The ambiguous “new history of psychology”: New questions for Brock (2017).

Abstract

In 2006, Benjamin J. Lovett published the first critique of the "new history of psychology" in History of Psychology (Lovett, 2006). The first reply to it, from Adrian C. Brock, did not come until a decade later. The present article answers Brock's (2017) comments by asking new (rhetorical) questions. The author claims that both Lovett and Brock misunderstood the ambiguity of the term "new history," which refers simultaneously to critical narratives in general and to a particular rhetoric about the commitments of critical historiography (e.g., externalism, historicism, anti-Whiggism). Although Lovett's article does present shortcomings, it is argued that many of his claims are still valid because his critique focused on the rhetoric of "new history." Brock, for his part, uses the term "new history" in its full ambiguity and attempts to defend critical histories with the rhetoric of "new history." As a result, Brock ends up reproducing many of the problems criticized by Lovett. (PsycINFO Database Record

Reevaluating the initial impact of John Broadus Watson on American psychology: The necessity of comparative parameters

“…Samelson's diagnostic is in line with Brush's () more general statement about the inevitable tension that exists between professional and textbook histories of science. In the historiography of psychology, Ash () and Danziger (), among others, have called attention to this tension and recent debates about the nature of a professional history of psychology show that there is no easy way to define the field (e.g., Araujo, a, b; Brock, a, b; Burman, ; Danziger, ; Lovett, ; Robinson, a, b; Teo, ; Watrin, ). The central point here, so it seems, is to avoid the pitfalls of what Butterfield () called “the Whig interpretation of history.”…”

The new history of psychology II: Some (different) answers to Watrin’s four questions.

“…The article was directed at the views of all these authors and not just those of Lovett himself. Watrin (2017) offers some different arguments, and a different set of rhetorical questions, and I would like to respond to those before they are picked up by others.…”

“…Conceptual Distinctions Watrin (2017) begins by suggesting that everyone who has previously written on this topic has "conflated" critical history and new history. The person who is most closely associated with the term "new history" is Laurel Furumoto, and it is clear that she regarded them as synonyms.…”

“…These authors could not assume any background knowledge of the subject and so they provided a relatively simple point-by-point account of the differences between the old history and the new. This is not "dichotomizing rhetoric," as Watrin (2017) suggests. It was the most appropriate way of addressing an audience of this kind.…”

“…Whether or not they should be described as rhetoric is a different matter. The only other evidence that Watrin (2017) offers in support of this claim is a quotation from Lovett's article: " Lovett (2006), however, also says that 'many scholars [emphasis added] exag-This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”