Dialogues at the edge

Heather Macdonald

David Goodman

Brian Becker

pp. 1-22

in: Heather Macdonald, David Goodman, Brian Becker (eds), Dialogues at the edge of American psychological discourse, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

William James lived at the boundaries and did his best work there. In 1890, James published his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology, a foundational work in which he makes clear distinctions about the kinds of assumptions each discipline takes for granted and then subjects these assumptions to critical examination. For many years, this was a widely used text that uniquely blended his personal reflections with his ideas on physiology, philosophy, and psychology. Throughout the book and his career, James extravagantly crossed the boundaries of multiple disciplines. This volume is comprised of a series of in-depth interviews with ten North American scholars and clinical practitioners who have similarly spent their lengthy careers working at the interdisciplinary edges of mainstream psychological discourse.

Cited authors

James William