Lost in the Mall with Mesmer and Wundt

Demarcations and Demonstrations in the Psychologies

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5337325
AutoresMalcolm Ashmore, Steven D Brown (0000-0003-2880-9242), Katie Macmillan (Loughborough University)
Año2005
Volumen30
Número1
Páginas76-110
Fecha de publicación2005-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243904270716
OpenAlexW2010837205
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas56

This article analyzes the demarcations made within psychology as a feature of the "memory wars"-the current controversy around "recovered" or "false" memory. As it is played out inside professional psychology, the dispute features clinical practitioners acting largely as proponents of recovered memory and experimentalists as proponents of false memory. Tracing a genealogy of this dispute back to a pair of original sites (Mesmer's salon and Wundt's laboratory), we show how the traditions'engagement in three modes of scientific demonstration varies systematically in terms of the modes of social relation inherent in their epistemic practices and the kinds of "reliable witness" these practices produce. We conclude that whereas the experimentalist tradition is able to transporttheir produced witnesses from oneto anothersite of demonstration with relative ease, the clinical tradition has much greater difficulty in doing so and thus has to engage in a variety of compensatory demonstrative strategies

Demonstrative · Epistemology · Political science · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Witness · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Computer Science · Law · Neurology and Historical Studies · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Psychology