On 18 Jul 2009 at 9:43, Stuart McKelvie wrote: > This reference comes from Hebb's paper "What psychology is about", > published in the American Psychologist. Hebb, D. O. ( 1974 ). What > psychology is about. American Psychologist, 29, 71-79. The exact > wording does not refer to all the people you are asked about, but the > sentiments are the same.
My suggestion that the sought-after quote would be found on p. 11 of _An Essay on Mind_ ddin't pan out. But Stuart seems to have nailed it. As he notes, Hebb gets the gist of the quote but not the specifics as given by my inquiring author, who asked for "If you want to feel what a sunrise can mean, read Shakespeare. If you want to experience what an adolescent feels, listen to Cherudino´ arias from Mozart´s the Marriage of Figaro." What Hebb said was this: "The other way of knowing about human beings is the intuitive artistic insight of the poet, novelist, historian, dramatist, and biographer. This alternative to psychology is a valid and a deeply penetrating source of light on man, going directly to the heart of the matter...I challenge anyone to cite a scientific psychological analysis of character to match Conrad's study of Lord Jim, or Boswell's study of Johnson, or Johnson's of Savage". "It is to the literary world, not to psychological science that you go to learn how to live with people, how to make love, how not to make enemies; to find out what grief does to people, or the stoicism that is possible in the endurance of pain, or how if you're lucky you may die with dignity; to see how corrosive the effects of jealousy can be, or how power corrupts or does not corrupt. For such knowldege and such understanding of the human species, don't look in my _Textbook of Psychology_ (or anyone else's), try _Lear_ and _Othello_ and _Hamlet_. As a supplement to William James, read _Henry_ James, and Jane Austen, and Mark Twain. These people are telling us things that are not on science's program." This information, along with Stuart's name as the astute identifier of it, will be forwarded to my inquiring author. I hope it satisfies. Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
