When looking closely at a Seurat painting, one will notice carefully placed and well crafted dots of color. Stepping back from the painting, these dots organize themselves, in one case at least, into a group of Parisians enjoying a Sunday on the Seine. This superb, introductory book had a similar effect on me. It clearly organized philosophical theories of mind, as well as psychological methodologies and their respective data, into a coherent and thoroughly engaging narrative.

The book's method of conceptual arrangement is historical, and it takes its reader through a tour-de-force history of the discipline. We start not with Wundt, but with Descartes. A philosopher might indeed wonder why the authors begin their story with Descartes, and not, say, Plato or Aristotle. The reason, as it turns out, is enormously helpful. It's not that Descartes was the first proto-psychologist, but rather Descartes' dualist theory of mind (that the body and the mind are two fundamentally different kinds of substances) provides an organizing principle for setting up the remainder of the presented theories of mind. Wundt's introspectionism, for example, embraces dualism, while behaviorism rejects it.

With seamless authorship, the book then proceeds to introduce the major modern theories of mind. The broad topics covered include introspectionism, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and cognitive science, with disputes and sub-disciplines within each being introduced as well. The book's historical method provides the reader with a sense of how each theory and approach to studying the phenomenon of mind is a reaction to its predecessor. Like good teachers, the authors define and defend the tenets of the competing theories with clarity and rigor. Readers are treated to elegant explanations with helpful examples. Their prose is spiced with some well-chosen, thus completely forgivable, turns of phrase. This was one of my favorites: "Psychology had lost its soul when it became a scientific discipline. With the advent of behaviorism, it lost its mind." (28)

The book also make connections between the theories which serve to reinforce them. Thus, again like good teachers, the authors continue to remind readers of the ways that earlier theories not only inspired the current ones, but also anticipated their difficulties. Moreover, they don't paint too rosy of a picture of the discipline. They are quick to show what they consider to be the important shortcomings of each theory. But these admissions have an interesting effect. Instead of being put off by the incompleteness of the discipline, one is genuinely inspired by it. The book readily conveys that psychology is an ongoing project. Through its prose, clarity of exposition, and discernible passion of the authors, the book invites the reader to be a part of that history.

 In the introduction, the authors suspect that their colleagues in psychology will find the book to be too theoretical to use as an introductory text. I certainly hope that's not the case. It deserves wide readership, not just in psychology, but in other mind oriented disciplines which need introducing, philosophy and cognitive science in particular. It will give those students a genuine sense of the ways in which their research and toil contribute to a common and important enterprise. The authors have provided those interested in the mind, and that's all of us, a wonderful service by writing it.

© 2008 R. D. Emerick

R. D. Emerick, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Palomar College.