On 2012-06-07, at 8:14 AM, Michael Palij wrote: > Back to the original point, it is amusing to see courses in physiological > psychology and/or "physiological pedagogics" being offered in the early > bulletins of the School of Pedagogy because one has to wonder what > possible interest would these courses have to pupils who, for the most > part, were interested in an advanced degree in education in order to get > a higher level post in administration.
It would be interesting to know what the exact content of these courses was. It might be that they just got a chapter or two of basic nervous system anatomy (as was, and still is, found in most any intro psych text), and then moved on to material that was more directly relevant to pedagogy. (Actually, being able to identify kids who were neurologically impaired was increasingly important as public school systems became increasingly universal.) In any case, it is worth keeping in mind that the term "physiological" became something of an "honorific" in the late 19th-century, as various disciplines scrambled to cast themselves as being "science" by capitalizing on the tremendous success of (particularly) German physiology earlier in the century. (Sort of the way that everyone attached "behavior" of all manner of stuff in the mid-20th century (e.g., "sleeping behavior" was one of my favorites), and later started calling everything "cognition" (e.g., social cognition). Now everything is "neuro-", as in "neuroethics.") In the late 19th-century "physiological" conferred an aura of modern scientism.) Wundt called his new discipline "physiological psychology" primarily because it used the methods and instruments of the new(ish) experimental physiology, not because it was particularly concerned with the neurology underlying conscious experience), and while, by his own training, Wundt had reason to claim the "hysiological" mantle, one can find lots of other less justified instances: physiological aesthetics and physiological pedagogics among them. Regards, Chris --- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=18231 or send a blank email to leave-18231-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
