Paul Meehl’s philosophical psychology

I linked to the table of contents for this series of blog posts by Ben Recht, a professor at Berkeley. From the introduction:

Meehl was a distinguished psychologist, having served as president of the APA and regent’s professor at Minnesota. He was a practicing psychoanalyst and a committed Freudian therapist. He was also an active philosopher, co-founding the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science with philosophers Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars. The center hosted some of the leading minds in the philosophy of science for extended residencies. Meehl’s fascinating mix of interests led to some fascinating perspectives on the scientific method.

Meehl retired from his position in 1990, and the school decided to record his last class as both a tribute to him and as a way to compile his insightful perspectives. The University of Minnesota hosted videos of the 1989 course, Philosophical Psychology, on its website. Michael McGovern conveniently posted them all to YouTube. I’ve compiled them into a playlist. Kudos to Moritz Hardt for pointing me to these YouTubes and sending me further down the Meehl rabbit hole.

I found these lectures riveting and addictive. I ended up listening to them like a podcast. I’d put on the videos, get on the rower, and learn about Meehl’s perspectives on science. I wanted to write down all of my thoughts and figured I’d use the blog as a forcing function. So for the next few weeks, I’m going to try the experiment of blogging about someone else’s class.