George Sidney Brett (5 August 1879 Briton Ferry, Wales – 27 October 1944

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada) was a British-Canadian

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

Work

Brett's main contribution to psychology was his three-volume ''History of Psychology'' (1912–1921), which was the first history of psychology written in the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

, pre-dating

Edwin Boring Edwin Garrigues (Garry) Boring (23 October 1886 – 1 July 1968) was an American experimental psychologist, Professor of Psychology at Clark University and at Harvard University, who later became one of the first historians of psychology. A ''Rev ...

's canonical ''History of Experimental Psychology'' (1929). Brett's work occurs in the wake of the divorce between Psychology and Philosophy, a divorce in which Psychology was to undergo several changes in identity beginning with its attempt to be a "Science of consciousness" leading to a revisionist behavioural definition, the "Science of behaviour" which in its turn was tied to the influence of observational-ism and the anti-Metaphysical positivist spirit of the times. Brett's own position is one in which he claims that Psychology lies at the confluence of three great traditions of inquiry: Religious/Philosophical inquiry, Medical inquiry and what he calls "Psychological" inquiry. He further states that it is difficult to distinguish the History of Psychology from the History of Philosophy. His volumes thus begin with the Pre-Socratics and trace metaphysical investigations insofar as they are connected with issues of Philosophical Psychology up to but not including twentieth-century theories. He presents the metaphysics of Psychology insightfully but not always adequately, failing, for example, to appreciate the depth of Aristotelian and Kantian Philosophical contributions to Psychology. R S Peters revived Brett'swork by carrying our a successful abridgment of his three volumes into one. In this work, Peters added reflections on twentieth-century Theories that attempted to follow the pattern of Brett's earlier volumes. Brett guided courses and appointments in Toronto for many years. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He also founded the ''Canadian Journal of Religious Thought'', served as an editor for the ''Journal of General Psychology'' and the ''

International Journal of Ethics ''Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1890 as the ''International Journal of Ethics'', renamed in 1938, and published since 1923 by the University of C ...

'', and was first editor of the

University of Toronto Quarterly The ''University of Toronto Quarterly'' is an interdisciplinary academic journal of the humanities published by the University of Toronto Press. It was established in 1931 under the editorship of the philosopher George Sidney Brett. The current ...

References

External links

George Sidney Brett archival papers
held at th
University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services
Canadian psychologists 1879 births 1944 deaths British emigrants to Canada {{Canada-psychologist-stub