Michael Pettit
Biographic Data
| ID | 3652162 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Pettit |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Pettit |
| SIGNATURE | PETTIT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 27 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Nuclear Minds
Saulo De Freitas Araujo (1971-2024)
J ohn M artin -J oy . Diagnosing from a Distance
In Diagnosing from a Distance: Debates over Libel Law, Media, and Psychiatric Ethics from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump, psychoanalyst John Martin-Joy offers a thoughtful reflection on his own profession’s ethics by turning to the archival record to reveal story behind a contemporary dictate. At the heart of his book lies the Goldwater rule, the common name for a section of the American Psychiatric Association’s ethics code that prohibits membe…
Deflating Cold War rationality
Brenton J. Malin. Feeling Mediated
Multispecies Networks
In our current moment, there is considerable interest in networks, in how people and things are connected. This essay outlines one approach that brings together insights from actor-network theory, social network analysis, and digital history to interpret past scientific activity. Multispecies network analysis (MNA) is a means of understanding the historical interactions among scientists, institutions, and preferred experimental animals. A reexami…
The SPSSI Task Force on Sexual Orientation, the Nature of Sex, and the Contours of Activist Science
Drawing on published and archival materials, this article charts the history of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues ( SPSSI )‐sponsored Task Force on Sexual Orientation (1978–1982). The Task Force offers a lens through which to explore the assumptions about the nature of human sexuality at work in 1970s psychology. The concept of nature does not possess a stable meaning across disciplinary communities. Where for some nature c…
The problem of raccoon intelligence in behaviourist America
Even during its heyday, American behaviourist psychology was repeatedly criticized for the lack of diversity in its experimental subjects, with its almost exclusive focus on rats and pigeons. This paper revisits this debate by examining the rise and fall of a once promising alternative laboratory animal and model of intelligence, the raccoon. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, psychological investigations of the raccoon existe…
Joseph Jastrow, the psychology of deception, and the racial economy of observation
This article reconstructs the recurring themes in the career of Joseph Jastrow, both inside and outside the laboratory. His psychology of deception provides the bridge between his experimental and popular pursuits. Furthermore, Jastrow's career illustrates the complex ways in which scientific psychology and pragmatist philosophy operated within the constraints of a moral economy deeply marked by notions of "race." Psychological investigations of …
The Joy in Believing
This essay presents a historical epistemology of the nineteenth-century controversy concerning a scientific hoax, the Cardiff giant. My focus is on the shifting meanings given to the giant, which were based on epistemologies derived from scientific authority, religious belief, and market relations. In 1869 a farmer in Cardiff, New York, claimed to have discovered the fossilized remains of a prehistoric, perhaps biblical, giant on his property. Wh…
Multispecies Networks
In our current moment, there is considerable interest in networks, in how people and things are connected. This essay outlines one approach that brings together insights from actor-network theory, social network analysis, and digital history to interpret past scientific activity. Multispecies network analysis (MNA) is a means of understanding the historical interactions among scientists, institutions, and preferred experimental animals. A reexami…
Joseph Jastrow, the psychology of deception, and the racial economy of observation
This article reconstructs the recurring themes in the career of Joseph Jastrow, both inside and outside the laboratory. His psychology of deception provides the bridge between his experimental and popular pursuits. Furthermore, Jastrow's career illustrates the complex ways in which scientific psychology and pragmatist philosophy operated within the constraints of a moral economy deeply marked by notions of "race." Psychological investigations of …
The Joy in Believing
This essay presents a historical epistemology of the nineteenth-century controversy concerning a scientific hoax, the Cardiff giant. My focus is on the shifting meanings given to the giant, which were based on epistemologies derived from scientific authority, religious belief, and market relations. In 1869 a farmer in Cardiff, New York, claimed to have discovered the fossilized remains of a prehistoric, perhaps biblical, giant on his property. Wh…
The problem of raccoon intelligence in behaviourist America
Even during its heyday, American behaviourist psychology was repeatedly criticized for the lack of diversity in its experimental subjects, with its almost exclusive focus on rats and pigeons. This paper revisits this debate by examining the rise and fall of a once promising alternative laboratory animal and model of intelligence, the raccoon. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, psychological investigations of the raccoon existe…
The SPSSI Task Force on Sexual Orientation, the Nature of Sex, and the Contours of Activist Science
Drawing on published and archival materials, this article charts the history of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues ( SPSSI )‐sponsored Task Force on Sexual Orientation (1978–1982). The Task Force offers a lens through which to explore the assumptions about the nature of human sexuality at work in 1970s psychology. The concept of nature does not possess a stable meaning across disciplinary communities. Where for some nature c…
The Joy in Believing
This essay presents a historical epistemology of the nineteenth-century controversy concerning a scientific hoax, the Cardiff giant. My focus is on the shifting meanings given to the giant, which were based on epistemologies derived from scientific authority, religious belief, and market relations. In 1869 a farmer in Cardiff, New York, claimed to have discovered the fossilized remains of a prehistoric, perhaps biblical, giant on his property. Wh…
Joseph Jastrow, the psychology of deception, and the racial economy of observation
This article reconstructs the recurring themes in the career of Joseph Jastrow, both inside and outside the laboratory. His psychology of deception provides the bridge between his experimental and popular pursuits. Furthermore, Jastrow's career illustrates the complex ways in which scientific psychology and pragmatist philosophy operated within the constraints of a moral economy deeply marked by notions of "race." Psychological investigations of …
The problem of raccoon intelligence in behaviourist America
Even during its heyday, American behaviourist psychology was repeatedly criticized for the lack of diversity in its experimental subjects, with its almost exclusive focus on rats and pigeons. This paper revisits this debate by examining the rise and fall of a once promising alternative laboratory animal and model of intelligence, the raccoon. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, psychological investigations of the raccoon existe…
The SPSSI Task Force on Sexual Orientation, the Nature of Sex, and the Contours of Activist Science
Drawing on published and archival materials, this article charts the history of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues ( SPSSI )‐sponsored Task Force on Sexual Orientation (1978–1982). The Task Force offers a lens through which to explore the assumptions about the nature of human sexuality at work in 1970s psychology. The concept of nature does not possess a stable meaning across disciplinary communities. Where for some nature c…
Brenton J. Malin. Feeling Mediated
Multispecies Networks
In our current moment, there is considerable interest in networks, in how people and things are connected. This essay outlines one approach that brings together insights from actor-network theory, social network analysis, and digital history to interpret past scientific activity. Multispecies network analysis (MNA) is a means of understanding the historical interactions among scientists, institutions, and preferred experimental animals. A reexami…
Deflating Cold War rationality
J ohn M artin -J oy . Diagnosing from a Distance
In Diagnosing from a Distance: Debates over Libel Law, Media, and Psychiatric Ethics from Barry Goldwater to Donald Trump, psychoanalyst John Martin-Joy offers a thoughtful reflection on his own profession’s ethics by turning to the archival record to reveal story behind a contemporary dictate. At the heart of his book lies the Goldwater rule, the common name for a section of the American Psychiatric Association’s ethics code that prohibits membe…
Saulo De Freitas Araujo (1971-2024)
Nuclear Minds
History of Science and Medicine (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Art (2 works)