PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 



HELD AT PHILADELPHIA 

 FOR PROMOTING USEFUL KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. LIII January-May, 1914 No. 213 



ON " PSYCHOLOGY AS THE BEHAVIORIST VIEWS IT." 



By E. B. TITCHENER. 



{Read April 3, 1914.) 



When we speak of a science, we have in mind a logically organ- 

 ized body of knowledge that has resulted from certain methods of 

 attacking the problems presented by a particular subject-matter. 

 The methods of science are all, in the last resort, observational ; the 

 problems of science are all, in the last resort, analytical. The sub- 

 ject-matter of a given science may be indicated in two different 

 ways: by a simple enumeration of objects, or by a characterization 

 of the point of view from which the science in question regards the 

 common subject-matter of all science, namely, human experience. 

 Thus we may say that our psychology will deal with such things as 

 perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or we may say that psychology, deal- 

 ing " in some sort with the whole of experience," is to be distin- 

 guished as " individualistic " from other sciences which are " uni- 

 versalistic." It is clear that a characterization of this kind, though 

 it necessarily transcends the limits of the science in order to show 

 how those limits are drawn, is far more satisfactory than a mere 

 list of objects; and psychology, these many years past, has there- 

 fore had recourse to it.^ 



1 J. Ward, "Psychology," Encyc. Brit., XX., 1886, 38 (and later) ; R. Ave- 

 narius, " Bemerkungen zum Begriff des Gegenstandes der Psychologie," Vjs. 

 f. wiss. Phil, XVIIL, 1894, 418; H. Ebbinghaus, " Grundzuge der Psych.," I., 

 1897, 8 (and later editions). On the general subject, of. E. B. Titchener, " Psy- 

 chology: Science or Technology?", in Pop. Set. Mo., LXXXIV., 1914, 39 flf. 



PROC. AMER. PHIL. SOC., LHI. 213 A, PRINTED JUNE I7, I9I4. 



