Outline of Theoretical Psychology discusses basic philosophical problems in the discipline and profession of psychology. The author addresses such topics as what it means to be human in psychology; how psychological knowledge is possible and what it consists of; the role of social justice in psychology; and how aesthetic experience could help us to understand the human condition. Proposing possible solutions to a range of such issues, Thomas Teo situates theoretical questions within traditional branches of philosophical inquiry: ontology, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. This book argues that in order to improve psychology as a discipline and in practice, psychologists must reconceive the unit of psychological analysis, looking beyond individual capacity and even experience. By engaging with these basic philosophical problems, Teo demonstrates how psychology can avoid its common pitfalls and continue as a force for resistance and the good.

I was asked and, alas, with little reflection on the magnitude of the task, thoughtlessly consented, to take on the 'simple' job of writing a preface to the collection of essays comprising this volume. That I was asked to carry out this simple task was probably due to one consideration: I was the main representative of the host institution (Clark University) for the 1991 ISTP Conference, at which the talks, foreshadowing and outlining the 'extended remarks' here printed, were originally presented, and hence, as a token of gratitude, I was vouchsafed the honor of setting the stage. It did not dawn on me, until I began piecemeal to receive and accumulate, over a period of months, the remarkably diverse and heterogeneous essays precipitated by the conference, how mind-boggling it would be to pen a preface pertinent to such an aggregate of prima/acie unrelated articles. Typically, prefaces to collections of essays from different hands are attempts by the prefator or a pride of prefators to provide an overview, a concise map, of the complex terrain which readers are invited to enter; or to direct the attention of potential readers to what the editors take to be the essential or central themes of each of the variegated articles: a practice which, not infrequently and often not unjustifiably, irritates and even enrages individual authors, who object to the complexity, profundity, and nuanced character of their thought being reduced to clicMs and editorial equivalents of sound bites.

Some one hundred years ago the founding fathers optimistically launched psychology as a science. The premise was that the new science must break away from its parental ties to philosophy and confine itself to gathering data, preferably in the psychology laboratory. There is little doubt that this early commitment to an "observation and accumulation of data only" policy was helpful in the launching of the new science. Some idea of how critical this move to empiricism was can be gathered from the following quotation taken from Wolman (1973, p. 32): It was not an easy task to transform the old "mental philosophy" into a natural science. Natural science used observation and experimentation; they observed their subject matter, as it were, from without. Wundt's psychology was supposed to study observable stimuli and responses, but there was so much that was unobservable in psychology. Although the launching was eventually a success, there is little doubt that the high hopes of the founding fathers have not materialized.

This volume presents a re-envisioning of the field of theoretical psychology and offers unique visions for its present and future from leaders of North American philosophical psychology. It contends that theoretical psychology has reached ‘middle-age’ and must consider new directions to renew its growth. Rooted in a range of research traditions and the intellectual biographies of its authors, it paves the way toward this necessary revitalization of the content, activities, responsibilities, and hopes of theoretical psychology. The authors situate their analyses in the context of the increasing gap between alternative and mainstream and between the discipline and the profession of psychology. They demonstrate that changes in society, culture and technology, the internationalization of the psychological humanities, and the cross-fertilization of intellectual innovations from other disciplines now afford possibilities for new orientations in theoretical psychology. The volume aims to do justice to psychological topics, human beings, and the intellectual problems that psychologists encounter, while also providing space for (meta)theoretical engagement, often neglected in the discipline. Together, the chapters in this collection make the case that a renewal of the discipline and practice of psychology is a task that is best accomplished collectively, and, despite significant disagreements, in solidarity.