Théodule-Armand Ribot

Théodule-Armand Ribot (18 December 1839 – 9 December 1916) was a French psychologist. He was born at Guingamp,[2] and was educated at the Lycée de St Brieuc. He is known as the founder of scientific psychology in France,[2] and gave his name to Ribot's Law regarding retrograde amnesia.

Théodule-Armand Ribot
Théodule-Armand Ribot
Born18 December 1839
Guingamp, France
Died9 December 1916 (aged 76)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology
InstitutionsÉcole Normale Supérieure
InfluencesAuguste Comte[1]

In 1856 he began to teach, and was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure in 1862.[3]

He passed his agregation in philosophy, this allowed him to teach in high school. He worked as a high school teacher in Vesoul (1866–1868), and then in Laval (1868–1872).[2]

On the 9 April 1888 at The Collège de France he gave the first lecture in psychology in France.[2]

In 1885 he gave a course of lectures on Experimental Psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1888 was appointed professor of that subject at the College of France. His thesis for his doctors' degree, republished in 1882, Hérédité: étude psychologique (5th ed., 1889), was his most important and best known book.[3]

L'Hérédité psychologique is considered to have introduced Darwinian and Spencerian evolutionary ideas to France.[4]

Following the experimental and synthetic methods, he brought together a large number of instances of inherited peculiarities. He paid particular attention to the physical element of mental life, ignoring all spiritual or nonmaterial factors in man. In his work on La Psychologie anglaise contemporaine: l'école expérimentale (1870), he showed his sympathy with the sensationalist school, and again in his translation of Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology.[3]

Besides numerous articles, he wrote on Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosophie de Schopenhauer (1874; 7th ed., 1896), and on the contemporary psychology of Germany (La Psychologie allemande contemporaine, 1879; 13th ed., 1898), also four little monographs on Les Maladies de la mémoire (1881; x3th ed., 1898); De la volonté (1883; 14th ed., 1899); De la personnalité (1885; 8th ed., 1899); and La Psychologie de l'attention (1888), which supplied useful data to the study of mental illness.[3]

In 1896 he introduced the term Anhedonia describing the inability to feel pleasure.[5]

Bibliography

Works
  • La Psychologie anglaise contemporaine: l'école expérimentale (1870)
  • La philosophie de Schopenhauer (1874)
  • Psychologie de l'attention (1889)[6]
  • La Psychologie des sentiments (1896)
  • L'Evolution des idées générales (1897)
  • Essai sur l'imagination créatrice (1900)
  • La Logique des sentiments (1904)
  • Essai sur les passions (1906)[3]

English editions

See also

References
  1. V. Guillin, "Théodule Ribot's Ambiguous Positivism: Philosophical and Epistemological Strategies in the Founding of French Scientific Psychology," Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. Volume 40, Issue 2, pages 165–181, Spring 2004.
  2. Nicolas, Serge; Charvillat, Agnès (March 2001). "Introducing psychology as an academic discipline in France: Théodule Ribot and the Collège de France (1888-1901): Théodule Ribot and the Collège de France (1888-1901)". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. 37 (2): 143–164. doi:10.1002/jhbs.1002. PMID 11343297.
  3.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ribot, Théodule Armand". Encyclopædia Britannica. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 286.
  4. "Acknowledgements". History of Psychiatry. 20 (4): 512. 2009-11-25. doi:10.1177/0957154x08352261. ISSN 0957-154X. S2CID 220324890.
  5. Ho, Nancy; Sommers, Marilyn (June 2013). "Anhedonia: A Concept Analysis". Archives of psychiatric nursing. 27 (3): 121–129. doi:10.1016/j.apnu.2013.02.001. ISSN 0883-9417. PMC 3664836. PMID 23706888.
  6. "Psychologie de l'attention : Th茅odule Ribot : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Internet Archive.
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