Background
George, Sidney was born on August 5, 1879 in Briton Ferry, ^ales.
psychology History 01 philosophy
George, Sidney was born on August 5, 1879 in Briton Ferry, ^ales.
University 01 Oxford, graduating in 1899.
Brett was chiefly concerned with the history of Philosophy and especially with the history of what e called ‘psychology’. His claim was that Psychology has a specific subject matter, the 'mmediate experience of human beings. But it is not a subject matter like any other because our conceptualizations of it are part and parcel of the experience itself. Nor can it be easily separated from the subject matters of other disciplines, for other disciplines deal with it in their own ways. Its understanding can only be grasped by a study of the historical development of the relevant conceptualizations. In so far as such an enquiry can be objective it is because we can study its historical development and formulate intelligible theories about what goes into changes of views. Nearly all philosophers have contributed to this field, and so Brett’s history of psychology tells the story of one strand of the history of philosophy. Brett also studied closely the development of science and medicine as well as that of philosophy, and so his history of psychology is a history of the philosophy of mind and of its relations to religion and medicine. Only in the later parts is it dominated by the developing science of psychology. Like many philosophers of his time, he was reacting against what he took to be oversimplifications of the nature of philosophy, though he sympathized with many of the concerns of the British idealists. He was both influenced by and sceptical of the efforts of thinkers like James Ward to establish a distinct nature for psychology, and his history devotes considerable space to the reflections of Ward and of T. H. Green and of their battles with the ‘associationists’. Richard Peters, who abridged and revised Brett’s History of Psychology, says Brett did succeed in illuminating the nature of psychology as well as its history, and that his account continues to be worth reading. The philosophical curriculum at the University of Toronto became predominantly historical under his leadership. He built one of the largest philosophy departments in the world. Sources: Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography.