Charles W. Tolman: An unauthorized Intellectual Biography.

Paul F. Ballantyne, Ph.D.
pballan@comnet.ca

Charles Tolman teaching his "Contemporary issues in Theoretical Psychology" class, 1987 (photo by Paul Ballantyne).

Charles W. Tolman

Charles began his career as a Skinnerian. Subsequent to his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. (1962) degrees at the University of Washington he obtained brief Assistant professorships at the University of South Dakota and Idaho State University. He then settled down at the University of Victoria (1964) where he obtained an Associate professorship in 1967.

During these Skinnerian days, his research interests included: social preference in the albino rat pup; social facilitation of feeding in domestic chicks; and even mother-infant relationships and toe-sucking in monkeys! This theme continued up to 1970 when it stopped abruptly *never to return* (except as the occasional classroom anecdote).

In terms of career advancement, there was a long and noticeable pause between the early Associate professorship and the much deferred full professorship in 1985. This pause in promotion corresponds to an equally noticeable *nine year gap* in psychological publications (between 1970 and 1979) which was finally broken by a review of Klaus Riegel's Psychology, Mon Amour (1979) and an even more telling article "Metatheoretical constructivism: A materialist evaluation" for Canadian Psychologist, (1980).

During this period, Charles had adopted an explicitly *nonreductive dialectical materialist approach* to psychology and he has spent the ensuing years popularizing the approach to a North American comparative and general psychological audience. Some of the highlights of his published work are listed below.

Charles retired from teaching at the University of Victoria in 1997 but the distinctive intensity and revolutionary content of the courses he taught (including: History of Psychology; Soviet Psychology; Theoretical Foundations of Contemporary Psychology; Activity Theory; and Canadian Psychology) will not soon be forgotten by those who managed to survive his exacting standards.

Presented to Charles Tolman by his students on the occasion of
his retirement party (Victoria, B.C.).

Charles served as a visiting professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Aarhus (from 1 February - 30 June 1998) and as Emeritus Fellow in the Centre for Studies on Religion and Society at the University of Victoria, Canada. He remains active on the editorial boards of Canadian Psychology; Theory & Psychology; New Ideas in Psychology; Mind, Culture, & Activity, and History of Psychology.

Selected Bibliography

Tolman, C.W. (1979). Review of "Psychology Mon Amour" by K. Riegel. Science & Society, 43, 500-503.

Tolman, C.W. (1981). Metatheoretical constructivism: a materialist evaluation. Canadian Psychology, 22, 7-13.

Tolman, C.W. (1981). Metatheoretical constructivism revisited: Responses to comments. Canadian Psychology, 22, 200-201.

Tolman, C.W. (1981). Review of "A Dialectical Psychology" by A.R. Buss. Canadian Psychology, 22, 296-297.

Tolman, C.W. (1981). The Metaphysic of Relations in Klaus Riegel's 'Dialectic' of Human Development. Human Development, 24, 33-51.

Tolman, C.W. (1982). The crisis in comparative psychology and the evolutionary concept of levels. In V.J.A. Novak & J. Mlikovsk (Eds.). Evolution and environment. Prague: CSAV.

Tolman, C.W. (1982). Review of "Psychologists Caught: A Psychologic of Psychology" by L.W. Brandt. Canadian Psychology, 23, 273-274.

Tolman, C.W. (1983a). Categories, logic, and the problem of necessity in theories of mental development, Studia Psychologica, 25, 179-189.

Tolman, C.W. (1983b). Further comments on the meaning of dialectic. Human Development, 26, 320-324.

Tolman, C.W. (1984). Review of "Rationality and Relativism" by M. Hollis & S. Lukes (Eds.) Canadian Psychology, 25, 66-68.

Tolman, C.W. (1985). Review of "Directions in Soviet Social Psychology" by L.H. Strickland (Ed.) Canadian Psychology, 26, 242-243.

Tolman, C.W. (1987a). Theories of Mental Evolution in Comparative Psychology: Darwin to Watson. (15-23). In E. Tobach (Ed.). Historical Perspectives and the International Status of Comparative Psychology. Hillsdale: LEA.

Tolman, C.W. (1987b). The comparative psychology of A.N. Leontyev -U.S.S.R. (203-209). In E. Tobach (Ed.). Historical Perspectives and the International Status of Comparative Psychology. Hillsdale: LEA.

Tolman, C.W. (1987c). Dialectical Materialism as Psychological Metatheory (pp. 211-229). In H. Stam, T. Rogers, and K. Gergen (Eds.). The Analysis of Psychological Theories: Metatheoretical Perspectives. New York: Hemisphere Publ. Co.

Tolman, C.W. (1987d). Intentionality, Meaning, and Evolution (pp. 365-377). In Wm J. Baker, M.W. Hyland, H. Van Rappard, A.W. Staats (Eds.). Current Issues in Theoretical Psychology. North-Holland: Elsevier Science Publishers.

Tolman, C.W. (1988a). Theoretical unification in psychology: A materialist perspective (pp. 29-36). In W.J. Baker, et al. (Eds.). Recent Trends in Theoretical Psychology. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Tolman, C.W. (1988b). The basic vocabulary of Activity Theory. Activity Theory, 1, 14-20.

Tolman, C.W. (1989a). Pluralistic Monism: William James as Closet Heraclitean. Psychological Record, 39, 177-194.

Tolman, C.W. (1989b). For a Materialist Psychology. In Recent Trends in Theoretical Psychology, Vol. II, 37-49. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Tolman, C.W. (1989c). What's Critical about Kritische Psychologie? Canadian Psychology, 30, 628-635.

Tolman, C.W.; & Piekkola, B. (1989). John Dewey and Dialectical Materialism: Anticipations of Activity Theory in the Critique of the Reflex Arc Concept. Activity Theory, 1, Nr. 3/4, pp. 43-46. [see My Repost of this article (P.B)].

Tolman, C.W. (1990). Continuity/discontinuity in the evolutionary thinking of the Chicago functionalists. Storia Della Psicologia, 2, 64-72.

Tolman, C.W., & Lemery, C.R. (1990). How to reconcile theoretical differences in psychology. New Ideas in Psychology, 8, 397-402.

Tolman, C.W. (1991a). Theoretical indeterminacy, pluralism and the conceptual concrete. Theory & Psychology, 1, 147-162. [Abstract]

Tolman, C.W. (Ed.). (1991b). Positivism in psychology: Historical and contemporary problems. New York/Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Tolman, C. W. (1991c). Neopositivism and Perception Theory (pp. 25-45), In C.W. Tolman (Ed.), Positivism in Psychology. London: Spinger Verlag.

Tolman, C.W. (1991d). For a more adequate concept of development with help from Aristotle and Marx. In P. van Geert & L.P. Mos (Eds.), Annals of Theoretical Psychology, 7, 349-356. New York: Plenum Publishing Co.

Tolman, C.W. (1991). Review of "Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research" by Kurt Danziger. Canadian Psychology, 32, 650-652.

Tolman, C.W., & Maiers, W. (Eds.). (1991). Critical Psychology: Toward an Historical Science of the Subject. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tolman, C.W. (1993). Is there a functionalist psychology? [Review of Progress in modern psychology: The legacy of American functionalism edited by D. A. Owens and M. Wagner]. Contemporary Psychology, 38, 1318-1319.

Tolman, C.W. (1994). Psychology, Society, and Subjectivity: An Introduction to German Critical Psychology. London: Routledge.

Tolman, C.W. (1994). What is Living and What is Dead in Aristotle's Psychology? Theory & Psychology 1994 Vol. 4 (3): 433-446. [A review of: KENNETH RANKTN, The Recovery of the Soul: An Aristotelian Essay on Self-fulfilment. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press. 1991; and DANIEL N. ROBINSON, Aristotle’s Psychology. New York: Columbia University Press. 1989.]

Tolman, C.W. (1995a). Critical social psychology. In A. Manstead & M. Hewstone (Eds.), The Blackwell encyclopedia of social psychology (pp. 151-153). Oxford: Blackwell.

Tolman, C.W. (1995b). Psychology and the politics of imagination: Toward a history of the future. History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin, 7 (2), 23-26.

Tolman, C.W. (1995c). Premodern Psychological Thought: From Heraclitus to Aquinas (Twelve Introductory Lectures). Unpublished Course Booklet for Psychology 210 (History of Psychology), Department of Psychology, University of Victoria.

Tolman, C.W. (1996). The Critical Psychological view of subject and subjectivity. In C. Tolman, F. Cherry R. van Hezewijk, & I. Lubek (Eds.), Problems of Theoretical Psychology (pp. 40-45). North York, Canada: Captus Press.

Tolman, C.W., Cherry, F., van Hezewijk, R., & Lubek, I. (Eds.). (1996). Problems of theoretical psychology. North York, Canada: Captus Press. [C.W. Tolman -The Critical Psychological View of Subject and Subjectivity.]

Tolman, C.W., Coughlan, R., & Robinson, C.N.B. (1996). The postmodernist appropriation of Vygotsky. In J. Lompscher (Ed.), Lernen und Entwicklung aus kulturhistorischer Sicht: Was sagt uns Wygotski heute? (Bd. 1, S. 117-129). Marburg: BdWi-Verlag.

Maiers, W., & Tolman, C.W. (1996). Critical psychology as subject-science. In I. Parker & R. Spears (Eds.), Psychology and society: Radical theory and practice (105-115). London: Pluto Press.

Tolman, C.W. (1997a). The moral obligations of psychological theorizing. History and Philosophy of Psychology Bulletin, 9(1), 34-36.

Tolman, C.W. (1997b). Erklären, Verstehen und die Kritische Psychologie. Forum Kritische Psychologie, 38, 146-156.

Tolman, C.W., & Robinson, C.N.B. (1997). Cartesianism in psychology: Its diagnosis and cure. Nordiske Udkast, 25 (1), 5-24.

Tolman, C.W. (1999a). The Theoretical Imperative in Psychology. In W. Maiers et. al. (Eds.). Challenges to Theoretical Psychology. North York, Canada: Captus Press.

Tolman, C.W. (1999b, c, d). [Angell, James Rowland]; [Carr, Harvey A.]; [Bentley, Madison]. In E. Kazdin (Editor in Chief). Encyclopedia of Psychology. APA & Oxford University Press.

Tolman, C.W. (1999e). Society versus context in individual development: Does theory make a difference? In Y. Engeström et al. (Eds.). Perspectives on Activity Theory. Cambridge University Press.

Tolman, C.W. (2000). Understanding the essentially social individual. (Review of Activity Theory and Social Practice, edited by S. Chaiklin, M. Hedegaard, & U.J. Jensen.) Theory & Psychology, 10 (4), 571-573.

Tolman, C.W. (2001a). The Origins of Activity as a Category in the Philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, and Marx. In S. Chaiklin (Ed.). The Theory and Practice of Cultural-Historical Psychology. Aarhus University Press.

Tolman, C.W. (2001b). Philosophic Doubts About Psychology as a Natural Science. In Green, C., Shore, M. & Teo , T. (Eds.). The transformation of psychology: Influences of 19th-century philosophy, technology and natural science. Washington, DC: APA.

Tolman, C.W. (2003). The Moral Dimension of Psychological Practice, Theory, and Subject Matter. In D. B. Hill & M.J. Kral (Eds.). About Psychology: Essays at the Crossroads of History, Theory, and Philosophy. State University of New York Press.

Posted: [March, 2003]

Tolman, C.W. (2004). Psychoanalyzing Hegel. (Review of The Unconscious Abyss: Hegel's Anticipation of Psychoanalysis by Jon Mills.) Theory & Psychology, 14 (2), 273-276.

Tolman, C.W. (2005). Emancipation Postponed (Review of Martin J. Packer and Mark B. Tappan's Cultural and Critical Perspectives on Human Development), Theory & Psychology 15 (1), 125-135

Tolman, C.W. (in press, 2005). Being human and the need for justice. In A. Taylor (Ed.). Justice as a human need. Hauppage NY: Nova Science Publishers.

Tolman, C.W. (in press). Making good on good and evil. (Review of The Psychology of Good and Evil by Ervin Staub.) Mind, Culture, and Activity.

Tolman, C.W. (2008). German critical psychology as emancipatory psychology. In C.I. Cohen & S.B. Timimi (Eds.), Liberatory Psychiatry: Towards a new psychiatry (pp. 89-104). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tolman, C.W. (in press.) Holzkamp’s Critical Psychology as a science from the standpoint of the subject. Theory & Psychology.

Last Updated: [August, 2008]