Description:

Bernard Laks and I published Battle in the Mind Fields in 2019 with several aims in mind. Our understanding of our own history, and where we come, from always has a great impact on how we view our work, and we believed that our own generation had not yet written its account of where it came from---and that the history handed to us by the previous generation was thoroughly inadequate. But just as importantly, we wrote it to encourage students and colleagues to better understand the origins of the ideas we employ today (as well as those that once had traction in an earlier time), because without that kind of understanding, we cannot evaluate what are offered as new ideas (which may not be new) or challenges to our current beliefs (which can only be evaluated if we understand how and why we came to what we believe to be true today).

I’ll explain how we view the development of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology starting in the early 19th century and up to World War II, and discuss how we are bringing that forward to work in these fields today as well.