The Sciences of the Soul: The Early Modern Origins of Psychology, by Fernando Vidal

12/01/2011View on timeline

Book abstract:

"Sciences of the Soul is the first attempt to explain the development of the disciplinary conception of psychology from its appearance in the late sixteenth century to its redefinition at the end of the seventeenth and its emergence as an institutionalized field in the eighteenth. Fernando Vidal traces this development through university courses and textbooks, encyclopedias, and nonacademic books, as well as through various histories of psychology. Vidal reveals that psychology existed before the eighteenth century essentially as a “physics of the soul,” and it belonged as much to natural philosophy as to Christian anthropology. It remained so until the eighteenth century, when the “science of the soul” became the “science of the mind.” Vidal demonstrates that this Enlightenment refashioning took place within a Christian framework, and he explores how the preservation of the Christian idea of the soul was essential to the development of the science. Not only were most psychologists convinced that an empirical science of the soul was compatible with Christian faith; their perception that psychology preserved the soul also helped to elevate its rank as an empirical science. Broad-ranging and impeccably researched, this book will be of wide importance in the history and philosophy of psychology, the history of the human sciences more generally, and in the social and intellectual history of eighteenth-century Europe."

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Published in 13/11/2018

Updated in 19/02/2021

All events in the topic Other works, books and talks by Vidal and Ortega:


01/02/2009 (Circa)Brainhood, Anthropological Figure of Modernity, by Fernando VidalBrainhood, Anthropological Figure of Modernity, by Fernando Vidal
01/01/2011 (Circa)Neurocultures: Glimpses Into an Expanding Universe, by Fernando Vidal and Francisco OrtegaNeurocultures: Glimpses Into an Expanding Universe, by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega
15/06/2011La neuroesthétique, un esthétisme scientiste, an article by Fernando VidalLa neuroesthétique, un esthétisme scientiste, an article by Fernando Vidal
15/08/2010The Moral Authority of Nature, edited by Lorraine Daston and Fernando VidalThe Moral Authority of Nature, edited by Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal
03/07/2017Being Brains: Making The Cerebral Subject, by Fernando Vidal and Francisco OrtegaBeing Brains: Making The Cerebral Subject, by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega
06/01/2012Neuroaesthetics: Getting Rid of Art and Beauty, reviewed article by Fernando VidalNeuroaesthetics: Getting Rid of Art and Beauty, reviewed article by Fernando Vidal
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10/01/2012L'expérience mélancolique au regard de la critique, an afterword by Fernando VidalL'expérience mélancolique au regard de la critique, an afterword by Fernando Vidal
14/08/2007Miracles, Science, and Testimony in Post-Tridentine Saint-Making, by Fernando VidalMiracles, Science, and Testimony in Post-Tridentine Saint-Making, by Fernando Vidal
01/10/2013Prospero Lambertini's On the Imagination and Its Powers, by Fernando VidalProspero Lambertini's On the Imagination and Its Powers, by Fernando Vidal
17/12/2013Corporeality, Medical Technologies and Contemporary Culture, a book by Francisco OrtegaCorporeality, Medical Technologies and Contemporary Culture, a book by Francisco Ortega
01/06/2019Brazilian edition of Being Brains
05/04/2019 • 19:00:00Neurociências: Não somos o nosso cérebro?, a talk by Ortega