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CHARLES W. TOLMAN, FRANCES CHERRY, RENE VAN
HERZEWIJK, AND IAN LUBEK (Eds.)
Problems of Theoretical Psychology
North York, ON: Captus University Publications,
1996, xiv + 387 pages (ISBN 1-896691-17-X,
Cdn$40.00, US$33.50, Softcover)
Reviewed by JACK MARTIN
This is the sixth volume of selected, edited proceedings of the biennial conferences of the International Society for Theoretical Psychology (ISTP). All of the contributions to the current volume have been drawn from symposia and papers presented at the sixth conference held at Carlton University, May 21-26, 1995. For those unfamiliar with the ISTP, it is useful to note the consistently influential involvement of Canadian psychologists throughout its brief history. In fact, it was partially as a result of visits to the University of Alberta's Centre for Advanced Study in Theoretical Psychology in the mid-1980s by psychologists such as Michael Hyland (Plymouth Polytechnic) and Hans van Rappard (Free University of Amsterdam), that the idea of the Society emerged and developed, culminating in its formal founding and first major conference in Plymouth, UK, in 1985 (Mos & Kuiken, 1998). Since then, a number of distinguished theoretical psychologists working in Canada (William Baker, Leendert Mos, Henderikus Stam, Warren Thorngate, Ian Lubek, Charles Tolman, and Frances Cherry) have served as editors for the six volumes of published conference proceedings which have appeared between 1987 and 1996. The active, significant participation of Canadian scholars in the activities of the Society continues in this current volume, with over a third of the 56 contributors working in Canada.
The 40 papers published in Problems of Theoretical Psychology are grouped into seven sections, the first two of which were presented as symposia at the Carleton conference. The papers in the remaining five sections are grouped thematically under the headings: Language, Discourse, and Meaning; Cognition and Cognitive Science; Social Psychology; Personality, Self, and Identity; and Methodological and Historical Issues.
The first three papers to appear in the book are by John Shotter, Kenneth Gergen, and Henderikus Stam, respectively, and were presented in a symposium concerned with "The Constructionist Challenge to Metatheory." Oddly enough, all of these pieces, in different ways, challenge the very possibility of a theoretical psychology capable of advancing psychological knowledge...