Department Chair of the Psychology Department
Bill Rohwer, my Ph.D. advisor at Berkeley,
introduced me to the following Tolman quote.
I have reflected on Tolman's words frequently
and yes, Psychology is fun and I'm still having fun!
I started out...with considerable uneasiness. I
felt that my so-called system was outdated and
that it was a waste of time to try to rehash
it and that it would be pretentious now to seek
to make it fit any accepted set of prescriptions
laid down by the philosophy of science. I have
to confess, however, that as I have gone along
I have become again more and more involved
in it, though I still realize its many weak points.
The system may well not stand up to any final
canons of scientific procedure. But I do much
care. I have liked to think about psychology in
ways that have proved congenial to me. Since
all the sciences, and especially psychology, are
still immersed in such tremendous realms of the
uncertain and the unknown, the best that any
individual scientist, especially any psychologist,
can do seems to be to follow his own gleam and
his own bent, however inadequate that may be.
In fact I suppose that actually this is what we all
do. In the end, the only sure criterion is to have fun.
And I have had fun.
Tolman, E. C. (1959). Principles of purposive
behavior. In S. Kock (Ed.). Psychology: A study of
a science. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Office: Humanities & Social Science building, room 835N
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E-mail: dkee@fullerton.edu
Mailing Address:
Department of Psychology
California State University, Fullerton
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Fullerton, CA 92834-6846
Last updated 7/14/97