For those already familiar with discursive work it will be a joy Edwardswrites with enormous clarity and insight. For psychologists whose work involvesan under... » 

For those already familiar with discursive work it will be a joy Edwardswrites with enormous clarity and insight. For psychologists whose work involvesan understanding of the relations between language and cognition this book willbe essential reading.... This is a demanding book that will repay closeattention. It can also be dipped into as a resource for the brilliantreworkings of traditional psychological topic areas such as emotion languagecognition categories AI narrative scripts and developmental psychology. Ifyou want a glimpse into the future of psychology get this book the end ofcognitivism starts here History and Philosophy of PsychologyThe central project of this multidisciplinary volume is a wholesale reappraisalof psychological concepts of human action mental states language and socialinteractions. Derek Edwards reviews a wide range of thought and research todemonstrate how the dominant cognitive approach to psychology has failed. Hemakes a compelling case for language to be best understood as a kind ofactivity as discourse.The argument draws upon ethnomethodology conversation analysis linguisticphilosophy and social studies of science. These influences underpin afascinating intellectual survey ranging across cognitivism discursivepsychology shared knowledge categories and metaphor emotion and narrative.The emphasis throughout is on the value of close empirical study of text andtalk through which the topics of mind world and who we are are seen asways of talking. «