Description:
Should appeal to ecological and environmental psychologists inclduing APA Div 34 and subscribers of ECO.
Review Quotes:
"...Harry Heft has provided a welcome resource for contextualist philosophers. Ecological Psychology in Context supplies valuable conceptual tools for understanding how contextual factors guide the perception and cognition of a world already invested with meaning".
--Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society
"Harry Heft's Ecological Psychology in Context is an extremely important work, a deep and detailed excursion into the history of American psychology, and the most sophisticated description of the philosophical background of Gibson's ecological psychology yet put to paper...Heft's book cannot but be of enormous service to the small but growing community of psychologists who are interested in applying Gibson's ideas..."
--Contemporary Psychology
"Heft presents readers with the challenging task of understanding the historical and philosophical context of the development and current promise of ecological psychology. For graduate and research collections."
--CHOICE
"I can warmly recommend this book for its searching account of Gibson's historical significance, and the implications of his work for the human sciences. In this richly informative book, Heft brings out a fundamental connection between two of psychology's most significant dissidents, William James and James Gibson, not just in their critique of traditional psychology but in their hope for a non-dualist, non-scientistic, new science."
--Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences
"...the current volume is a worthy contribution to both the history of psychology and the development of the ecological method."
--Theory & Psychology
"Harry Heft's book is a major contribution to the contemporary renaissance of ecological psychology. He focuses on the hitherto unappreciated historical connections between the Gibson and Barker traditions in ecological psychology, connections centered above all on the seminal role of Fritz Heider. By drawing on these historical roots, Heft is able to throw new light both on the foundations of ecological psychology and on the history of psychology in the twentieth century."
--Barry Smith
University of Buffalo
"...Harry Heft brings out the fundamental connection between these radically dissident figures [William James and James Gibson], not just in their critique of mainstream psychology, but in their proposals for a non-dualist, non-scientific, new science. I can warmly recommend this book for a searching account of Gibson's historical significance, and the implications of his work for the human sciences."
--Alan Costall
University of Portsmouth
"...Heft offers a compelling analysis that offers the possibility for breaking new theoretical and research directions in ecological psychology. By superbly integrating Gibson with his historical roots, as well as with the social and developmental perspectives of Heider and Barker, Heft provides a much needed deepening of the philosophical, historical, and broadly psychological dimensions of Gibson's perspective. Most importantly...Heft provides a guide as to how the commitment to realism of ecological science can provide a uniquely broad framework for a common grounding of all human experience."
--Kerry L. Marsh
University of Connecticut