Tag Archives: Max Weber

New Hist. of Psychiatry: Karl Jaspers, Bavarian Royals, & More

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The September 2013 issue of History of Psychiatry is now online. Included in this issue are articles on the Weberian influence on Karl Jaspers’ (left) work, psychiatric analyses of Bavarian royalty, Swedish child psychiatry, and more. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“The theoretical root of Karl Jaspers’ General Psychopathology. Part 2: The influence of Max Weber,” by Tsutomu Kumazaki. The abstract reads,

The present study explores and compares Jaspers’ methodology of psychopathology with Weber’s methodology of sociology. In his works, Weber incorporated the arguments of many other researchers into his own methodology. Jaspers respected Weber as a mentor and presented arguments that were very similar to Weber’s. Both Weber and Jaspers began from empathic understanding, but at the same time aimed for a rational and ideal-typical conceptualization. In addition, their methodologies were similar with respect to their detailed terminology. Such similarities cannot be seen with any other scholars. This suggests that Weber may have played an integral role as a mediator between his contemporary scholars and Jaspers. Thus, Weber may have had the most significant influence on Jaspers.

“The Bavarian royal drama of 1886 and the misuse of psychiatry: New results,” by Heinz Häfner and Felix Sommer. The abstract reads,

The deaths of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Bernhard von Gudden, Professor of Psychiatry in Munich, in Lake Starnberg near Munich on 13 June 1886 have often been mentioned in the psychiatric-historical literature and in fiction. Continue reading New Hist. of Psychiatry: Karl Jaspers, Bavarian Royals, & More →

Timothy Leary and More in New JHBS

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The winter 2012 issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (JHBS) has just been released online. Regular readers of JHBS may notice something different about the journal this year. The journal’s cover has been redesigned to now feature an image related to one of the articles included in the issue (right). Included in this first issue of 2012 are articles on the place of extraordinary psychological phenomena in the discipline, the work of Timothy Leary post-Harvard, Kurt Goldstein’s neurolingustic research, and the revival, in sociology, of interest in Max Weber’s work during the 1970s and 1980s. Full titles, authors, and abstracts follow below.

“The making of extraordinary psychological phenomena,” by Peter Lamont. The abstract reads,

This article considers the extraordinary phenomena that have been central to unorthodox areas of psychological knowledge. It shows how even the agreed facts relating to mesmerism, spiritualism, psychical research, and parapsychology have been framed as evidence both for and against the reality of the phenomena. It argues that these disputes can be seen as a means through which beliefs have been formulated and maintained in the face of potentially challenging evidence. It also shows how these disputes appealed to different forms of expertise, and that both sides appealed to belief in various ways as part of the ongoing dispute about both the facts and expertise. Finally, it shows how, when a formal Psychology of paranormal belief emerged in the twentieth century, it took two different forms, each reflecting one side of the ongoing dispute about the reality of the phenomena.

“Timothy Leary’s mid-career shift: Clean break or inflection point?,” by David C. Devonis. The abstract reads,

The psychologist Timothy Leary (1920–1996), an iconic cultural figure in the United States in the 1960s and afterward, has received comparatively scant attention in the history of psychology. Continue reading Timothy Leary and More in New JHBS →