Review of: Representative psychologists

Reviews the book Representative Psychologists by A. C. Westerhof , which presents a critique of the problem of mechanism versus teleology. The book rests on the thesis that nothing differentiates psychologists more characteristically than the way in which they deal with "the problem of mechanism and teleology". In the light of this thesis the ideas of a considerable number of psychologists are examined. There is a separate chapter on each man in which the implications of his writing for mechanism or teleology are stated and in which Westerhof gives his own critical evaluation of the man's ideas. The reviewer argues that the book shows no recognition of the diverse meanings which mechanism and teleology may have. The first chapter reviews certain characteristics of each, but achieves no incisive analysis of what either means. Whether it is profitable now for psychology to be concerned with the problem will be decided by the individual reader's theoretical perspective.