1st Edition
Writing the History of the Mind Philosophy and Science in France, 1900 to 1960s
By Cristina Chimisso
Copyright 2008
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
220 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
For much of the twentieth century, French intellectual life was dominated by theoreticians and historians of mentalité. Traditionally, the study of the mind and of its limits and capabilities was the domain of philosophy, however in the first decades of the twentieth century practitioners of the emergent human and social sciences were increasingly competing with philosophers in this field:... Read more
Contents: Introduction; The history of philosophy in the first decades of the 20th century: the spaces and the students; The history of philosophy in the first decades of the 20th century: theory and objectives; The meaning and uses of history: challenges to the history of philosophy; Approaches to the history of the mind: the history of science between philosophy and history; Approaches to the history of the mind: the history of science and the history of thought; From the laboratory to the tribunal: historical epistemology; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Dr Cristina Chimisso is a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at The Open University, UK.
'This book is excellent - a wonderful resource for both students, who get a wonderfully clear introduction to French philosophy of science and its background, and for scholars, who get a number of nuanced new interpretations of any number of key texts.' Martin Kusch, University of Cambridge, UK 'For much of the twentieth century French intellectual life was dominated by theoreticians and historians of mentalité: Lucien Lévi-Bruhl, Léon Brunschvicg, Hélène Metzger, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Alexandre Koyré, to name but a few. This was a coherent enterprise with its own agenda and network of institutions. However, recent studies have broken it up into anthropology, sociology, psychology, history of science, history of philosophy, etc. This fascinating work is the first to do justice to the movement as a whole. Combining sensitive historical analyses with sharp and precise presentations of the major debates, Writing the History of Mind will have wide appeal to historians of science, philosophy, and anthropology, and more generally of modern European culture. Nick Jardine, University of Cambridge, UK
