The separation of psychology from philosophy: Studies in the sciences of mind 1815–1879

The consensus of European opinion during and immediately after the Napoleonic era was that psychology as a science was impossible. This was not the position of a few retrograde thinkers but was the thoughtfully articulated opinion of the best placed academic thinkers. Much of what we now think of as psychology and philosophy emerged from attempts to overcome these well developed arguments against the possibilities of a scientific psychology.