Jerome Kagan

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On Being Human (1975) is one of the major integrative books of Humanistic Psychology. Earlier, in the 1960s, books on this new school of psychology, tended to feature lists of concepts, rather than a well synthesized theory. This book, with Charles Hampden-Turner's Radical Man, illustrates how the field quickly matured in the 1970s. In part it may be understood as a philosophy of (humanistic) psychology. The introduction distinguishes the terms "human," "humane," (which can be applied to Behavioristic psychology,) and "humanistic," the latter of which "must imply and focus upon a ... concept of man ... that recognizes his status as a person, irreducible to more elementary levels, and his unique worth as a person potentially capable of autonomous judgment and action." Major parts, (3-4 chapters each,) are: "Homo Symbolicus," "Culture Maker," "Toward Delight: Play, Love and Beauty," "Freedom, Responsibility," and "Man Transcending." In chapter 8 we find a brief but delightful history of love in psychology, entitled "Acquiring Academic Respectability." Part of the significance of this book lies in the fact that introductory textbooks in psychology (and educational psychology, etc.) have long missed the broader scope, meaning and substance of humanistic psychology, as effectively illustrated here.

#3

"(From the 1892 preface) In preparing the following abridgment of my larger work, the Principles of Psychology, my chief aim has been to make it more directly available for class-room use. For this purpose I have omitted several whole chapters and rewritten others. I have left out all the polemical and historical matter, all the metaphysical discussions and purely speculative passages, most of the quotations, all the book-references, and (I trust) all the impertinences, of the larger work, leaving to the teacher the choice of orally restoring as much of this material as may seem to him good, along with his own remarks on the topics successively studied. Knowing how ignorant the average student is of physiology, I have added brief chapters on the various senses. In this shorter work the general point of view, which I have adopted as that of 'natural science, ' has, I imagine, gained in clearness by its extrication from so much critical matter and its more simple and dogmatic statement. About two fifths of the volume is either new or rewritten, the rest is 'scissors and paste.' I regret to have been unable to supply chapters on pleasure and pain, aesthetics, and the moral sense. Possibly the defect may be made up in a later edition, if such a thing should ever be demanded."--(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).