Naming the Mind: How Psychology Found Its Language

Intelligence, motivation, personality, learning, stimulation, behavior, and attitude are just some of the categories that map the terrain of psychology. These are the concepts that underpin theoretical and empirical work in psychology and yet are terms that have only recently taken on their current meanings. In this fascinating new work, author Kurt Danziger goes beyond the taken-for-granted quality of psychological language to offer a profound and broad-ranging analysis of the recent evolution of the concepts and categories on which it depends. He explores this process and shows how its consequences depend on cultural contexts and the history of an emergent discipline. Danziger develops a complementary account that looks at the historically changing structure of psychological discourse. Naming the Mind is an elegant and persuasive explanation of how modern psychology found its language; it will thus be invaluable reading for students and academics throughout psychology and for anyone with an interest in the history of the human services.