Respect for Thought: Jan Smedslund’s Legacy for Psychology

This book explores and provides an overview of the Norwegian psychologist Jan Smedslund's life work on Psycho-logic. His contributions to science have been radical not only in challenging the empirical foundation of psychology, but also in seeking to develop a viable alternative. This book brings together various reflections on his key contributions from the 1960s to the present day. The volume features three chapters by Jan Smedslund, offering his updated views on psychological science and psychotherapy. It also features contributions from several scholars that critically evaluates his legacy. His seminal ideas are discussed, revised and expanded upon and the questions raised are put in relevant historical and interdisciplinary context. Respect for Thought is a valuable resource for psychological researchers, historians of psychology, cultural psychologists, critical psychologists, theoretical psychologists, clinical psychologists and psychotherapists, social scientists, philosophers of psychology, and philosophers of science. .

Chapter 1.Editorial Introduction -- Part I: Smedslund’s work in historical perspective -- Chapter 2. A Pre-history of my Present Position -- Chapter 3. A Place for Persons: The Formal Systems of Smedslund and Ossorio -- Chapter 4. The concept of Correlation in adults comes of age -- 5. The Socrates of Modern Psychology: A Historical View of Smedslund’s Common Sense Perspective -- Part II: Psychology as science; concepts and epistemology -- Chapter 6. Meanings of Words and the Possibilities of Psychology: Reflections on Jan Smedslund's Psycho-logic -- Chapter 7. The Case for Psychological Quietism; Wittgensteinian propaedeutics in Smedslund's writings -- Chapter 8. The Linguistic Fore-structure of Psychological Explanation -- Chapter 9. Jan Smedslund and Psychologic; The Problem of psychologism and the nature of language -- Chapter 10. Can Common Sense Change? Psycho-logic, Synthetic thinking and the Challenge of Changing Language -- Chapter 11. How to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater; Abduction is the solution to pseudo-empiricism -- Chapter 12. A priori Afterthoughts; Continuing the Dialogue on Psycho-logic -- Part III: Psychology as science; Research extensions -- Chapter 13. Neuro-Ornamentation in Psychological Research -- Chapter 14. Experimental Psychology and Distortions of Common Sense -- Chapter 15. Extending Smedslund's psycho-logic system into a social theory -- Chapter 16. Smedslund and The Psychological Style of Reasoning -- Chapter 17. Wittgenstein’s revenge: How semantic algorithms can help survey research escape Smedslund’s labyrinth -- Part IV: Psychology as practice -- 18. Professional Practice without Empirical Evidence: The Psycho-Logic of Trust -- Chapter 19. Psychotherapy: An Illusion That Works -- Chapter 20. Bricoleurs and Qualitative Theory-Building Research: Responses to Responsiveness -- Chapter 21. Working with Stuckness in psychotherapy; Bringing together the Bricoleur-model and Pluralistic Practices -- Chapter 22. The Pragmatic status of Psychoanalytic theory; A Plea for Thought-models. .