From an actual Professor of Physchology: “I enjoyed your piece. I teach
history of psychology and spend a lot of time on the skeptical crisis of the
18th century as David Fate Norton calles it. I believe the problem started
with Descartes and his search for Truth that led to the argument of the
cogito, although one could make an argument for Socrates, for his assertion
that one did not really know somethng unless one can rationally explain and
justify it. Two books you might find interesting: Descartes’ error by
Antonio Damasio, a neuroscientist who argues that emotion has been
underestimated as a source of practical wisdom; and John Farrell’s Freud’s
paranoid quest, which roots Freud’s deconstruction (if you will) of mind and
personality to Descartes’ method of doubt. A psychologist who praised
habit, by the way, was William James in his Principles of psychology (1890).
If I recall the quote correctly, he called it the great flywheel of society.
Then, in 1900, John Dewey argued that psychology as a science arose when
modern life made it necessary for people to think about things they have
taken for granted.”