2000-07-14 The best coherent theory of the human mind ever constructed

George Kelly wrote this landmark book in 1959 taking as a starting point George Mead's work on 'Man the Scientist'. He begins by making the observation that human psychology is essentially anticipatory challenging the contemporary behaviourist viewpoint that human intelligence was the consequence of conditioned learning. He proceeds to reason in an analytic fashion about the consequences that this observation must have for understanding human experience and intelligence. Kelly's work became the cornerstone of Social Psychology throughout the 1960s until in the late 1980s new theories of social psychology based on attribution theory came into vogue. However, these newer perspectives never replaced Kelly's theories but describe the human condition from a different and plausibly compatible perspective. Kelly continues to develop his theory for the purpose of clinical applications. These involve the use of the a 'grid test' which aims to analyse the subjects repotoire of thought. This aspect of the theory is rather controversial (I do not personally think it is possible to measure such things) and whilst it forms the basis of much of modern day psychometric testing led to the whole theory falling into disripute. This is a great shame because the critisims levelled at the grid test in no way apply to the underlying theory itself. For the reader interested in the processes of the human mind when placed in a social context this book is essential reading, and I mean ESSENTIAL. For the student of artificial intelligence this book will provide the core theory needed to design the intelligent machines of the future (such readers may also be interested in the theory of flag complexes of polar spaces), for the behavioural psychologist or the biologist looking for a genetic theory of mind this book will undermine your case entirely. Social psychologist who haven't read this book should be ashamed of themselves and I expect most sociologists will know all about it.