Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich - H. E. Hoff (essay date 1959)

H. E. Hoff (essay date 1959)

SOURCE: A review of Experimental Psychology, and Other Essays, in Isis, Vol. 50, No. 162, December, 1959, pp. 514-16.

[In the following review, Hoff investigates the limitations and likely abuses of Pavlovian theory.]

The esteem in which the world of science, and* physiologists in particular, hold Ivan P. Pavlov is equalled only by that exhibited by the public at large. Indeed, he is one of the few physiologists of any age or country whose views have captured the public fancy and entered its everyday thinking; probably Freud alone in this century has had as great an influence. These considerations alone should insure for this volume of the selected works of Pavlov [Experimental Psychology and Other Essays] a large, interested, and favorably oriented audience. Beyond this, however, the western world has become aware that in the Soviet Union the works of Pavlov are accorded an even greater...

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