Lost in the Mall with Mesmer and Wundt

Demarcations and Demonstrations in the Psychologies

Bibliographic Data

ID5337325
AuthorsMalcolm Ashmore, Steven D Brown (0000-0003-2880-9242), Katie Macmillan (Loughborough University)
Year2005
Volume30
Issue1
Pages76-110
Publication date2005-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0162243904270716
OpenAlexW2010837205
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited56

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