About this project…
Rules Governing Citations
- Each word included in this site has been included in at least one English language dictionary.
- The words chosen for study are considered to be of importance in the history of psychology, particularly for the period 1600-1800 (the period covered may be extended in the future to approximately 1880).
- Only meanings with some relevance to psychology will be cited. Many words have more than one meaning, particularly in later dictionaries. Aspects of meaning that are not obviously related to psychology have been omitted from the citation (although the omission has been noted in the usual fashion).
- The site is under continuous development; new terms will be added as research progresses. A has been made about which terms should be researched first. An extensive list of possible words has, however, been developed, and each term has been ranked according to perceived significance. New terms will be added according to their perceived importance in the history of psychology. Such a judgement is, of course, subjective and to some degree, no doubt, reflects the compiler’s own interests in the field.
- The earliest citation that has been located will be shown; earlier sources that do not contain a definition will not be mentioned.
- If more than one edition of a dictionary has been searched, identical definitions in later editions will be noted but not cited a second time.
The Purpose Of This Site
One of the problems facing someone interested in working with early psychological texts is the fact that the meaning of words sometimes changes over time. How can one be certain that the meaning one assumes to be correct for a key word is indeed accurate? If one were reading a book published in 1670, what would the author have meant when using the words “appetite”, “passion”, or “sense”? Would the meaning have been the same a century later? When, as another example, did “attitude” come to imply more than a mere postural stance?
The purpose of the Changing Meanings of Key Terms in the History of Psychology site is to assist those working with early English-language texts by tracing the evolving meaning of common psychological terms. To do this, words central in historical discussions of psychological issues have been identified and their changing meanings have been charted by providing successive definitions taken from early English-language dictionaries for each term.