Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T21:32:04.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Telepathy, Psychical Research, and Modern Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

H. Rogosin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The widespread publicity and the consequent furor created by Dr. J. B. Rhine's experiments on telepathy and clairvoyance, have been interpreted in some quarters as a call for a thorough-going revision of the entire field of psychological thought. This revision, it is held, must be in the direction of philosophic idealism, and away from previously accepted materialistic doctrines. The present paper points out the non-verifiable nature of the entities postulated by the believers in “supernormal” phenomena. Furthermore, the interpretations of contemporary science held by such individuals are not in themselves on a scientific plane. Specific errors in reasoning made by workers in the field of psychical research, are presented. In short, “psychical research … cannot turn the universe into a non-material, non-objective one, on either the basis of misinterpretations of current physical thought or on the basis of its own work.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 5 , Issue 4 , October 1938 , pp. 472 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1938

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Boring, E. G. A History of Experimental Psychology. New York: Century, 1929.Google Scholar
2. Cohen, M. R. Reason and Nature. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931.Google Scholar
3. Cohen, M. R. Causality in the light of recent physics. Jr. of Philosophy, 1937, 34, 680–681.Google Scholar
4. Cohen, M. R. and Nagel, E. An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934.Google Scholar
5. Compton, A. H. The Freedom of Man. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1935.Google Scholar
6. Eddington, A. S. The Nature of the Physical World. New York: Macmillan, 1928.Google Scholar
7. Eddington, A. S. New Pathways in Science. New York: Macmillan, 1935.Google Scholar
8. Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. The Evolution of Physics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1938.Google Scholar
9. Jastrow, J. Fact and Fable in Psychology. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1900.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10. Jastrow, J. Wish and Wisdom: Episodes in the Vagaries of Belief. New York: Appleton-Century, 1935.Google Scholar
11. Jastrow, J. The Story of Human Error. New York: Appleton-Century, 1936.Google Scholar
12. Jeans, J. The Mysterious Universe. New York: Macmillan, 1932.Google Scholar
13. Jeans, J. The New Background of Science. New York: Macmillan, 1933.Google Scholar
14. Jevons, W. S. The Principles of Science. London: Macmillan, 1900.Google Scholar
15. Kaempffert, W. Science changes its mind. Forum and Century, August, 1933, 104-108.Google Scholar
16. Kaempffert, W. Time, space, mind. An educator's experiments in psychic research. New York Times, August 15, 1937.Google Scholar
17. Kaempffert, W. Einstein himself explains the nature of physics. New York Times Book Review, April 10, 1938.Google Scholar
18. Levy, H. The Universe of Science. New York: Macmillan, 1933.Google Scholar
19. Millikan, R. A. Science and the New Civilization. New York: Scribners, 1930.Google Scholar
20. Pearson, K. The Grammar of Science. New York: Scribners, 1895.Google Scholar
21. Planck, M. Where is Science Going? New York: W. W. Norton, 1932.Google Scholar
22. Rhine, J. B. Extra-Sensory Perception. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1935 (Publication of the Boston Society for Psychical Research).Google Scholar
23. Rhine, J. B. New Frontiers of the Mind. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1937.Google Scholar
24. Rhine, J. B. Comments on Dr. Wolfle's review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 1938, 94. 957–960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25. Rogosin, H. Probability theory and extra-sensory perception. Jr. of Psychology, 1938, 5, 265–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26. Rogosin, H. Some implications of extra-sensory perception. Psychologists League Journal, 1938, 2, 47–49.Google Scholar
27. Rogosin, H. An evaluation of extra-sensory perception. Jr. of General Psychology (in press).Google Scholar
28. Rogosin, H. Letters on extra-sensory perception. Jr. of Social Psychology (in press).Google Scholar
29. Stebbinc, L. S. Philosophy and the Physicists. London: Methuen, 1937.Google Scholar
30. Struik, D. J. On the foundations of the theory of probability. Philosophy of Science, 1934, 1, 50–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31. Thomas, J. F. Beyond Normal Cognition. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1937 (Publication of the Boston Society for Psychical Research).Google Scholar
32. Time. Battle on Rhine, April 11, 1938, 31, 54.Google Scholar
33. Westaway, F. W. Scientific Method. London: Blackie & Son, 1924.Google Scholar
34. Wolfle, D. L. A review of the work on extra-sensory perception. American Jr. of Psychiatry, 94, 943–955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
35. Wolfle, D. L. ESP cards. American Jr. of Psychiatry, 94, 1248.Google Scholar