; Helen Verrall and Julia Turner were classicists. The
women qualified for their first degree between 1880 and 1920. The age at which
they qualified ranged from 21 to 42 years. This wide range is partly accounted for
by the fact that some of the women were born too early to take advantage of
educational opportunities at what later became the normal age. Seven of them
studied at Cambridge University at some point (one at Oxford, and one at both),8
despite the fact that degrees earned there were not awarded until much later.9 Alice
Woods, for example, completed a moral sciences tripos in 1880 but was not
awarded her MA until 48 years later.
Twelve (75 per cent) of them took further qualifications; for example, a masters
degree and/or a teaching diploma.10 Only four obtained only one qualification; the
rest obtained 2, 3, 4 or 5; see Figure 19.1.
Despite this, some were relatively untrained for the work they undertook. Helen
Verrall, who was employed as a Demonstrator in Psychology at King’s College
London, had only studied psychology for one year. As previously mentioned, she
had a degree in classics; as did Julia Turner who with Jessie Murray offered
psychoanalytic therapy and training at the Medico-Psychological Clinic, neither
of them having undergone psychoanalysis themselves. This reflects a number of
facts: the undeveloped nature of psychology as a science, a greater emphasis on
224 History

4
Frequency

0
1 2 3 4 5

Figure 19.1 Number of qualifications obtained by early women members of the BPS

general rather than specialist education at that time,11 and greater fluidity between
disciplinary boundaries. Psychology at the time was an amalgam of moral sciences
or philosophy, and physiology.
Eight (50 per cent) took doctorates. This figure compares favourably with
Perrone’s (1993) report that only 10 per cent of a sample of British female
academics had PhDs in 1924, in contrast with the situation in America at that time
where possession of a doctorate, or at least a master’s degree, was almost essential
for a university career. The doctorates of the present sample were often achieved
as long as nine years after the first degree, sometimes at a relatively late age and/or
for already published work. May Smith obtained hers 17 years later, aged 41; Jessie
Murray obtained hers 10 years later, aged 52. Beatrice Edgell studied abroad,
receiving a DPhil from the University of Würzburg in 1901, thereby becoming the
first woman graduate of that university.

Employment and career paths

Several of the women pursued a number of quite distinct careers. Ida Saxby was
successively a school teacher, education lecturer, psychologist, medical doctor and
clinician (Valentine, 2010). Susan Isaacs was a school principal, psychotherapist
and academic (Gardner, 1969; Sayers, 2001). Many were teachers, researchers,
clinicians and authors.
The most striking feature is the high proportion working as academics in
education. This is reflected in the membership of the special interest Sections of
the Society formed in 1921. At that time there were twice as many women in the
Educational and Medical as in the Industrial Sections. However, there is a some-
what similar pattern for men, comparative figures being: Medical 226, Educational
202 and Industrial 125 (see Table 19.2). For both sexes, there are roughly twice as
many in the Medical and Educational Sections as in the Industrial Section, the only
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 225
Table 19.2 Number of women and men in Educational,
Medical and Industrial Sections of the
British Psychological Society in 1921

Educational Medical Industrial

Women 17 16 9
Men 202 226 125

difference being the relative popularity of the Medical and Educational Sections,
with slightly more men in the former and slightly more women in the latter.
Seven (almost half of the sample) spent a major part of their career as lecturers
in teacher training colleges and/or university education departments, often in senior
positions. Alice Woods was principal of Maria Grey Training College (1892–1913).
Laura Brackenbury was principal of Furzedown Training College (1907–15), and
of Graystoke Place Training College (1920–33). Caroline Graveson was the first
Women’s Vice-Principal and a Lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths’ College,
London (1905–34). Susan Isaacs was appointed to take charge of the first English
university-based department of child development, at London University’s Institute
of Education in 1933, where she remained for the next ten years. Jane Reaney was
Science Lecturer at Furzedown Training College (1918–1932). Ida Saxby,
following a lectureship at Maria Grey Training College (1911–15), was Lecturer in
Education at the University College of South Wales & Monmouthshire (1918–26).
Finally, Nina Taylor was Lecturer in Education at: Trinity College for Women,
Cambridge (1908), St Mary’s College, Paddington (1908–13), Sheffield University
(1913–1918) and Avery Hill Training College (1923–35).
In other cases, associations with teacher training colleges played a minor role,
either early in their career or after retirement from their main employment. May
Smith lectured in education at Cherwell Hall teacher training college, Oxford in
the early part of her career; Helen Verrall (as Mrs Salter) took a particular interest
in Saffron Walden Training College, of which she was a governor for 38 years
and chairman for over 20 years. In recognition, an extension to the college in 1955
was named the ‘Helen Salter Wing’.
The rest were also involved in education in some form or other. Laura
Brackenbury, Caroline Graveson, Susan Isaacs, Julia Turner and Alice Woods
were educational administrators. Beatrice Edgell, Victoria Hazlitt and May Smith
were university lecturers in psychology. At least eleven were school teachers at
some point: Laura Brackenbury, Sophie Bryant, Nellie Carey, Beatrice Edgell,
Susan Isaacs, Jane Reaney, Ida Saxby, May Smith, Nina Taylor, Julia Turner and
Alice Woods. Laura Brackenbury was a school inspector. Jessie Murray and Julia
Turner were psychotherapy trainers, instrumental in developing the first course in
England to provide training for psychoanalysts, which was offered by the Society
for the Study of Orthopsychics.
Sophie Bryant and Nina Taylor published research on mental tests (Bryant,
1886; Cattell et al., 1889; Taylor, 1916), Jane Reaney and Nellie Carey on the
226 History
theory of mental abilities (Reaney, 1914; Carey, 1915). A number of them drew
attention to the importance of play in child development. Jane Reaney wrote her
doctoral dissertation on ‘The psychology of the “organized group game” with
special reference to its place in the play system and its educational value’, later
expanded into a book (Reaney, 1927), in which she suggested that co-operative
games give an outlet for primitive instincts repressed in civilized life. She
maintained a lifelong interest in the Playing Fields Association, of which she was
an early member. Caroline Graveson was chairman of the Deptford Children’s Play
Centre for ten years. Part of the philosophy underlying the Malting House School,
of which Susan Isaacs was principal from 1924–27, was that it would enable
children to encounter ideas of discovery through play.
Other careers represented are psychotherapy (Susan Isaacs, Jessie Murray, Julia
Turner), medicine (Jessie Murray, Ida Saxby) and industrial psychology (May
Smith). Figure 19.2 summarises the main occupations of the sixteen women,
though as noted above, many showed flexibility and considerable diversity in the
occupations they pursued.

Dissemination and visibility

All of the women published, in many cases extensively. Perrone (1993) estimates
that by 1914 about 60 per cent of female academics were publishing original
research, suggesting that it may have been even more important for women than
for men to do so, on account of their tenuous position. Eleven (69 per cent) of the
present sample wrote books. Sophie Bryant tops the list with 10; Caroline
Graveson, Susan Isaacs and Alice Woods wrote 7 or 8; (see Figure 19.3).
Several also wrote substantial numbers of journal articles; others wrote at least
some. The topics covered not only diverse aspects of psychology (theoretical,

10

8
Frequency

0
CL EA ST PT MD IP

Figure 19.2 Occupations of early women members of the BPS

Key: CL= college lecturer; EA = educational administrator; ST = school teacher;
PT = psychotherapist; MD = medical doctor; IP = industrial psychologist
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 227

4
Frequency

0
None One Two Three Six Seven Eight Ten

Figure 19.3 Number of books published by early women members of the BPS

experimental, educational, developmental from infancy to ageing, clinical and

animal)12 but also philosophy, education, religion, history, politics, Celtic studies
and psychical research, illustrating once again the breadth of learning that was
common at the time. Caroline Graveson wrote Quaker historical novels. They
broadcast and gave public lectures. Susan Isaacs, in particular, greatly influenced
educational theory and practice in Britain by wide dissemination through multiple
media. They frequently expressed themselves through the creative arts. Helen
Verrall co-authored a play with Clive Carey and Rupert Brooke, entitled ‘From
the jaws of the octopus or cardy’,13 performed at Klosters, Switzerland, in
December 1908. Caroline Graveson produced plays for children and wrote the
words of the Goldsmiths’ College hymn. Jane Reaney, whose mother, Isabel
Reaney, was a much-published author of Christian tales from a female perspective,
published a patriotic song (Reaney, 1915).
Spirituality is a recurrent theme. Four were the daughters of ministers of religion,
one of a lay preacher.14 Sophie Bryant, described as “a woman utterly unworldly
and devoted to spiritual ends”,15 wrote school textbooks on scripture, one of the
subjects which she taught. Caroline Graveson, of long Quaker ancestry, wrote
books on teaching scripture to elementary school children and devoted her
retirement years to furthering Quaker aims. Alice Woods, also of Quaker ancestry,
a great grand-daughter of the Quaker diarist Margaret Woods, brought “a quiet
radiance to all with whom she came into contact”,16 evident in the portrait of her
which hung at Maria Grey College until its probable destruction during World
War II. Helen Verrall (Salter), described as “a great lady of impressive presence”
(Chrystal, 1960), worked for many years for the Society for Psychical Research,
as research officer, vice-president and editor of their proceedings (1921–53), work
228 History
which she pursued with imagination and strict integrity (Chrystal, 1960). She pub-
lished Evidence for telepathy: The response to a broadcast request for cases
(Salter, 1934) and delivered the F. W. H. Myers Memorial Lecture on ‘Psychical
research: where do we stand?’ in 1945.
Unsurprisingly, there is also a distinguished record of political awareness and
public service. Sophie Bryant was one of the first women to sign the declaration
for women’s suffrage in 1906, which later gained wide support. With Emily Davies,
Lady Frances Balfour and Mrs Henry Fawcett, she headed the great procession to
the Royal Albert Hall organised by the National Union of Women’s Suffrage
Societies (NUWSS) in 1908. Amidst a very busy and demanding life, she found
time to be president of the Hampstead committee of the NUWSS. Jessie Murray
collected evidence and co-authored a report on the (mal)treatment of women’s
deputations by the police in November 1910 (Murray & Brailsford, 1911). She
was also a member of the Women’s Tax Resistance League. Susan Isaacs and Julia
Turner supported the suffragettes. Jane Reaney worked gallantly as an ambulance
driver for the Scottish Women’s Hospital Unit in Serbia and Roumania during
World War I. Helen Verrall (Salter) played a prominent part in local affairs for most
of her married life, as a member and chairman of Saffron Walden Rural District
Council and that of Saffron Walden Teachers’ Training College.
Despite the problem of lack of visibility for women at this time, four (Laura
Brackenbury, Sophie Bryant, Beatrice Edgell and Susan Isaacs) had obituaries in
The Times. Two received national honours: Susan Isaacs a CBE, and May Smith
an OBE. Five (Sophie Bryant, Beatrice Edgell, Susan Isaacs, May Smith and Alice
Woods) now have entries in biographical dictionaries.17

Networks
It is probable that all these women knew each other, some better than others—as
students, teachers, mentors and/or colleagues. Many of them would have met
through educational or teacher training circles. Ida Saxby and Mary Smith were
contemporaries at Newnham College, Cambridge. Jane Reaney was a student and
Ida Saxby a lecturer at Maria Grey College under Alice Woods’ principalship.
Victoria Hazlitt was a student and later colleague of Beatrice Edgell. Jessie Murray
was a tutee, close friend and later colleague of Julia Turner at the Medico-
Psychological Clinic. Jane Reaney and Helen Verrall were colleagues at King’s
College London.
They were all members of a small élite society (the British Psychological
Society), which met four times a year. The frequency of their attendance varied
greatly, owing to other commitments and geographical distance. Seven of them
held office and ten of them presented papers. Beatrice Edgell and May Smith served
on the Society’s Council together; the latter was a co-author of the former’s
obituary in the British Journal of Psychology (Smith, McFarlane & Jenkin, 1949).
Sophie Bryant and Alice Woods were both members of the University of London’s
Board of Pedagogy; Bryant and Edgell were members of the University of London
Senate.
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 229
The women also supported and cited each other in their work. Sophie Bryant
wrote an introduction to one of Caroline Graveson’s books on teaching scripture
(Graveson, 1912) and Alice Woods read the manuscripts of Ida Saxby’s two books
(Saxby, 1921, 1926).18 Alice Woods, in her turn, cites Jane Reaney’s work on play
in her book, Educational Experiments in England (Woods, 1920).19 A systematic
investigation of the links amongst this group of women would prove fruitful.

Conclusions
The results of this study run counter to stereotypic gender-related territorial segre-
gation, that is, separate spheres of operation for men and women, with women
predominantly occupying ‘caring’ practitioner roles, and men predominantly
‘understanding’ scientist roles. Cahan (1991) has demonstrated this commonly
found pattern for early American child psychology. By contrast, the British women
pioneer psychologists in the present sample predominantly focussed on under-
standing rather than caring, although some of them clearly did care about children’s
welfare, notably Caroline Graveson and Susan Isaacs. In some cases there was as
much emphasis on the application of psychology to the teacher as to the child, for
example in the writings of Caroline Graveson (1913) and Ida Saxby (1921). There
is some evidence that territorial segregation increased in both Britain and America
as the 20th century progressed, though the reasons for this are complex and difficult
to disentangle (Valentine, 2006).
The women were typically employed as lecturers in teacher training colleges or
university education departments. Perhaps this is not so surprising and merely an
extension of the fact that teaching was the commonest occupation for women at
that time. It may have been partly a matter of preference and partly a matter of
practical circumstances. According to Perrone (1993), the academic profession was
more flexible and open to women in England in the early years of the 20th century
than other professions—particularly law and medicine—in that university teaching
required no well-defined training, certification examination or licensing procedure,
and there was no central professional body to monitor the behaviour of its members.
The fact that the women in the present sample worked predominantly in education
rather than in psychology departments underlines the key role that departments of
education played in providing employment opportunities for women in higher
education before the development of university departments of psychology in
Britain.

Acknowledgements
Thanks to Professor Ruth Watts for her encouragement, and to Toni Brennan and
Geoff Bunn for many useful comments on an earlier draft.
230 History
Notes
This paper is based on presentations at the first joint meeting of Cheiron and the European
Society for the History of the Human Sciences, Dublin, June 2007, and ‘Collecting Women’s
Lives’, the 16th Annual Conference of the Women’s History Network, Winchester,
September 2007.

1 Minutes of the British Psychological Society, I.S. 1901–1921, p. 1. (British

Psychological Society Archives: BPS/001/1)
2 Minutes of the British Psychological Society, I.S. 1901–1921, obverse of p. 117. (British
Psychological Society Archives: BPS/001/1). See also Lovie (2001).
3 British Federation of University Women Archives. Cited in Dyhouse (1995), p. 137.
4 In the case of women who married, I have used the name by which they were known
as psychologists. Sophie Bryant’s maiden name was Willock. Nellie Carey’s married
name was Wohlgemuth. Susan Isaacs’ maiden name was Fairhurst; her first married
name was Brierley. Ida Saxby was born Sachs but anglicised her name to increase her
chances of employment. Mary Smith’s married name was Bartlett; Helen Verrall’s was
Salter.
5 The General Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths; census records; electoral
registers and local directories; university records and histories; the Directory of Women
Teachers, university (and schools)’ old students’ magazines; Google; The Times Digital
Archive; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; and the psychologists’ own
publications.
6 I have not been able to confirm this despite diligent searching but her son believes this
to have been the case.
7 Her mother had become ill and died after the birth of a younger sister of Susan’s.
8 The fact that many of the women studied at Cambridge aided the collection of data on
curricula vitae, as Newnham College, Cambridge has very good records.
9 Titular degrees were awarded in 1921 and full status granted in 1948.
10 Complete accuracy is somewhat difficult to obtain as some masters’ degrees are
formalities. Laura Brackenbury and Nina Taylor were ‘steamboat ladies’, taking
advantage of the offer made by Trinity College, Dublin to confer degrees on women
who had qualified but were ineligible for the award of degrees by the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge.
11 I am grateful to Toni Brennan for these observations.
12 Female pioneer psychologists were not restricted in their areas of interest to ‘soft’ topics
such as personality and social psychology, but were just as likely to work in the ‘hard’
areas of animal and cognitive psychology.
13 The papers of Rupert Chawner Brooke, Cambridge University: King’s College Archive
Centre. RCB/D/6.
14 Laura Brackenbury, Sophie Bryant, Caroline Graveson and Jane Reaney were the
daughters of a Wesleyan Methodist, Anglican, Quaker and Congregationalist minister
respectively. Susan Isaacs’ father was a Methodist lay preacher.
15 Mrs S. A. Barnett in The Graphic, August 30th, 1922.
16 Tribute by Lucy Henderson (née Crickmay), courtesy of Brunel University Archive:
MGC/1/7/1.
17 All five have entries in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Matthew &
Harrison, eds., 2004). Edgell and Woods also appear in the Dictionary of Twentieth
Century British Philosophers (Brown, ed., 2005).
18 In the Preface to the first, Saxby wrote: “I should like . . . to express my obligation to
Miss Alice Woods . . . for reading the whole of the manuscript and for giving me much
valuable criticism and advice.”
19 “In our country Dr Jane Reaney has made an important study on the place of play in
education, and has written a treatise on the psychology of the organized group game,
 Women members of the BPS 1901–1918 231
and on the correlation between general intelligence and play ability. She looks forward
to the time when there will be organization of the recreative facilities in large towns
under uniform control. Persons will be trained in the theory and practice of play to act
as administrators of public playgrounds and play centres” (Woods, 1920, p. 40).

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Taylor, N. G. R. (1916). Further data towards the study of the Binet-Simon Scale. Journal
of Experimental Pedagogy, 3, 256–66.
Valentine, E. (2001). Beatrice Edgell: An appreciation. British Journal of Psychology 92,
23–36.
Valentine, E. (2006). Beatrice Edgell: Pioneer Woman Psychologist. Hauppage, NY: Nova
Science.
Valentine, E. R. (2010). Ida Beata Saxby (formerly Sachs) (1883–1949). In H. Gundlach,
R. Roe, M. Sinatra & G. Tanucci (Eds.) European Pioneer Women in Psychology
(pp. 159–172). Milan, Italy: Franco Angeli.
Wilson, D. A. H. (1998). Encouragements and constraints in the development of
experimental animal behaviour studies in Great Britain since the late nineteenth
century. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Leicester.)
Woods, A. (1920). Educational Experiments in England. London: Methuen.
20 The other woman

Sixteen women became members of the British Psychological Society between

its foundation in 1901 and the massive expansion of membership in 1919. In the
early days women constituted about 15 per cent of the membership, whereas today
they are almost 75 percent. Who were these sixteen women? Here is the story of
one of them, who graduated a hundred years ago.
Nellie Carey was born in 1886 in Hornsey, London, the daughter of a carpenter
and a silk-weaver. In 1905, she entered University College London (UCL) and
achieved a BSc in Psychology in 1908. Following graduation, Carey was employed
as a teacher in a London County Council (LCC) Elementary School, at a salary of
£100 p.a. In 1909 she also re-entered UCL as a research student in experimental
psychology, under Charles Spearman’s supervision. He introduced her to the
Society, to whom she presented three papers, subsequently published in the British
Journal of Psychology and submitted for a DSc. This work earned Carey the
Carpenter medal, awarded once every three years for a doctoral thesis of excep-
tional distinction in experimental psychology. It was worth £20 – a sizable sum of
money in those days.
Carey’s first study reported on ‘An improved colour wheel’ (Carey, 1914).
Testing colour discrimination in school children using a two-disc colour mixer, she
encountered a number of problems, including limited response choice and delay
between stimulus presentations. These problems were substantially reduced by
using five discs rather than two and employing pegs and spindles in place of screws;
the improved apparatus markedly increased judgment reliability.
She went on to publish three papers under the general title, ‘Factors in the mental
processes of school children’. The first (Carey, 1915a) was on visual and auditory
imagery. Carey tested about 150 ‘lower working class’ children aged 7–14 years
from LCC schools (at least some of her research was carried out at the school where
she was employed as a teacher), on sensory discrimination and memory in different
modalities, general ability, and memory for a short story – designed specifically to
elicit imagery. Scholastic ability was estimated from school tests and examinations;
and teachers rated scholastic intelligence, practical intelligence, painstaking and
social status.
Carey took great care to test the reliability and validity of her data, using a variety
of methods. Correlations amongst the various measures provided little evidence
234 History
for imagery types or the value of any objective method of determining them.
Neither did the low correlations between imagery and other mental processes lend
any support to the function of imagery in ‘higher mental processes’. She even
suggests that imagery may be detrimental to school studies. As many others have
found subsequently, clarity of imagery is unrelated to mental efficacy.
The next two papers, inspired by Spearman’s theory of general and specific
factors, addressed the issue of factorial structure. The first (Carey, 1915b) employed
the same data set with the addition of tests of verbal memory and tactile discrimi-
nation. Carey found no evidence for a discrimination factor other than g and
evidence for only a very small general memory factor. Specific factors were of
limited range. Correlations for fifteen measures of performance with g ranged from
.75 for scholastic intelligence to zero for tactile discrimination. Since teachers’
estimates of scholastic ability predicted performance in scholastic subjects much
better than they did performance on technical subjects, she inferred these latter were
relatively independent. A moderate correlation between painstaking and social
status suggested that social status is dependent on power of application. Given her
background, the last two findings may have been of particular interest to Carey.
In the final paper (Carey, 1916), Carey subjected theories of the structure of
mental abilities to further test, using examination marks on 10 school subjects for
about 500 children. She found evidence for a general factor, a large motor factor
(evident in writing, painting and needlework) and a small factor which we might
call ‘verbal/semantic’, evident in composition, reading and spelling tasks. Burt
used these data in his 1917 report to the LCC on the distribution and relations of
educational abilities.
Carey terminated her registration at UCL mid-session at the end of 1920. She
continues to be listed as a member of the Society up to 1925 but disappears after
that. What happened?
One of Carey’s fellow research students at UCL was Adolf Wohlgemuth. A
native of Berlin, he had emigrated to Britain and ran a sausage-casing business.
He entered UCL in 1902, achieving the second B.Sc. honours degree in Psychology
awarded by the University of London, in 1905. His doctoral research appeared as
the first monograph supplement of the British Journal of Psychology, a classic on
the after-effect of seen movement (Wohlgemuth, 1911). According to Flugel
(1954), “he continued work at the college for many years, carrying out research
on memory and feeling, and though he was never a member of the staff he was a
prominent and influential figure in the Department until his activities were curtailed
by an accident during the First World War. He had considerable ability in the
construction and use of apparatus and was always willing to ‘lend a hand’. . . in
this sphere of the Department’s activities” (p. 25). It seems likely that he helped
Carey with the colour wheel. What was this accident during the First World War?
In 1913, Wohlgemuth married his housekeeper, a French widow, Clemence
Morellet. However, the marriage was not a happy one. “They lived unhappily
together and were always quarrelling” (The Times, September 13th, 1918, page 2,
column F). Wohlgemuth provides a hint, as he confesses in his book: “The year I
was 46 years of age was one of great importance to me, so to speak a new epoch
 The other woman 235
began in my life, and in that year the number twenty-seven played a great rôle.
However, as Freud says on a similar occasion, ‘the details are of too intimate
a nature to allow of publication’” (Wohlgemuth, 1923, p. 214–15). Carey was
27 years of age that year. According to The Times, in the year of his marriage,
Wohlgemuth had taken a flat in St Pancras because it was near the reading room
of the British Museum. Here he was visited by ‘Miss X’, a woman he had met at
UCL, who came there once or twice a week to discuss scientific subjects; but there
were no sexual relations with her.
Things came to a head in June, 1918. A row ended with Clemence shooting
Adolf in the back. She was remanded in custody, proclaiming in court the following
day, “It is all because of the other woman that I did it.” She was under the
impression that her husband was consorting with another woman and was about
to leave her for this other woman. The surgeon was unable to remove the bullet
but Adolf recovered sufficiently to attend the trial at the Central Criminal Court in
September. Clemence Morellet was acquitted on the charges of wounding her
husband with intent to murder or to do him grievous bodily harm, but found guilty
of unlawful wounding, and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.
There may not have been any sexual relations between Wohlgemuth and ‘Miss
X’ in 1918, but on Christmas Day 1921, a daughter, Joan, was born to Adolf
Wohlgemuth and Nellie Carey (having changed her name by deed poll to
Wohlgemuth) in West Hampstead. By 1923, the Wohlgemuths had moved to a
large Victorian house (now converted into six flats) in Shortlands, near Bromley,
Kent. Here, a son, Bryan, was born in 1929.
The Wohlgemuths attended a number of meetings of the Medical Section of the
Society, particularly when phobias were the topic of discussion. They were present
for Morton Prince’s paper on ‘“Meaning” and “setting” in relation to pathological
states – a theory of phobias’ in 1924, for Adolf’s own presentation on ‘The
“synthesis” of an anxiety neurosis’ in April the following year (Wohlgemuth,
1925), Anrep’s on ‘Conditioned responses and anxiety neurosis’ in 1928, Adler’s
in 1931, and Money-Kyrle’s symposium on phobias in June later that year.
They must have been a powerful intellectual partnership, proud of their academic
achievements and champions of science. Adolf was highly critical of what he
considered to be pseudo-science. In 1924, following claims made by Gilbert
Murray and Lord Balfour concerning telepathy experiments, he wrote to The Times
chastising the Society for Psychical Research for not enlisting the help of trained
psychologists in investigating telepathic phenomena. In his book on psycho-
analysis, he describes the Oedipus complex as a ‘ridiculous assumption’, stating
that psycho-analysis, rather than being, as commonly believed, the royal road to
the patient’s unconscious, is the royal road to the psychoanalyst’s unconscious.
“The psychologist aims, as it were, at an aseptic treatment, whilst the psycho-
analyst indulges in deliberate infection” (Wohlgemuth, 1923, p. 245).
In 1936, following Clemence Morellet’s death, Adolf and Nellie were finally
able to marry – 30 years after they had first met. Six years later, Adolf died at his
home, aged 73. Nellie died at the same age, in 1960, at her son’s home in Shenfield
Green, Essex. Interestingly, he adopted his mother’s maiden name as his surname.
236 History
References
Burt, C. (1917). Three preliminary memoranda on the distribution and relations of
educational abilities. London County Council.
Carey, N. (1914). An improved colour-wheel. British Journal of Psychology, 7, 64–67.
Carey, N. (1915a). Factors in the mental processes of school children. I. Visual and auditory
imagery. British Journal of Psychology, 7, 453–490.
Carey, N. (1915b). Factors in the mental processes of school children. II. On the nature of
the specific mental factors. British Journal of Psychology, 8, 70–92
Carey, N. (1916). Factors in the mental processes of school children. III. Factors concerned
in the school subjects. British Journal of Psychology, 8, 170–182.
Flugel, J. C. (1954). A hundred years or so of psychology at University College London.
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 21–31.
Wohlgemuth, A. (1911). On the after-effect of seen movement. British Journal of
Psychology Monograph Supplements, no. 1, 1–117.
Wohlgemuth, A. (1923). A Critical Examination of Psycho-analysis. London: Allen &
Unwin.
Wohlgemuth, A. (1925). The ‘synthesis’ of an anxiety neurosis. British Journal of Medical
Psychology, 5, 92–105.
21 “A brilliant and
many-sided personality”
Jessie Margaret Murray, founder
of the Medico-Psychological Clinic

Abstract
This paper outlines the life and career of Jessie Margaret Murray, the moving
spirit behind the foundation of the Medico-Psychological Clinic, the first public
clinic in Britain to offer psychoanalytic therapy and training in psychoanalysis.
Biographical details of Murray and her close friend and collaborator, Julia Turner,
are presented, and possible routes by which the two women may have met are
explored. Murray’s role in the suffragist movement is described, as well as other
networks and professional societies in which she was involved, in particular the
British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, and her relationship with Marie
Stopes. An account is given of events leading up to the founding of the Clinic, its
activities, Murray’s death, and other factors contributing to its demise. Finally, the
Clinic’s heritage and implications of the personalities of Murray and Turner for
understanding the subsequent development of psycho-analysis in Britain are
considered.

Jessie Murray and Julia Turner

Jessie Margaret Murray is known as the co-founder and moving spirit behind
the Medico-Psychological Clinic, the first public clinic in Britain to offer both
psychoanalytic therapy and also training in psychoanalysis, albeit somewhat
unorthodox in nature by later standards. Two other women played key roles in the
development of the Clinic, which existed in London from 1913 to 1923: Murray’s
close friend and collaborator, Julia Turner, and May Sinclair, a psychological
novelist, who provided major financial and other administrative support, including
writing much of the publicity material. Sinclair’s role has received attention from
several scholars of English literature.1 However, very little is known about Murray,
a medical doctor and suffragist, or her friend Turner. This paper seeks to provide
a portrait of Murray, in part by exploring some of the networks in which she was
involved.
Jessie Margaret Murray was born on February 9, 1867, in Hazaribagh, northeast
India, the eldest daughter of Hugh Hildyard and Frances Jane Murray.2 Her father
was serving at the time as a lieutenant in the 16th Brigade of the Royal Artillery.
238 History
Jessie’s two sisters, Mary Ethel, five years younger, and Edith May, thirteen years
younger, were also born in India. About 1880, when Jessie would have been 13
years old, Frances Murray and her children returned to Scotland, and were living
in Edinburgh in 1881.3 By 1891, the family had moved south and were boarding
in Marylebone, London.4 Hugh Murray, by then a retired colonel, collapsed and
died in Bayswater five years later.
At the end of 1898 Murray met Julia Turner;5 Murray was 31 and Turner was
35. They formed a close attachment, “typical of the intimate friendships that
for so many pioneering women relieved the pressure of professional careers”
(Showalter, 1985, p. 198). Such relationships were common among professional
women at the time, who frequently remained unmarried, sometimes for purely
pragmatic reasons such as economic independence or lack of availability of men.
Murray’s and Turner’s relationship was almost certainly what Vicinus (2004) terms
an “intimate friendship,” defined as “an emotional, erotically charged relationship
between two women” (p. xxiv), and showed many of the signs of a life partnership,
described by Marcus (2007), often referred to as a “marriage,” which replaced
marriage to men, and was marked not only by a private sexual bond, but also by
cohabitation; shared property, social networks, household labor, and holidays;
physical and spiritual caretaking; use of pet names; and arrangements to be interred
together.
Julia Turner was born in Dagenham, Essex, in 1863, the daughter of Alfred and
Marianne (née Venton) Turner. Julia was the middle child of seven. Her father
and two brothers were solicitors. Julia studied at University College London,
graduating with a B.A. honors degree in classics from London University in 1889.
She was clearly proud of this achievement as she invariably styled herself “Miss
J Turner, B.A. (Hons).” From 1900 to 1904 she was co-principal with Amelia
Conway of Fir Grove House Ladies’ School, Godalming, which according to its
advertisement was “a high-class Private School which aims at giving a liberal
Education to the daughters of gentlemen.”6 From 1892 the family home was the
Manor House, Upper Twickenham, Surrey, later occupied by two of Julia’s married
siblings.
Turner’s two younger sisters were, like herself, both spinsters. Bertha was an
active supporter of the suffragist movement, being a member of the Women’s
Social and Political Union. Rosa (or Rose) was a doctor, who had studied at the
London School of Medicine for Women and qualified at the University of Glasgow
in 1895. By 1897 she was Assistant Anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, and
Clinical Assistant in the Out-Patients Department at the New Hospital for Women
in Euston Road. The New Hospital, founded by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, was
staffed entirely by women. Both Anderson and her daughter Louisa were active
suffragists, as were many women doctors. Rosa Turner had become Assistant
Pathologist at the Hospital by 1899 and by the following year had taken consulting
rooms in Gower Street, London, which she retained for 40 years.7
Since the literary community was one of the most receptive groups to psy-
choanalysis (Hinshelwood, 1995),8 this may have been the route by which Turner
became interested in and moved into dynamic psychology. Murray and Turner may
 Jessie Margaret Murray 239
well have met in suffrage circles—possibly through Julia’s sister Bertha—or
through medical circles, possibly through Julia’s sister Rosa. Rosa may even have
encouraged Murray to pursue a career in medicine.
In any event, Murray, having received private tuition from Turner, passed the
preliminary examination of the College of Preceptors in December 1899 and
entered the London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) in February 1900.9
She was nearly 33 years old and at that time living with her widowed mother
and sister Edith in Wimbledon, southwest London; her mother had also adopted
a young daughter, Violet Dixon, then aged 5, born in Sunderland, Durham.10
Between 1902 and 1909 Murray took the medical examinations of the University
of Durham, being a resident student at the College of Medicine, Newcastle, from
1905 to 1907.11 She qualified as Licentiate in Medicine and Surgery of the Society
of Apothecaries in 1908, aged 41, and passed her final medical examinations at
Durham in the Epiphany term the following year, graduating M.B., B.S. in April
1909.
Her bachelor’s degree had included studies in psychological medicine.12 After
graduating, Murray attended lectures by Pierre Janet at the Collège de France in
Paris. She also had three periods of study in experimental psychology at University
College London,13 on the last occasion being registered for a D.Sc., though she
never completed a degree there. She was awarded an M.D. by the University of
Durham on 1 July 1919, having passed the examination and presented a thesis
entitled “Nervous Functional Diseases from the Point of View of Modern Clinical
Psychology” in April of that year. It discussed the value of psychological dis-
coveries in the treatment and prevention of nervous and mental diseases.
Murray established a large private practice at her home at 14 Endsleigh Street,
of which she had been the householder since 1905.14 From 1910 she is listed in the
telephone directory as a physician and surgeon, but “from her earliest days of
practice . . . she was quick to perceive the psychological element in many cases of
illness, and her native insight into this fact enhanced the value of her advice as a
physician.”15 She was Honorary Medical Adviser to the London Diocesan Shelter
from about 1909 to 1911,16 and subsequently Consulting Physician at the Quinton
Polyclinic for treatment by isotonized seawater.17 This treatment was introduced
to the medical profession by the French physiologist and biologist René Quinton
at the beginning of the twentieth century. Theoretically based on the similar saline
composition of seawater and blood plasma, Quinton (1904) developed a method
of filtering and diluting seawater prior to injection in the patient, where it was used
to treat a variety of diseases and ailments. The London clinic, established in 1911,
was modeled on one in Paris. The treatment was popular in France and Switzerland
until superseded by the development of antibiotics. Among Murray’s colleagues
at the Polyclinic was Dorothea Tudor, another 1909 medical graduate from Durham
University, whose address is given as 14 Endsleigh Street in the 1914 Medical
Directory. Coauthor with Arthur Gregory Sandberg of Isotonic Sea-Water
Injections: Practical Hints for Treatment, published in 1912, she returned to 14
Endsleigh Street for a few years after Murray’s death.18
240 History
Suffragism
The connection of many women doctors with the suffragist movement has already
been noted. Murray was a member of the Women’s Freedom League (WFL),
founded in 1907 as a breakaway movement from the Women’s Social and Political
Union (WSPU), in protest at the latter’s undemocratic leadership. Turner’s sister
Bertha and May Sinclair were both members of the WSPU. The WFL was likewise
a militant organization but nonviolent; it opposed the WSPU’s campaign of arson
and the destruction of private property. Instead, the League directed its efforts
against the government, by refusing to pay taxes (its motto was “no taxation
without representation”) or to complete census returns.19 A Dr. J. Murray and a
Miss J. Turner donated one shilling to the League in 1911.20 Dorothea Tudor and
Constance Long21 were also supporters.
Murray collected evidence and coauthored a report with the journalist and
socialist author Henry Noel Brailsford (Murray & Brailsford, 1911), on the
(mal)treatment of women’s deputations by the police on “Black Friday,”
November 18, 1910. In what was intended as a peaceful demonstration march by
suffragettes from Caxton Hall to the Houses of Parliament, women clashed with
the police (as they did also on November 22 and 23), whom they accused of
excessive violence, torture, and indecent assault. The report, having been
considered by the Conciliation Committee for Women Suffrage, of which
Brailsford was chairman, was forwarded to the Home Office in support of the
demand for a public inquiry, subsequently refused by Winston Churchill as Home
Secretary. Intriguingly, two of the statements of evidence are from a Miss J.T. The
first is among “Notes of verbal [sic] statements made to Dr. Jessie Murray,” which
Turner, as Murray’s close friend, would certainly have been in a position to give:
“Thumped, flung back into crowd, gripped by the throat by P.C. while held by two
other P.C.s by the shoulders. Arm wrenched deliberately by man in plain clothes
who let go when she called out, ‘This man will break my arm.’ Banner pole
wrenched from her hands. Hat flung off “ (Murray & Brailsford, 1911, p. 70). The
second is among “Other narratives”: “On the 18th the police behaved abominably
. . . One hit me with his fist in the chest with great force . . . On the 22nd one
policeman deliberately tried to get me away by bending my thumb back. I have
been in a deputation before, and have come in contact with the police in a number
of ways during the last two years, and can safely say I have never been treated
with such wanton cruelty before” (Murray & Brailsford, 1911, p. 73).
An offshoot of the WFL was the Women’s Tax Resistance League, of which
Murray was also a member. Indeed, Harrison (1981), in his chapter on women
doctors and the Women’s Movement, singles out Murray as a tax resister, without
providing further documentation. Murray hosted a Drawing Room Meeting for
the League at her home in May 1910, a formal affair for which cards were printed,22
which was attended by most of the leading figures, including Margaret Kineton
Parkes, Clemence Housman, and Murray’s fellow doctors Kate Haslam and
Constance Long.23 The following year Murray had property seized for failure to
pay taxes, as reported in the Daily Chronicle under the heading “No Vote. No Tax.
Lady doctor’s sideboard and chairs sold”:
 Jessie Margaret Murray 241
. . .Yesterday a curious scene took place in Tooth’s Auction Rooms, Oxford-
street. The place was thronged with ladies, most of whom wore suffrage
badges, to the great astonishment of the dealers and other frequenters of the
place. A sideboard and 12 chairs, the property of Dr. Jessie Murray, of
Endsleigh-gardens [sic], were announced for sale, having been seized by the
bailiffs on Dr. Murray’s refusal to pay inhabited house duty.

The duty amounted to £4.10s.9d, and Dr. Murray wrote across the paper:
“I, a member of the Tax Resistance League, hereby declare that I have
conscientious objections to paying King’s taxes so long as women are denied
the suffrage. I maintain that taxation without representation is uncon-
stitutional.” . . .

Few dealers were present, and the bidding was languid, as Dr. Murray had
refused to allow the goods to be bought in on her behalf by suffragist friends.
Finally, the sideboard was disposed of for £2.12s, and the 12 chairs for £2.
Mrs. Pankhurst was among those present.24

According to another source,25 the latter’s entry was greeted with enthusiastic
cheers. Murray donated ten shillings and sixpence to the League’s funds in 1913,26
money which was often used to buy back the property of tax resisters.
Many women doctors—including such pioneers as Elizabeth Garrett Anderson,
Sophia Jex-Blake, and Mary Scharlieb—were of a feminist persuasion and sup-
ported the suffrage movement from its earliest days (see Harrison, 1981, p. 51).
Agnes Savill, later a member of staff at the Medico-Psychological Clinic, was one
of those who spoke out against the forcible feeding of suffragist prisoners and
coauthored a study (Savill, Mansell Moulin, & Horsley, 1912) that helped to
change medical opinion on this issue. As professional women, female doctors had
a particular interest in tax reform. But militant action was risky and required
particular courage, in view of women’s precarious position and the need to
retain their reputation among medical colleagues. Early women doctors had to
be on their best behavior (Harrison, 1981, p. 56); the politically active among
them engaged in a delicate balancing act. Their greatest fear was of appearing
unprofessional.
Geddes (2007) has demonstrated the political motivation underlying the Military
Hospital in Endell Street, London, founded and run by the militant suffragists Flora
Murray and Louisa Garrett Anderson during World War I and staffed entirely by
women. This remarkably successful enterprise demonstrated that women were
capable of fulfilling their obligations as citizens and doing a professional job as
well as men, indeed better than men. One feature of the hospital was its “human”
atmosphere, with attention paid to the psychological as well as the physical needs
of their patients. It is thus possible that a suffragist agenda influenced the founding
of the Medico-Psychological Clinic. However, it is more probable that the major
motivation was philanthropic—a desire to make the new psychological treatments
available to those with limited financial means. Whatever the case, the suffrage
242 History
movement almost certainly afforded Murray several crucial contacts, one of whom,
May Sinclair, supported the Clinic both financially and administratively.

The Medico-Psychological Clinic

In July 1913, Murray convened a preliminary meeting in Bloomsbury to discuss
the opening of the Clinic, which was chaired by Stanley Bligh, a barrister, and
attended by many doctors. Hector Munro27 informed the meeting that the objects
of the Clinic were threefold: to provide a place where treatment by psychotherapy
might be carried out, to bring this method of treatment within the reach of the
poorer classes, and to provide inquirers with opportunities for study and investiga-
tion.28 Charles Spearman, professor of psychology at University College London,
stressed the benefits to be gained by psychological science from the setting up of
the Clinic, and is reported as claiming that psychoanalysis was “nothing but an
extension of the process followed in every psychological laboratory.”29 He offered
the facilities of his laboratory for “careful observation and exact tests”30 and leaped
to the Clinic’s defense when it came under attack.31 Constance Long said that it
was proposed to use all forms of psychic treatment, including persuasion, re-
education, psychoanalysis, and hypnotism. An account published in the Journal
of the Society for Psychical Research listed phobias and what would now be called
delusions and obsessive compulsive disorders as cases of nervous and mental
disorders to be treated at the Clinic, the causes of which were considered to be
emotional shock or mental conflict, often unconscious.32 Murray announced that
there was to be a nominal charge of half a crown (i.e., one-eighth of a pound
sterling) but “as it was hoped that a large proportion of the patients would belong
to the very poor, the smallest offerings would be received.”33 The result of this
policy was that the Clinic became hugely popular but ran into debt. The medical
committee was listed as Drs. Hector Munro, Jessie M. Murray, John Spencer, and
Constance E. Long,34 with Miss J. Turner as honorary secretary and treasurer. A
report of the meeting in The Observer appealed for subscriptions and donations of
furniture.35
Murray opened the Clinic at her home, 14 Endsleigh Street, in Bloomsbury,
London, in October 1913, the same month in which Ernest Jones founded the
London Psychoanalytic Society. She was one of the four original directors, there
being eight other founding members (Boll, 1962, p. 313). She was on the board
of management, and listed under both medical and psychological staff. Six
departments were outlined in the original prospectus. Murray and Turner are listed
as joint heads of the Psychological Department, concerned with diagnosis and
assessment, and of the Educational Department, responsible for lectures on mental
hygiene. The other four departments were medical (to screen out and/or treat
organic disorders), psychotherapeutic (headed by Munro), physical exercise, and
electrical. However, the entry in the 1918 Medical Directory lists, in addition, staff
with the following areas of expertise: surgery, gynecology, pathology, throat
and ear surgery, dermatology, radiography, bacteriology, pathology, and dental
surgery.36
 Jessie Margaret Murray 243
An inaugural meeting was held at University College on November 5, chaired
by Lord Sandwich,37 at which Spearman and Long again spoke, the latter explain-
ing that the patients would include people suffering from depression, insomnia,
loss of sensation, addiction, morbid attention to bodily ailments, and many other
manifestations of ill health for which no adequate provision existed at that
moment.38 She also stressed that the Clinic was intended as supplementary and
complementary rather than in opposition to orthodox medicine. In a follow-up
letter to the British Medical Journal,39 the medical committee further explained
that they expected the Clinic to attract cases of threatened nervous breakdown in
a stage at which preventive measures might avert calamity, and to offer a place of
study for medical practitioners who wished to acquaint themselves with practical
psychotherapy.
In July 1915 Murray and her colleagues launched the associated Society for the
Study of Orthopsychics (a term whose coinage is attributed to Sinclair40), which
offered a three-year training course in psychoanalysis (applied psychology),
notwithstanding the fact that neither Murray nor Turner had undergone any psy-
choanalytic training themselves. This included personal analysis, conducted initially
by Murray; lectures on biology, philosophy, anthropology, general and experimental
psychology, and comparative religion; a written thesis; and supervised work with
patients. Murray and Turner were founding members of the Society, along with
Percy Nunn, later succeeded as president by Leonard Hobhouse. Murray also served
as a tutor for the Society. Among the well-known analysts trained there were James
Glover, Sylvia Payne, Mary Chadwick, Ella Freeman Sharpe, Nina Searle, Susan
Isaacs, Iseult Grant-Duff, Marjorie Brierley, Barbara Low, Joan Riviere, and Ethilda
Meakin Herford (Boll, 1962, p. 324; Martindale, 2004, p. 180).
Though the clinic had been intended primarily for voluntary and mostly female
outpatients,41 the acquisition of further property enabled the opening of a residential
unit, where occupational therapy was provided, and to which “shell-shocked”
soldiers were admitted in 1917. For further details of the Clinic, see Boll (1962).42
For further discussion of the different types of psychotherapy employed, see Raitt
(2004, pp. 72–74).

Networks
Despite the fact that Murray was engaged in organization, assessment, treatment,
training, and lecturing at the Clinic, she nevertheless found time to participate in
a number of outside activities relevant to her interests. The suffragist movement
was only one of the organizations with which she became actively involved. The
limited amount of her correspondence now extant affords a picture of a great
facilitator, making connections between people, and enthusiastically encouraging
them in their endeavors. In addition to her medical affiliations—she was a member
of the British Medical Association, the Association of Registered Medical Women,
the Psycho-Medical Society,43 the Medico-Psychological Association,44 and a
fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine—she was also a member of several other
professional societies.
244 History
Most important among these was probably the British Society for the Study of
Sex Psychology (BSSSP), which she joined with Turner in 1914, soon after its
formation. The Society45 pursued open-minded inquiry on sexual matters, embrac-
ing the radical, unconventional, and unorthodox. Its founding members included
the homosexuals Edward Carpenter, George Ives, and Laurence Housman—
younger brother of the poet A. E. Housman, whose sister was the suffragist
Clemence Housman. The membership included psychologists such as Barbara
Low, Jack Flugel (a fellow council member and fellow tutor of Murray’s at the
Society for the Study of Orthopsychics), Margaret Lowenfeld, and Ernest Jones,46
and a number of women doctors, such as Constance Long, Mary Bell, and Ethilda
Herford. Murray was soon elected to the committee, offering her house for
meetings and contributing papers. She presented a paper on “The Evolution of the
Instincts” to the first quarterly meeting of the Society in January 1915, at her home,
at which Laurence Housman took the chair.47 In March that year, E. B. Lloyd,
reporting on a recent committee meeting of the Society, wrote to Edward Carpenter
concerning a conversazione the latter had planned that “they fixed it up to be held
in Murray’s house (she was very nice about it)—as much unconstrained as possible,
and a short address (10 minutes they wanted!) on some topical question (soldiers
and sex trouble or something of the kind).”48
The Society for Psychical Research was founded in 1882 to research paranormal
phenomena in an unbiased manner, so far as possible by scientific methods. Murray
is listed as a new associate of the Society in July 1914.49 Its journal carried a six-
page article on the Medico-Psychological Clinic in its December 1914 issue,50
following this up with an approving mention in the annual Report to Council, which
indicates the close connections between the Society and the Clinic:

. . . so much has been done through the work of the S.P.R. both to advance
knowledge and to arouse interest in hypnotic and allied states from a
psychological as well as a therapeutic point of view, that new developments
of this kind under the direction of properly qualified persons are always
especially welcomed by the Council. Six members of the staff of the Clinic
belong to the S.P.R., and the Chairman of the Board of Management
[Lawrence Jones] is a member of our Council. We have already found
occasion to send to the Clinic several persons who have come to the S.P.R.
Rooms for advice and help in regard to mental or nervous symptoms.51

Unsurprisingly, Murray was also a member of the British Psychological Society,

founded in 1901 (as the Psychological Society) with the aims of advancing
psychological research and furthering the cooperation of investigations in the
different branches of psychology. She first attended a meeting in 1908 but became
a frequent attender from 1911 onwards. She was elected to membership in March
1915, proposed by Carveth Read and seconded by Jack Flugel (both members of
staff in the Department of Psychology, University College London), and presented
a paper on “The Involuntary Nervous System and the Involuntary Expression of
Emotions” to a meeting of the Society in May of the following year. She joined
 Jessie Margaret Murray 245
the Medical Section when it was formed in 1919 and became a member of its
committee.
Another very important network was the British Association for the
Advancement of Science (BAAS), founded in 1831, with the aims of providing
direction to scientific inquiry, promoting communication among scientists within
the British Empire, and improving the public image of science. A Subsection
for Psychology was formed within the Physiology Section in 1913. Various
research committees and research projects—some in receipt of grants from the
Association—were established within the Sections. An annual conference was held
in a city in Britain or, on occasion, abroad somewhere in the British Empire. Both
Murray and Turner attended the annual meeting in 1915 and 1916, Murray
presenting a paper on the former occasion and both of them papers in the same
session the following year, when Murray spoke on “Emotional Disturbances from
a Biological Point of View,” followed by Turner on “Some Aspects of Infancy
and Childhood in the Light of Freudian Principles.”52 Murray was also a member
of the BAAS research committee on Psychological war research, which addressed
the following research issues: (1) mental tests of industrial fatigue; (2) mental
factors in alcoholism; (3) evidence and rumor; (4) efficacy of thrift posters; and
(5) other problems.53 How Murray had time to participate in all these ventures is
difficult to imagine. She must have been a woman of the most extraordinary energy.

Jessie Murray and Marie Stopes

It is perhaps not surprising that Murray had little time for writing in her short life.
Apart from the report on the treatment of women’s deputations, her only other
publication was the Preface to Marie Stopes’ Married Love. How did this come
about? Both Murray and Stopes had Edinburgh connections, but it is unlikely that
their paths crossed north of the border. Stopes was born there in 1880 but her
parents immediately moved south. Murray lived there in the 1880s but had moved
south by the time Stopes returned to the north for two years’ schooling in
1892–1894. In addition, Murray was 13 years older than Stopes. Both were students
at University College London (UCL) but not contemporaneously, though one of
Murray’s periods of registration overlapped with Stopes’ time as a member of staff
in the Botany Department. Stopes is reported to have been keen on seawater54
and one wonders whether she might have had some dealings with the Quinton
Polyclinic. Both women were members of the Women’s Freedom League and
Stopes was a vice president of the Women’s Tax Resistance League, so it is most
likely that they met through suffrage circles. From correspondence between them,
it is apparent that Murray had invited Stopes to lecture to the Society for the Study
of Orthopsychics on two occasions but that Stopes declined.
A crucial meeting appears to have been at the British Association for the
Advancement of Science. Stopes was almost a child of the BAAS, as her parents
had met there. She herself had been a member since 1903 and was an assiduous
attender. Both Stopes and Murray presented papers to the meeting in Manchester
in September 1915: Stopes on “The Aptian Flora of Britain: Early Angiosperms
246 History
and Their Contemporaries”55 and Murray on “Therapeutic Re-Education.”56 It
seems highly likely that Stopes, who had had an interest in psychology since her
first term as an undergraduate at UCL,57 attended Murray’s paper. The following
day, Murray wrote to Stopes:

Dear Dr Stopes, We were very glad to find how interested you are in some of
the problems & work that the Medico-Psychological Clinic is engaged on, all
the more so as we were greatly disappointed when you refused to lecture for
us! Although we hardly like,— after your second very definite refusal,—to
open the subject again,—I am inclined to do so on my own initiative, encour-
aged thereto by your evident interest in the very problems we are attempting
to meet.58

She goes on to give more details of the courses put on by the Orthopsychics Society,
urging Stopes to contact those responsible for organizing the program.
The following March Murray convened a select meeting of women doctors, at
which Stopes read a paper. The meeting was hosted by Ethel Vaughan-Sawyer,
Lecturer in Gynaecology at the London School of Medicine for Women, Senior
Physician for Diseases of Women, and Obstetrics Physician at the Royal Free
Hospital. A skilled and humane surgeon,59 she was also a feminist and a Fabian.
Recently widowed, she was at the time in analysis with her Harley Street neighbor,
Ernest Jones, with whom she fell in love and later delivered his first child.60 Others
present61 besides Murray were Mary Scharlieb, Consultant Physician for Diseases
of Women at the Royal Free Hospital and Consultant Surgeon at the South London
Hospital for Women, one of the first women to qualify as a doctor in Britain and
the first to be appointed to a post in a general hospital; Eleanor Davies-Colley,
Assistant Surgeon at the South London Hospital for Women, Senior Assistant Out-
Patients at the New Hospital for Women, and Surgeon Registrar at the Royal Free
Hospital; and possibly Maud Chadburn, Surgeon and Senior Obstetrician, the New
Hospital for Women, and Agnes Savill, a dermatologist, both colleagues of
Murray’s at the Medico-Psychological Clinic. The text of the paper presented by
Stopes is preserved among her papers in the British Library. It was on cyclic
variations in sexual desire in normal women, and put forward her hypothesis that
there were two peaks, premenstrual and mid-cycle.62 It includes the charts which
were later to appear in Married Love. On the cover sheet is penciled: “Written in
1916 this was never completed, but was used as the basis of a lecture to some
women doctors arranged by Dr Jessie Murray. ‘Married Love’ grew out of this—
MCS BL.”63
Stopes clearly wanted someone in authority to endorse her first and controversial
book. She approached at least three people who declined to write a preface: P.
Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., secretary of the Zoological Society; Russell Wakefield,
Bishop of Birmingham, with whom she had had some flirtation; and W. R. Inge,
Dean of St Paul’s, the most “advanced” of the church’s thinkers.64 Murray would
have appealed to Stopes as she was medically qualified, although she did not at
that time have a doctorate, whereas Stopes was not: Her doctorate was in
 Jessie Margaret Murray 247
paleobotany. Murray tried to persuade Stopes to ask Ethilda Meakin Herford to do
it, on the grounds that the latter was more appropriate for the task, being both
married and a mother.65
Herford became an early convert to psychoanalysis and, like Murray, devoted
herself “to the study and treatment of functional nervous disorders by psycho-
therapy and psychoanalysis” (Payne, 1957, p. 276). She attended the 1920
International Congress of Psychoanalysis in The Hague, where she annoyed Ernest
Jones and met Karl Abraham. After a brief analysis with Jack Flugel, she continued
under Abraham in Berlin, completing her training analysis with Sándor Ferenczi
in Budapest. She initiated negotiations to try and bring Freud to England in
192166 and, after an initial rejection, was admitted to membership of the British
Psychoanalytic Society in October 1921. Ernest Jones’s marked hostility towards
her67 contrasts sharply with the favorable impression she made on virtually
everyone else. Whereas Jones wrote that “Her behaviour in The Hague was
certainly outrageous and alienated all who had to do with her in the hotel,”68 Murray
described her as “fine, and unimpeachable morally.”69 Max Eitigon was pleasantly
surprised by her qualities.70 Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham also reported on her
favorably.71 Sylvia Payne’s final judgment was that “Herford’s life was
characterised by an outstanding interest in human nature, and a desire to use every
means available to relieve human suffering” (Payne, 1957, p. 276), perhaps what
attracted her to Murray.
Whether Stopes asked Herford to write the Preface to Married Love is not
known. In the event it was written by Murray in haste in December 1917, and the
book published—after difficulties in finding a publisher—in 1918. May Sinclair,
in her enthusiasm, even credits Murray with part authorship of the book. Writing
to Stopes shortly after the book was published, she says: “Dear Dr Stopes,. . . I have
ordered your & Dr. Murray’s book, (I did this at once a fortnight or three weeks
[ago]) & I’m looking forward immensely to reading it.”72
The last extant letter from Murray to Stopes is rather poignant in retrospect. It
reads:

Dear Dr. Stopes,

. . . I have only just got back to work to-day, having been to Durham to take
my M.D. thesis (on the Functional Nervous Diseases from the point of view
of Modern Clinical Psychology).73
I have been thinking often of you, and cannot help longing to know how things
go.
All my best wishes to all three [underlined in pencil] of you!
Yours very sincerely,
[signed] J.M. Murray74

It clearly refers to the child Stopes was at last expecting, which by the time this
letter was written, had been stillborn.
248 History
Murray’s death and the demise of the Medico-Psychological
Clinic
Even more tragic was the fact that by this time Murray must have known she was
terminally ill. Shortly after completing her M.D. degree, she had to retire from
active work at the Clinic. She made her will on July 17, 1919, bequeathing the
residue of her estate to Julia Turner, adding a codicil in September 1920, remedying
the failure to appoint an executor and making Turner sole executrix. Murray died
three weeks later, on September 25, aged 53, of ovarian cancer, not at her home in
Endsleigh Street but at the Manor House, Twickenham, the Turners’ family home.
Her death was certified by Rosa Turner. Murray’s ashes were interred in her
mother’s grave in Highgate Cemetery.
Murray was described in obituaries in the Lancet and the British Medical Journal
as “a brilliant and many-sided personality,”75 whence the epithet in the title of this
article. Her housemate for the last two years, Margaret Scoresby-Jackson, a
medical student at the time, wrote an obituary in the London School of Medicine
for Women Magazine, in which she says:

A medical colleague76 writes:

“Her work, in my eyes and in the eyes of many other workers, will stand out
as a superb and far-reaching accomplishment. I refer to her quick perception
of the new world of investigation and endeavour opened up by the infant
Science of Psycho-Analysis . . .

At a time when only a mere handful of people were practising it throughout

the world . . . she actualized a scheme to bring it within reach of the student
and the sufferer of small means.

In doing so Dr. Murray has earned for herself a unique place in the history of
mental Science, and mental Therapy. She was the first to do, and to do
practically alone, what will be done all over the world within the next ten
years.”77

Scoresby-Jackson continues:

Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Dr. Murray and of working
with her cannot speak too highly of her rare and beautiful character. She was
one who lived for the Truth and for the Reality of things. She faced life with
clear insight and unfaltering courage, undaunted by difficulties, and with a
cheerful, happy sympathy and understanding which made her beloved alike
by comrades and patients.78

According to Laura Price, a student at the Clinic at the time—in an oft-quoted

remark—“Everyone at the clinic felt at that time that the heart of the clinic had
stopped.”79
 Jessie Margaret Murray 249
Who filled the gap? James Glover, a young doctor who had become interested
in psychoanalysis and joined the Clinic, initially undergoing analysis with Turner,
had been appointed co-director of the Clinic with her, and honorary secretary of
the Society for the Study of Othopsychics early in 1918. Following the cessation
of hostilities and days before Murray’s death, he took the opportunity to attend the
6th International Psychoanalytic Congress in The Hague, and to learn about
psychoanalysis first hand. Here he met Karl Abraham, who persuaded him to go
for further analysis with him in Berlin. When Glover returned in the spring of 1921,
converted to orthodox Freudian psychoanalysis, there was a split between him and
Turner. Glover wanted to make the Clinic purely psychoanalytic and for it to join
with the recently founded80 British Psychoanalytical Society. Turner wished to
remain loyal to her friend Murray’s vision and perhaps, as Raitt (2004) suggests,
was also reluctant to give up her freedom, to join a male-dominated, restrictive
society. The conflict between the two directors split the board of management of
the Clinic and the council of the Society.
Raitt (2004) has described the history of the Medico-Psychological Clinic as
“one of the most significant repressed narratives in the history of psychoanalysis
in Britain” (p. 82). It was not only repressed but rather suppressed by Freud’s
disciple, Ernest Jones, who had his own agenda of building a psychoanalytic
empire in Britain and took advantage of the crisis created by Murray’s death.
Martindale (2004) has shown how Jones saw the Clinic as a threat—both were
struggling for acceptance by orthodox medicine—and took every opportunity to
devalue its work. He further denigrated it by always referring to the Brunswick
Square Clinic rather than by using its official title, the Medico-Psychological
Clinic, which might make it appear respectable to orthodox medicine. Jones had
three major objections to the Clinic: The staff were lay rather than medically
qualified and thus unlikely to win approval from orthodox medicine, the analyses
carried out were unorthodox by Freudian standards, and Murray and Turner were
too favorably inclined towards Jungian theory.
It is clear from the Rundbriefe that Jones schemed to take over the Clinic and
its assets. In November 1920, he wrote:

. . . not one person there has been analysed by a real analyst. Our members
rightly refuse to have anything to do with the place, for it is conducted
throughout on quite unprofessional lines, turns out scores of so-called lay
psycho-analysts every year who practice analysis on their own accord . . .,
and so discredits psycho-analysis very seriously, especially in the eyes of the
medical profession, many of whom identify psa [psychoanalysis] and lay
quackery. We have the secret hope that some day the clinic will collapse and
that we may be able to convert it into a proper place, like the Berlin Polyclinic.81

In February 1921 he elaborated: “Miss Turner is certainly the evil genius of the
place and there is no hope till she goes, which perhaps will not be long.”82 Sachs
and Abraham provide the reason for Jones’s antagonism toward Turner and
Herford: “the director of the ‘Clinic’, Miss Turner, seems to exert a harmful
250 History
influence with Ethilda and others, by larding psychoanalysis in the manner of
Jung.”83 By May, Jones was able to report that “There seems a good hope of [the
Clinic’s] falling into our hands if we proceed cautiously. . . [Glover] has not
returned there since he came back from Berlin, but I advised him to do so, and
thus keep his influence there till it is needed for the coup”;84 and in June that “Miss
Turner, our only obstacle at the Brunswick Sq. Clinic, has offered to resign if a
suitable substitute can be found . . . This brings our hopes perceptibly nearer, for
Glover . . . should now have things in his own hands.”85 The following month he
proclaimed triumphantly: “The B. Sq. Clinic is, as you know, closed, and Miss
Turner is opening one on her own lines.”86
Showalter (1985, p. 199) has drawn attention to another factor that may have
contributed to the demise of the Clinic: a cultural sea change at the time of World
War I, when feminism and lesbianism were attacked in both the professional and
the lay press. She points out that Karl Abraham (Glover’s analyst) saw feminism
as a neurotic reaction, a “masculinity complex,” the sublimation of the desire to
be male by aping men and masculine pursuits. The paper he gave at the 1920
Congress was entitled “Manifestations of the Female Castration Complex,” a view
of which Freud approved and later elaborated in the Elektra complex.
Although hugely popular, the Clinic had run into increasingly serious debt and
went into voluntary liquidation in 1923. Turner was saved from financial disaster
by her family’s firm of solicitors. As Showalter comments: “Within a few years,
the work of Murray and Turner had passed into oblivion” (p. 198). Murray’s grave
is symbolic. There is now no gravestone, only a broken cross bearing the words
“In Loving Memory,” which may or may not belong to the grave.87 Although the
cemetery has no record of the fact, it probably also contains the ashes of Julia
Turner, the last clause of whose will reads: “It is my desire that my body be
cremated and my ashes scattered upon the Grave of my said dear Friend Jessie
Margaret Murray in Highgate Cemetery.”
Turner withdrew from the Clinic and founded the Psychological Aid Society in
September 1921. She lived at Endsleigh Street from 1922 onward, seeing patients
and training therapists—among them Teresa Gosse, daughter of the writer Sir
Edmund Gosse. She wrote three books. The Psychology of Self-Consciousness and
The Dream and the Anxiety Hypothesis were both published in 1923. The latter
bore the dedication: “To Jessie Margaret Murray, MD, BS (Durham) from whose
inspired teaching and example is derived anything of value therein, this little book
is dedicated.” Human Psychology as Seen through the Dream appeared the
following year. In these books Turner expounds her philosophy and psychology,
in which the role of anxiety in psychic life and dreams as a psychotherapeutic tool
are central. She takes elements from both Freud and Jung but also distinguishes
her ideas from both of these. Other central themes are the life force and the value
of sublimation, both of which also recur in the writings of May Sinclair, Turner’s
exact contemporary (they were born and died in the same year as each other). A
comparison of these two authors might prove fruitful. In 1935, she moved to an
apartment not far from Endsleigh Street, in Upper Woburn Place, and died in
Muswell Hill, north London, in 1946.
 Jessie Margaret Murray 251
Concluding comments
Although the Clinic disappeared from view, as Boll (1962) recounts, it bequeathed
the larger share of its endowment in experience and training to the Tavistock
Clinic and the British Psychoanalytic Society. The “Tavistock Square Clinic for
Functional Nervous Disorders,” which opened in 1920 at 51 Tavistock Square, in
Bloomsbury, shared not only a location but also a vision with its predecessor. Hugh
Crichton-Miller, its inspiration and founder, was among those doctors who had
worked with “shell-shocked” soldiers in World War I. He set out to provide
psychotherapy for outpatients suffering from psychoneurotic and personality
disorders who were not catered to by other public services and who were unable
to afford private fees. Like Murray, his approach to treatment was eclectic and
holistic, favoring a range of therapeutic methods but predominantly those that were
psychodynamic in orientation. His supporters and staff included E. Farquhar
Buzzard, T. W. Mitchell, William McDougall, W. E. M. Armstrong, and Agnes
Savill, who had been associated with the Medico-Psychological Clinic (Boll, 1962,
p. 323).88 Like its predecessor, the Clinic also offered instruction in mental hygiene
to both medical and nonmedical personnel concerned with mental health and
human relations. It too was enormously successful but lastingly so, after a number
of vicissitudes ultimately becoming absorbed into the National Health Service.89
In time it came to be associated with the work of Melanie Klein.
The British Psychoanalytic Society Clinic opened in 1924. The British
Psychoanalytic Society, founded by Ernest Jones in February 1919, included
among its members W. H. B. Stoddart, Percy Nunn, T. W. Mitchell, James Glover,
E. B. Meakin Herford, Sylvia Payne, J. C. Flugel, Ella Sharpe, Mary Chadwick,
Nina Searl, Susan Isaacs, Iseult Grant-Duff, and Marjorie Brierley, all of whom
had been staff at the Medico-Psychological Clinic and/or students of the Society
for the Study of Orthopsychics.
How does a knowledge of Murray’s and Turner’s personalities and social
networks increase understanding of the subsequent development of psychoanalysis
in Britain? Murray is revealed as a courageous, forceful, energetic, outgoing
personality, dynamic in both senses of the word. Laura Price saw her as “the leading
spirit in the foundation and work of the [Medico-Psychological] Clinic.”90 In
contrast, her “animus,” Turner, appears as a much more introverted character, who
withdrew from the Clinic rather than confront James Glover, and maintained her
loyalty to Murray until her own death a quarter of a century later. Whereas Murray,
with a medical background, spent her time networking and engaged in action,
Turner, with her literary background, devoted her time to thinking, reading, and
writing. She lacked Murray’s leadership qualities and was unable to take her
mission forward.
Murray’s approach was liberal, open-minded, and eclectic. She offered the new
psychological therapies alongside the more traditional, orthodox approaches to
treatment, employed a variety of different psychotherapeutic methods, and
combined elements from Jung as well as Freud. She was motivated by egalitarian
and philanthropic views: Her goal was to make therapy available to those unable
252 History
to afford private treatment, and she welcomed both lay and medically qualified
trainee therapists. With her death, this vision was lost. For the most part, the British
psychoanalytic scene became dominated by strict adherence to a rigid, orthodox,
masculine-oriented, Continental model, with resulting sectarianism and the “pure
elixir” available only to those with financial means.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr. Lesley Hall and Dr. Rhodri Hayward for making research notes
available to me, and to them and three anonymous referees for comments on an
earlier version of this paper; to the following for help in locating and/or interpreting
source material: Wendy Butler, Beverley Cook, Dr. William Frame, Dr. Jennian
Geddes, Prof. Neil McIntyre, Dr. Philippa Martindale, Victoria Rea, Andrew
Roberts, and Michael Stansfield; and to Toni Brennan for help with translation.

Notes
1 Raitt (2004), Martindale (2004); see also Raitt (2000).
2 Baptismal certificate. British Library: Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections: N/1/119/33.
3 1881 Scotland Census.
4 1891 England Census.
5 In her testimonial for Murray on her student form for the London School of Medicine
for Women, dated February 2, 1900, Turner says she has known Murray for 14 months.
6 Craddock’s Godalming Almanac and Directory, 1900.
7 The information about Rosa Turner is taken from the Medical Directory.
8 See also Rapp (1990), p. 222, note 16.
9 London School of Medicine for Women application form.
10 1901 England Census.
11 The College was part of the University of Durham at that time. Five years’ study and
one year’s residence were conditions for obtaining a degree.
12 Boll (1962), p. 311, note 5.
13 She was registered as an internal student of the College 1908–1909, 1912–1915, and
1918–1920.
14 Register of electors, St. Pancras south, 1905–1906.
15 British Medical Journal, November 6, 1920, p. 723.
16 Medical Directory, 1910, 1911, 1912.
17 Medical Directory, 1912, 1913, 1914. The Polyclinic was later renamed the Sea Water
Dispensary when it moved to 225 Euston Road in 1917.
18 Register of electors, St. Pancras south, 1921 through 1923.
19 To the disadvantage of future historians.
20 Report of the Women’s Freedom League for the year 1911.
21 Constance Long (1867–1923) became a leading disciple and advocate of C. G. Jung in
Britain.
22 Women’s Tax Resistance League Minute Book 1909–1913. Minutes for the meeting
of April 29, 1910. The Women’s Library: 2WTR/1/2.
23 Ibid. Minutes for the meeting of May 28, 1910.
24 Daily Chronicle, April 26, 1911. Scrapbook of press cuttings relating to tax resistance,
1910–1912. The Women’s Library: 10/21.
25 Scrapbook of press cuttings relating to tax resistance, 1910–1912, p. 203. The Women’s
Library 10/21. Source of cutting not given.
26 Fourth Annual Report of Women’s Tax Resistance League, 1914.
 Jessie Margaret Murray 253
27 Hector Munro (1870–1916) was a member of the Psycho-Medical Society (see note 43).
His main interests were hypnosis and medical psychology (Wittenberger & Tögel, 1999,
p. 141).
28 British Medical Journal, July 19, 1913, p. 132.
29 Ibid.
30 “Medico-Psychological Clinic, Special Appeal in Time of War,” October 8, 1917, p. 5.
Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania: May
Sinclair Papers, MS Coll. 184, box 49, f. 548.
31 “Psycho-Therapy,” letter from Spearman to the editor, dated December 9, The Times,
December 12, 1913, p. 5, col. B; “London Medico-Psychological Clinic,” letter from
Spearman, dated December 9, British Journal of Medicine, December 13, 1913, p. 1564;
“The Medico-Psychological Clinic,” letter from Spearman to the editor, dated
December 10, Lancet, December 20, 1913, p. 1803.
32 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1913–1914, 16, p. 313.
33 British Medical Journal, July 19, 1913, p. 132.
34 Long later dissociated herself from the committee (British Medical Journal, November
29, 1913, p. 1462).
35 The Observer, July 13, 1913, p. 7, col. 4.
36 Medical Directory, 1918, p. 436.
37 This turned out to be an extremely unfortunate choice, as Ernest Jones later recounted:
The chairman “scandalized the meeting by talking at length about supernatural powers
that rare people, including himself, possessed. This was reported in the papers, and most
of the medical men, in a panic at being identified with such quackery, withdrew their
promised support.” Letter from Ernest Jones, November 2, 1920 (Wittenberger & Tögel,
1999, p. 141.)
38 British Medical Journal, November 15, 1913, p. 1312.
39 Ibid.
40 Boll (1962), p. 316.
41 Patients could not commit themselves voluntarily to an asylum at that time.
42 Also Showalter (1985); Raitt (2000), pp. 135–39; Raitt (2004); Martindale (2004).
43 The Psycho-Medical Society was formerly the Medical Society for the Study of
Suggestive Therapeutics.
44 The Medico-Psychological Association was the forerunner of the Royal College of
Psychiatrists.
45 For detailed treatment, see the excellent article by Hall (1995).
46 Jones even suggested at one point that the Society should merge with the British
Psychological Society!
47 Minutes of the BSSSP 18th and First Quarterly Meeting, January 21, 1915. Harry
Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. I am indebted to
Dr. Lesley A. Hall for this information.
48 Lloyd to Carpenter, March 3, 1915, Sheffield City Archives, MSS 368/10. I am indebted
to Dr. Lesley A. Hall for this information.
49 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1913–1914, 16, p. 257.
50 Ibid, pp. 311–316.
51 Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 1915–1916, 17, p. 25.
52 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1916, p. 476.
53 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1916, p. lvii.
54 Hall (1977), p. 25.
55 Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1915, p. 720–721.
56 Ibid., p. 700.
57 Maude (1933), pp. 240–241.
58 Murray to Stopes, September 12, 1915. British Library. Stopes Papers. Add 58683, ff.
96–97.
59 Lancet, March 19, 1949, p. 505.
254 History
60 Maddox (2006), pp. 127, 135, 163.
61 Murray to Stopes, March 16, 1916. British Library. Stopes Papers. Add. 58568 f. 7.
62 It appears from an examination of the current literature that this is still a topic of debate;
see, for example, Tarin and Gómez-Piquer (2002).
63 British Library. Stopes Papers. Add 58506, ff. 18–37.
64 Hall (1977), p. 126.
65 Murray to Stopes, December 7, 1917. Wellcome Library: PP/MCS/A.283.
66 Letter from Ernest Jones, February 11, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, pp. 66–67).
67 Letters from Ernest Jones, November 2, 1920; January 21, 1921; March 1, 1921; May
21, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 1999, p. 140; 2001, pp. 42, 96, 170, respectively).
68 Letter from Ernest Jones, November 2, 1920 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 1999, p. 140). A
footnote indicates that it could not be established what this remark refers to.
69 Letter from Jessie Murray to Marie Stopes, December 7, 1917. Wellcome Library:
PP/MCS/A.283.
70 Letter from Max Eitigon, October 27, 1920 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 1999, p. 123).
71 Letter from Eitigon and Sachs, January 31, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, p. 41).
72 Sinclair to Stopes, March 21, 1918. British Library. Stopes Papers. Add. 58684, ff.
108–109.
73 This is not quite in accord with the information from Durham University that she was
awarded the degree on July 1, having passed the examination and presented her thesis
in April.
74 Letter from Murray to Stopes, August 8, 1919. British Library. Stopes Papers. Add.
58568, f. 73.
75 Lancet, October 30, 1920, p. 922; British Medical Journal, November 6, 1920, p. 723.
76 Perhaps Ethilda Meakin Herford, if the high regard in which Murray held her was
reciprocated.
77 In Memoriam. Jessie Margaret Murray, M.D., B.S. (Durh.). London School of Medicine
for Women Magazine, 15, no. 77, November 1920; quote from p. 203.
78 Ibid., p. 204.
79 Letter from Laura Price to Theophilus Boll, December 18, 1961. May Sinclair Papers,
Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania. Cited by Raitt (2004),
p. 81.
80 February 20, 1919.
81 Letter from Ernest Jones to friends, November 2, 1920 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 1999,
p. 142). See also letters of November 21, 1920, and January 21, 1921.
82 Letter from Ernest Jones, February 11, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, p. 66).
83 Letter from Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham to Lieber Freunde, January 31, 1921. The
original German passage is: “die Leiterin der ‘Clinic’, Miss Turner, Schädlich zu
wirken, d.h. die PsA nach Jung’s Art mit Ethil usw. zu befetten” (Wittenberger & Tögel,
2001, p. 46).
84 Letter from Ernest Jones, May 21, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, p. 159).
85 Letter from Ernest Jones, June 1, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, p. 182).
86 Letter from Ernest Jones, October 11, 1921 (Wittenberger & Tögel, 2001, p. 249).
87 Visitors should continue on past the grave of Karl Marx. The first large horse chestnut
tree on the right belongs to the burial plot of the Murray family.
88 Boll also includes C. S. Myers in this list, as have others following him. Myers is listed
in the original prospectus and the “Special Appeal in Time of War,” but in a letter to
the Lancet, February 13, 1918, p. 312, he denied any connection with the Medico-
Psychological Clinic. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing this to my
attention.
89 For a detailed history of the Tavistock Clinic, see Dicks (1976).
90 Letter from Laura Price to Theophilus Boll, October 20, 1959. Annenberg Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania: May Sinclair Papers, MS Coll.
184, box 48, f. 530. Cited in Martindale (2004), p. 178.
 Jessie Margaret Murray 255
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Geddes, J. F. (2007). Deeds and words in the suffrage military hospital in Endell Street.
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Martindale, P. (2004). “Against all hushing up and stamping down”: The Medico-
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Maude, A. (1933). Marie Stopes: Her work and play. London: Peter Davies.
Murray, J., & Brailsford, H. N. (1911). The treatment of women’s deputations by the
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Wittenberger, G., & Tögel, C. (Eds.). (1999). Die Rundbriefe des “Geheimen Komittees,”
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Band II: 1921. Tübingen: Diskord.
Index
action: conscious control of see
consciousness: causal efficacy
anomalous monism 79
artificial intelligence 117–8
association 113–14; see also Stout, G. F.,
criticism of association
associative memory 115, 118–19; see also
neural nets
Aveling, F. A. P. 206, 209, 216n40
Bain, A. 150–1
Bedford College London: psychology at
149; 1849–97 149–52; 1898–1933
152–8; 1945–68 159–60; 1968–85
161; psychological laboratory 153, 156,
166–9
behaviourism 78
‘Black Friday’ 240
boundary work 197–8
Brailsford, H. N. 240
British Association for the
Advancement of Science 245–6
British Child Study Association 142,
143n10
British College of Psychic Science
202
British Psychoanalytic Society 251
British Psychological Society 153, 174–5,
177, 220–2, 244–5
British Society for the Study of Sex
Psychology 244
Brown, W. 204–5, 207, 212, 215n28
Burt, C. 192, 206, 208, 210–14, 215n33
Carey, N. 233–5
cause 95, 97; see also explanation: causal
child study: history 139–43; baby diaries
140
Childhood Society 142
commissurotomy 60–1, 68–9
Conceptual issues in psychology: contents
4–5; changes to second edition 4–5
connectionism 114, 118, 120
consciousness: causal efficacy 17, 52,
61–2, 72; conceptual problems 47,
56–7; dissociation 56–63;
neuropsychological theories 86–8;
phenomenal features 86; physical
theories 88–90; relation to
non-conscious processes 62–3;
scientific study 47, 49–53
Crichton-Miller, H. 251
Darwin, C. 140–1
Dennett, D. C. 71
determinism 15–16; and predictability 16
Dixon, E. T. 191
dualism see mind-body problem
Duncan, H. 203–5
Edgell, B. 7–8, 152–8, 163–4, 176;
biography 164–5; doctoral thesis
165–6; factors contributing to success
173–6; family 164, 173; education
164–5; personal qualities 174–5;
research 169–71; strategies 175–6;
teaching 152, 154, 171–3
eliminative materialism 78
emergence 17
empiricism 19
Endell Street military hospital 241
epiphenomenalism 52–3, 77
epistemology 13, 75, 83, 132
evolutionary theory 140–1
experience see consciousness
experimental method in psychology 20
explanation: types 93, 101; causal 96–8;
correlational 95–6; description and

classification 94–5; functional 98–9;
mentalistic 100; neurophysiological 99;
purposive 16–17, 100
Fildes, L. 172
Flugel, J. C. 206–8, 210, 215n30
folk psychology: contrasted with scientific
psychology 24; description 22–4;
functions 23; relation to scientific
psychology 24
Foss, B. M. 161
Frentzen-Hoesch, L. 189–9
functionalism 80
Galton, F. 143n6, 188, 192; role in
University College London
psychological laboratory 183–9
Gestalt psychology 127–8
Glover, J. 249–50
Hall, G. S. 142
Harding, D. W. 159–60, 176
Hazlitt, V. 154–5, 157–8, 172
Herford, E. M. 247
hermeneutics 100–1
history of psychology: nature 3–4; relation
to philosophy of psychology 3
holographic memory 116
idealism 77
implicit memory and thought 59–60
implicit perception 57–9
Institut Métapsychique International 205
intentional stance see stance: theoretical
intentionality 76
International Institute for Psychical
Research 202
introspection: analysis 32–3; content of
experience 33–7; determinants of
behaviour 38–9; evaluation 42–3;
limitations 29–32; nature and status
28–9; process of behaviour 37–8;
relation to physiological measures
34–7; validation 40–2
Jones, E. 247, 249–50
levels of description 17, 99; see also
reduction; see also stance: theoretical
Long, C. 242–3
Loweman, Mr 208
McDougall, W. 191, 204–7, 210–11, 213,
215n26
Index 257
Mace, C. A. 158–9, 206, 208–9, 216n37
materialism 78
measurement, psychological 20
mechanistic model: relation to purpose
16–17
Medico-Psychological Clinic 237, 241–3,
249–51
memory development: Edgell’s
experiments 169–70
Meredith, G. 139
metaphysics 74
mind-body problem 75, 82–6, 90; attitudes
to the explanatory gap 83–4; different
forms 83–5, 90; dualist positions 76–7;
mental distinguished from physical
75–6; monist positions 77–8;
ontological monist but conceptual
dualist positions 78–80
mind-brain identity theory 79
Morellet, C. 234–5
Mınsterberg, H. 142–3, 188–9
Murray, J. M. 9, 237, 251–2; biography
237–9; death 248, 250; networks
243–5; suffragism 240–2; see also
Medico-Psychological Clinic; see also
Stopes, M.
National Laboratory of Psychical Research
202–5
natural vs social sciences 2–3
neural nets: history 113–20
observation: as a psychological method
19–20
ontology 74, 83
parallel distributed processing 72, 116–20
parapsychology see psychical research
perceptrons 115–19
philosophy of psychology: relation to
history of psychology see history of
psychology
philosophy: relation to psychology 13–14
physicalism see materialism
pioneer women psychologists 220–1;
careers 224–6; demographics 222–3;
education 223–4; publications 226–8;
suffragism 228; teacher training 225,
229; territorial segregation 229
Price, H. 202–10, 213–4
privacy: of mental states 28–9, 48–9, 53,
90
psychical research: experimental
procedures 203; inter-war period
258 Index
200–2; reasons for academic
psychologists’ involvement 209–14;
relation to mainstream psychology 8,
198–9, 212–13; relation to
psychoanalysis 200; University of
London 205–6
psychological laboratories 179, 185, 190;
reasons for Britain’s backwardness
180; see also University College
London psychological laboratory
psychology: in Britain in early 20th
century 196–7, 221; relation of
professional to popular 213–14; as
science 15–20
Raphael, W. 172
rationalisation 31, 75, 101
Read, C. 192
reduction 17, 104, 108–9; arguments
against 107–8; arguments in favour
106–7; conditions for 104–6
reflexivity of psychology 18
Rivers, W. H. R. 151–2, 190–1
Schneider, R. 203–4
scientific laws: generality 18; systematicity
18; testability 19
Scoresby-Jackson, M. 248
seawater treatment 239
self 63, 66–72; Buddhist view 69–70;
ecological 66–7; multiple selves 68–9;
no-self 69, 71–2; universalism 70–1
Sinclair, M. 242, 247, 250
Soal, S. 208
Society for Psychical Research 199–201,
244
Society for the Study of Orthopsychics 243
Spearman, C. 191–2, 242
split-brain patients see commissurotomy
stance: theoretical 75
Stopes, M. 245–7
Stout, G. F. 123, 134–5; biography 123–4;
criticism of associationism 125–9;
influence and assessment 124; noetic
synthesis 130; published works 124–5;
realism 132–3; relation between
sensation and conception 130–2;
representation 133–4
Studies of childhood 137–9
Sully, J. 182, 187–8; biography 137–8;
child study 140–3; see also University
College London psychological
laboratory
supervenience 79
Symes, W. L. 169, 175
Tavistock Clinic 251
teleological explanation see purposive
explanation
Turner, J. 238–9, 243, 248–50
type vs token identity 79
University College London psychological
laboratory: equipment 190;
experiments 191; foundation 8,
183–92; motivation for foundation
179–83
University of London Council for
Psychical Investigation 206
Verstehen 18, 75, 100
Wheatstone-Hipp chronoscope 169
Wheeler, O. 172
Wohlgemuth, A. 191–2, 234–5
Women’s Freedom League 240
Women’s Tax Resistance League 240–1
Wırzburg: University 165–6