Bridge Over Troubled Waters? The Most “Central” Members of Psychology and Philosophy Associations Ca. 1900

Abstract

There are many different ways to assess the significance of historical figures. Often we look at the influence of their writings, or at the important offices they held with disciplinary institutions such as universities, journals, and scholarly societies. In this study, however, we took a novel approach: we took the complete memberships, ca. 1900, of four organizations-the American Psychological Association, the Western Philosophical Association, the American Philosophical Association, and the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology-and visualized them as a network. We then identified individuals who "bridged" between two or more of these groups and considered what might be termed their "centrality" to the psychological-philosophical community of their time. First, we examined these figures qualitatively, briefly describing their lives and careers. Then we approached the problem mathematically, considering several alternative technical realizations of "centrality" and then explaining our reasons for choosing eigenvector centrality as the best for our purposes. We found a great deal of overlap among the results of the qualitative and quantitative approaches, but also some telling differences. J. Mark Baldwin, Edward Buchner, Christine Ladd Franklin, and Frank Thilly consistently emerged as highly central figures. Some more marginal figures such as Max Meyer, and Frederick J. E. Woodbridge, Edward A. Pace, Edward H. Griffin played interesting roles as well.

125 years of the American Psychological Association.

“…Few of them were APA members—their main motive for founding the new group seems to have been geographical rather than intellectual—but they inspired a group of nearly 100 Eastern philosophers to create a new American Philosophical Association the following year (Gardiner, 1902). It is often claimed that this led to the exodus of philosophers from the older APA, but an examination of membership records show that the great majority of members of the new philosophy group maintained their memberships in the older psychological association as well (Green, Heidari, Chiacchia, & Martin, 2016). Indeed, many of the philosophical association’s members were prominent as psychologists (e.g., Hall, Cattell, Baldwin, and Thorndike).…”

How Canada’s first psychology department arose at McGill University.

“…2 Baldwin was replaced by his recent hire, John B. Watson, who soon became the Head of Psychology alone. Edwin Buchner became Head of Philosophy (Buckley, 1989; personal communication, James Stimpert of JHU Special Collections, February 17, 2016; C. D. Green et al, 2016).…”

How the launch of a new journal in 1904 may have changed the relationship between psychology and philosophy.

“…Indeed, only 6 of the 46 were APA members in the first place. Their decision to found a new philosophical society in the west seems to have been driven mainly by geographical challenges rather than intellectual ones (Green, Heidari, Chiacchia, & Martin, 2016). 4 The year 1902, however, saw the inaugural meeting of another group in the east, the American Philosophical Association.…”