title: The invention of uncertainty in American psychology: intellectual conflict and rhetorical resolution, 1890-1930.
abstract: A sharp and personal polemical style characterized psychology as a new human science in American universities at the turn of the 20th century. When the experimental pursuit of truth about the mind produced quarreling rather than clarity, psychologists experienced a crisis of confidence. One solution was rhetorical: the use of a disclaimer that all current knowledge was rudimentary and a call for further research to end contention. The wording established a public tone of modesty and fostered collegiality. Scientific disagreements and underlying personal tensions remained, but conventional phrases promising future resolution of disputes contributed to a language of good manners and thereby facilitated debate. Nonetheless, the verbal formula of deferred hopes also made uncertainty seem normative. Confessions of tentativeness helped lay a historical foundation for routine investigation in psychology, but emphasis on incompleteness as an explanation of discord also made experimentation seem perpetual and truth elusive.
authors.affiliation: Department of History and Religious Studies Program, 108 Weaver Building, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA. acr5@psu.edu
authors.forename: Anne C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Rose
mesh_terms: D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D011584:Psychology / Q000266:history*; D035501:Uncertainty; D014481:United States