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The capture of the invisible. For a (pre)history of psychology in eighteenth‐century France
Author(s) -
Moravia Sergio
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198310)19:4<370::aid-jhbs2300190406>3.0.co;2-z
Subject(s) - soul , psychic , interpretation (philosophy) , enlightenment , face (sociological concept) , order (exchange) , epistemology , psychoanalysis , philosophy , psychology , sociology , aesthetics , social science , medicine , linguistics , pathology , finance , economics , alternative medicine
Scholars of the eighteenth century had to face certain theoretical difficulties in their attempt to build an empirical science of psychic phenomena. The greatest of these difficulties was connected with the problem of the existence of what could be called the soul, or at least of psychic functions that did not seem visible as such. Three strategies were worked out during the Enlightenment in order to solve this problem: (1) the attempt to capture the “invisible” through some of its visible expressions; (2) the translation of the notion of soul into more empirical concepts; and (3) the annexation of the soul and the superior psychic functions to the body, or even their elimination through a new interpretation of the body as a dynamic and sensitive organism.