Herbert Spencer and the Beginnings of Evolutionary Psychology

Abstract

Of all the shifts in psychological opinion in the period covered by this book, probably the most far-reaching was the remodeling of it in the light of evolutionary theories. The evolutionary paradigm placed the mind in the general analysis of nature and the biological functions. This chapter examines the development of ‘materialist’, evolutionary psychological theory in the work of one of its leading writers, Herbert Spencer, in detail and in context. Spencer's new psychology, launched in 1855, was portrayed by both radicals and conservatives as marking a fresh and strikingly original turn in the development of psychological theory. The first section describes the changes in models of the mind in the second half of the nineteenth century. The second section discusses Spencer's psychology from associationism to evolutionary theory. The third examines the varying responses to psychological theory. The last section discusses epistemology and evolutionary psychology.