Robert Maxwell Young

For the publisher and fraudster, see Robert Maxwell.

Robert Maxwell Young (September 26, 1935 – July 5, 2019), is a historian of science specialising in the 19th century and particularly Darwinian thought, a philosopher of the biological and human sciences, and a Kleinian psychotherapist.

Quotes

• Alexander Bain was probably the first modern thinker whose primary concern was with psychology itself He has been credited with writing the first 'comprehensive treatise having psychology as its sole purpose'. His two-volume systematic work, The Senses and the Intellect (1855) and The Emotions and the Will (1859), was the standard British text for almost half a century, until Stout's replaced it. He also founded Mind (1876-), the first psychological journal in any country. His work requires close attention, because it is the meeting-point of experimental sensory-motor physiology and the association psychology. His influence on the conceptions of later workers was direct and extremely important. Ferrier studied classics and philosophy under Bain at Aberdeen (first class honours, 1863). When he and Jackson acknowledge their intellectual debts or make references to psychology, the names most often mentioned are Bain and Spencer-the figures whose work was the culmination of the association psychology in its traditional form.
  • Mind, Brain, and Adaptation in the Nineteenth Century, 1970. p. 101

• People are always asking about the good old days. I say, why don't you say the good now days?
  • Robert M. Young, quoted in: Rebekah Hennes (2008), Breathe, p. 120

Quotes about Robert Maxwell Young

• The Marxist historian Robert M. Young (1985), building on the long-standing suspicion that the selection theory reflects the competitive ethos of Victorian capitalism, has undertaken a sustained critique of Darwinism intended to show that scientific knowledge reflects the values of those who generate it.
  • Peter J. Bowler (2003). Evolution: The History of an Idea, p. 143