Abraham Tucker as an 18th-century William James: Stream of consciousness, role of examples, and the importance of writing

Billig, Michael

doi:10.1177/0959354311398518

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“… 5. In this sense, the paper follows Billig’s (2012) call to develop “warm-hearted” ways of doing psychology. …”

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confidence: 99%

From discourse to awareness: Rhetoric, mindfulness, and a psychology without foundations

Stanley

2012

Theory & Psychology

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This paper argues for a shift in the grounding of psychology from discourse to a “groundless ground” rooted in an ethically sensitive, within-person, and moment-to-moment embodied awareness. It offers a critique of discursive and rhetorical psychology commensurate with “affective turn” studies and develops an approach based in the practice of mindfulness meditation. This orientation enables the participant-researcher to come into experiential contact with a domain of pre-subjectivity not often addressed by discursive approaches. It also considers parallels between discursive constructionism and Buddhist mindfulness and shows how mindfulness is relationally and rhetorically organized as a social practice.

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“… 5. In this sense, the paper follows Billig’s (2012) call to develop “warm-hearted” ways of doing psychology. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

From discourse to awareness: Rhetoric, mindfulness, and a psychology without foundations

Stanley

2012

Theory & Psychology

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“…James (1890) famously used the metaphor of a 'stream' of consciousness to capture its dynamic flow (see Billig, 2012).…”

Section: Psychosocial Studies Affective Practices and Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, Victoria's account illustrates what Billig (2012) calls 'warm hearted' psychological writing.…”

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confidence: 99%

Swimming against the Stream?: Mindfulness as a Psychosocial Research Methodology

Stanley

Barker

Edwards

et al. 2014

Qualitative Research in Psychology

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In this article, we extend psychosocial research methodology by integrating a breaching experiment, influenced by ethnomethodological sociology, with aspects of mindfulness practice, influenced by Buddhist traditions. We offer an empirical investigation of what happens when researcher-participants subtly 'swim against the stream' of normative public social conduct in a capital city setting. Our qualitative analysis explores a single case from a corpus of 172 first-person retrospective accounts of standing still and 'doing nothing' in a busy, public place. We investigate the qualitative aspects of how one researcher-participant arguably adopted a mindful, 'beginner's mind' orientation toward the flow of psychosocial consciousness. We empirically investigate this psychosocial orientation of mindfulness by integrating Wetherell's concept of affective-discursive practice with James' stream of consciousness. Mindfulness offers a specific, embodied reorientation toward psychosocial flows. We discuss the methodological implications and limitations of this reorientation for psychosocial research. Key wordsMindfulness, psychosocial, flow, embodiment, consciousness, breaching, experiment. Dr. Meg Barker is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University and a UKCP accredited psychotherapist. Meg's research and practice specialities are sexuality and relationships and they co-organise the Critical Sexology seminar series and Sense about Sex events, as well as publishing regularly on these topics and co-editing the journal Psychology & Sexuality with Darren Langdridge. Meg also works with Steven Stanley on the social mindfulness project (www.socialmindfulness.wordpress.com) developing research methodologies and mindful therapy practices which are explicitly socially engaged, and informed by social Buddhist and European philosophies. Meg's own book on mindfulness covers the range of engagements between western therapy and Buddhism, and they have also published a general audience book on relationships which draws on Buddhist, existential and social constructionist theories (www.rewriting-the-rules.com).Victoria Edwards is an undergraduate student in Cardiff University School of Social Sciences. Victoria has returned to study following ten years' employment in Substance misuse services. Her current research is entitled 'University Challenge: How can we foster successful learning journeys for non-traditional students in a School of Social Science?' with Dawn Mannay. EmmaMcEwen is planning to study BSc Psychology and is currently taking a year out of study in order to gain experience in the field of research. The current project she is assisting with is looking at the use of space in reasoning and how the mind constructs spatial models about logical configurations.

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The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: Theories and Experiments in Hartley, Priestley, Tucker, and Watson

Thomas

2023

Philosophers' Imprint

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Drawing on the 1870s-1880s work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, William James famously characterised the specious present as ‘the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible’. Literature on the pre-history of late nineteenth century specious present theories clusters around the work of John Locke and Thomas Reid, and I argue it is incomplete. The pre-history is missing an inter-connected group of English philosophers writing on the present between 1749 and 1785: David Hartley, Joseph Priestley, Abraham Tucker, and William Watson. With William Herschel, Watson even conducted experiments to determine the limits of human temporal perception. These thinkers do not appear in the specious present literature, or broader historical surveys of temporal consciousness. Yet this paper shows they each held specious present theories, exploring those theories and placing them within each figure’s system. It argues all their work deserves further study; contextualises the nineteenth century theories of James and others; pushes back the start date of the history of experimental psychology on time perception by decades; and explores a possible line of influence from Hartley to Hodgson.

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Abraham Tucker as an 18th-century William James: Stream of consciousness, role of examples, and the importance of writing

Cited by 3 publications

References 29 publications

From discourse to awareness: Rhetoric, mindfulness, and a psychology without foundations

From discourse to awareness: Rhetoric, mindfulness, and a psychology without foundations

Swimming against the Stream?: Mindfulness as a Psychosocial Research Methodology

The Specious Present in English Philosophy 1749-1785: Theories and Experiments in Hartley, Priestley, Tucker, and Watson

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