christopher goodey - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Books by christopher goodey

Research paper thumbnail of A History of Intelligence and 'Intellectual Disability': The Shaping of Psychology in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2011)

Starting with the hypothesis that not only human intelligence but also its antithesis "intellectu... more Starting with the hypothesis that not only human intelligence but also its antithesis "intellectual disability" are nothing more than historical contingencies, c.f. goodey's paradigm-shifting study traces the rich interplay between labelled human types and the radically changing characteristics attributed to them. from the twelfth-century beginnings of european social administration to the onset of formal human science disciplines in the modern era, A History of Intelligence and "Intellectual Disability" reconstructs the socio-political and religious contexts of intellectual ability and disability, and demonstrates how these concepts became part of psychology, medicine and biology. goodey examines a wide array of classical, late medieval and renaissance texts, from popular guides on conduct and behavior to medical treatises and from religious and philosophical works to poetry and drama. focusing especially on the period between the Protestant reformation and 1700, goodey challenges the accepted wisdom that would have us believe that "intelligence" and "disability" describe natural, trans-historical realities. instead, goodey argues for a model that views intellectual disability and indeed the intellectually disabled person as recent cultural creations. His book is destined to become a standard resource for scholars interested in the history of psychology and medicine, the social origins of human self-representation, and current ethical debates about the genetics of intelligence. c.f. goodey has researched and published on the history of "intellectual disability," including the ethical and social implications of the concept, for more than 20 years. His articles have appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including History of Science, Medical History, History of the Human Sciences, Political Theory and Ancient Philosophy. He formerly held teaching and research posts at ruskin college, oxford, the open university and the university of london institute of education, and is currently an independent consultant working for national and local government services on learning disability in the uK.

Research paper thumbnail of Development: The History of a Psychological Concept (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

This book details the history of the idea of psychological development over the past two millenni... more This book details the history of the idea of psychological development
over the past two millennia. The developmental idea played a major
part in the shift from religious ways of explaining human nature to
secular, modern ones. In this shift, the ‘elect’ (chosen by God) became
the ‘normal’ and grace was replaced by cognitive ability as the essentially
human quality. A theory of psychological development was
derived from theories of bodily development, leading scholars to
describe human beings as passing through necessary ‘stages of development’
over the lifespan. By exploring the historical and religious
roots of modern psychological concepts and theories, this book
demonstrates that history is a method for standing outside psychology
and thereby evaluating its fundamental premises. It will spark new
interest in the history, sociology and philosophy of the mind sciences,
as well as in the rights of children and developmentally disabled
people.

Research paper thumbnail of (ed. with Patrick McDonagh and Tim Stainton) Intellectual Disability: A Conceptual History, 1200-1900 (Manchester University Press, 2018)

This collection explores how concepts of intellectual disability evolved from a range of influenc... more This collection explores how concepts of intellectual disability evolved from a range of influences, eventually converging with earlier and decidedly distinct ideas, including 'idiocy' and 'folly', which were themselves generated by very specific social and intellectual environments. This book brings together essays from some of the leading historians of ideas of intellectual disability, and extends across legal, educational, literary, religious, philosophical, and psychiatric histories.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning Disability and Inclusion Phobia: Past, Present, Future (Routledge, 2015)

The social position of learning disabled people has shifted rapidly over the last 20 years, from ... more The social position of learning disabled people has shifted rapidly over the last 20 years, from long-stay institutions, first into community homes and day centres, and now to a currently emerging goal of "ordinary lives" for individuals using person-centred support and personal budgets. These approaches promise to replace a century and a half of "scientific" pathological models based on expert assessment, and of the accompanying segregated social administration which determined how and where people led their lives, and who they were.

This innovative volume explains how concepts of learning disability, intellectual disability and autism first came about, describes their more recent evolution in the formal disciplines of psychology, and shows the direct relevance of this historical knowledge to present and future policy, practice and research. Goodey argues that learning disability is not a historically stable category and different people are considered "learning disabled" as it changes over time. Using psychological and anthropological theory, he identifies the deeper lying pathology as "inclusion phobia", in which the tendency of human societies to establish an in-group and to assign out-groups reaches an extreme point. Thus the disability we call "intellectual" is a concept essential only to an era in which to be human is essentially to be deemed intelligent, autonomous and capable of rational choice.

Interweaving the author's historical scholarship with his practice-based experience in the field, Learning Disability and Inclusion Phobia challenges myths about the past as well as about present-day concepts, exposing both the historical continuities and the radical discontinuities in thinking about learning disability.

Research paper thumbnail of (ed. with Christian Laes and M. Lynn Rose) Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies A Capite Ad Calcem (Brill, 2013)

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) Enabling Education: Experiences in Special and Ordinary Schools (Tufnell Press, 1998)

Research paper thumbnail of (with Linda Jordan) Human Rights and School Change: The Newham Story (Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, 1996)

Papers by christopher goodey

Research paper thumbnail of John Locke's idiots in the natural history of mind

History of Psychiatry 5, 1994

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 18 OF 'A ... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 18 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of Mental disabilities and human values in Plato's late dialogues

Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 1992

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 1 OF 'A H... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 1 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of " 'Ordinary Lives' means Ordinary Schools: The need for a unitary 0-99 policy for adults and children with learning disabilities", in Tizard Learning Disability Review 25(1), 2020.

In the UK in 2019, around 120,000 people with learning disabilities are still institutionally seg... more In the UK in 2019, around 120,000 people with learning disabilities are still institutionally segregated for a large portion of their waking lives, despite policy being focused on inclusion. The people are mainly children and adolescents and the institutions are special schools and colleges. In this paper I address the policy gap between inclusion in ordinary ('mainstream') schools and inclusion in ordinary adult life. I ask why what has been accepted at least in principle for the adult two thirds of the learning disabled population is still denied to the other, younger third. In the following sections I summarise the present discrepancy; point out the indivisibility between the rights of children and those of adults; and outline the rationale for future government strategy to establish a 0-99 policy.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning disability history: A guide to method for the prospective researcher

British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2022

Here I question the status of ‘learning disability’ as a basic concept. This kind of questioning ... more Here I question the status of ‘learning disability’ as a basic concept. This kind of questioning may be thought a task for philosophy, or at least for ‘theory’ or ‘disability studies’. However, I challenge the usefulness of these approaches, identifying history instead as the discipline best placed to reveal the category errors that surround the concept. These begin with the word ‘disability’ itself, which subliminally identifies learning disability as a natural impairment like physical and sensory impairment, rather than as it actually is: the creation (unlike these latter) of human beings ourselves over the long historical term. The error of dealing with learning disability as if it were a natural kind is reinforced, in conventional histories, by the elementary mistake of making retrospective diagnoses. I illustrate these points by taking certain major items of the psychologist’s vocabulary – ‘the mind’, logical reasoning, abstraction, development, normal intelligence, and autism – and show briefly how such things do not exist in nature but, in both a conceptual and a material sense, have emerged from the long course of historical contingencies. My examples demonstrate the need for and validity of a historical method specific to learning disability, which can radically expand the horizons for researchers and busy practitioners, and contribute to the liberation of people carrying learning disability labels.

Research paper thumbnail of “Foolishness” in Early Modern Medicine and the Concept of Intellectual Disability

Medical History, 2004

The texts by Paracelsus, Felix Platter and Thomas Willis under consideration here have two things... more The texts by Paracelsus, Felix Platter and Thomas Willis under consideration here have two things in common, despite their separate historical and cultural settings. First, they describe people who seem to relate both to their own world and to the external world in problematical ways which the authors variously call stultitia, fatuitas or stupiditas: “foolishness”. My translation is intentionally imprecise and will, I hope, restrain the reader from jumping to the conclusion that it signifies any clinical concept recognizable in modern medicine; it is, rather, an algebraic x whose content needs further investigation. The second common factor is that these are precisely the texts which some commentators do indeed believe to contain “early” diagnoses of a modern concept of intellectual disability (“mental retardation”, “learning disability” etc.). This belief, of axiomatic status, presupposes that some such concept has existed across different historical periods in a more or less mutua...

Research paper thumbnail of Agency in the darkness: ‘fear of the unknown’, learning disability and teacher education for inclusion

International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2018

This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the 'fear of t... more This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the 'fear of the unknown' often cited as an explanation for resistance to inclusive education. Using 'severe and profound learning disability' as the paradigm case, we situate the phobia surrounding this label in its social and historical context. Our hypothesis is that resistance to inclusion for this group is not rational but amounts to a thought disorder in a psychiatric sense. Using qualitative case studies of pre-service teachers on practicum and head teachers engaged in decisions about admissions, we demonstrate the workings and impact of inclusion phobia. We illustrate its trajectory from a general social dysfunction, to the systems that channel it to the individuals caught up in it. Our aim is to expose inclusion phobia so that, teacher educators, teachers and pre-service teachers might, in knowing it, find new ways to 1 Sensitivity: Internal Pre-publication version remedy it. In doing so, long standing resistance to inclusive education is made more tractable. We conclude with our own proposals for an anti-phobic curriculum for teacher education.

Research paper thumbnail of "Where the Wild Things Were: Victor of Aveyron and the pre-emptive critique of developmental disability in the early modern novel", Social History of Medicine 30(4), 2017: 807-826

The history of psychology, with its notions of ‘development’, has returned regularly to Victor of... more The history of psychology, with its notions of ‘development’, has returned regularly to Victor of Aveyron. He has become a test case for the emerging mind-sciences’ ability to tame, civilise, educate, and cure. Historians have established first his idiotism, then his mental retardation, and most recently his autism, in various retrospective explanations à la mode as to why he failed to become a fully rational and therefore perfect adult being. Literary and cultural historians, meanwhile, have noted his subsequent influence on the wild monsters of Romantic fiction. What has not been noted is that he has some deficient
fictional predecessors too. The present article looks closely at these and sets him in their context. Alongside Victor, as a paradigm case for the early history of psychiatry, three seminal early modern novels are considered, two German and one English: Simplicius Simplicissimus, Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Apprenticeship and Tristram Shandy.

Research paper thumbnail of "Liberal or conservative? Genetic rhetoric, disability, and human species modification", Laws 5 (4), 41, 2016, Special Issue: Precision Medicine, Law and Disability

A certain political rhetoric is implicit and sometimes explicit in the advocacy of human genetic ... more A certain political rhetoric is implicit and sometimes explicit in the advocacy of human genetic modification (indicating here both the enhancement and the prevention of disability). The main claim is that it belongs to a liberal tradition. From a perspective supplied by the history
and philosophy of science rather than by ethics, the content of that claim is examined to see if such a self-description is justified. The techniques are analyzed by which apparently liberal arguments get to be presented as “reasonable” in a juridical sense that draws on theories of law and rhetoric.

Research paper thumbnail of "What is developmental disability? The origin and nature of our conceptual models", Journal on Developmental Disabilities, 2001.

Research paper thumbnail of "From natural disability to the moral man: Calvinism and the history of psychology", History of the Human Sciences, 14(3), 2001.

Some humanist theologians within the French Reformed Church in the 17th century developed the not... more Some humanist theologians within the French Reformed Church in the 17th century developed the notion that a disability of the intellect could exist in nature independently of any moral defect, freeing its possessors from any obligations of natural law. Sharpened by disputes with the church leadership, this notion began to suggest a species-type classification that threatened to override the importance of the boundary between elect and reprobate in the doctrine of predestination. This classification seems to look forward to the natural history of mind that emerged later in the century with John Locke.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 11 (PLUS PAGES 331-333) OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Tim Stainton) "Intellectual disability and the myth of the changeling myth", Journal for the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 37(3), 2001.

This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the "changeling" or substitute c... more This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the "changeling" or substitute child as an explanation for congenital intellectual disability. Pre-modern sources for this idea are elite and theological as much as popular and folkloric, nor do they refer to intellectual disability in any sense recognizable to us. Rather, both the concept of intellectual disability and the notion of a transhistorical changeling myth emerge from the historical core of modern psychology.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 16 ('THE WRONG CHILD') OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) "Autism in special and inclusive schools: 'There has to be a point to their being there' ", Disability & Society, 14(2), 1999.

What kind of schools are most suitable for pupils affected by autism? This article reviews meanin... more What kind of schools are most suitable for pupils affected by autism? This article reviews meanings of autism and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). We report evidence from observations in schools and interviews with pupils and adults, drawing on a qualitative ...

Research paper thumbnail of " Politics, nature, and necessity: were Aristotle's slaves feeble minded?" Political Theory, 27(2), 1999.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 2 OF 'A H... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 2 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of A History of Intelligence and 'Intellectual Disability': The Shaping of Psychology in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2011)

Starting with the hypothesis that not only human intelligence but also its antithesis "intellectu... more Starting with the hypothesis that not only human intelligence but also its antithesis "intellectual disability" are nothing more than historical contingencies, c.f. goodey's paradigm-shifting study traces the rich interplay between labelled human types and the radically changing characteristics attributed to them. from the twelfth-century beginnings of european social administration to the onset of formal human science disciplines in the modern era, A History of Intelligence and "Intellectual Disability" reconstructs the socio-political and religious contexts of intellectual ability and disability, and demonstrates how these concepts became part of psychology, medicine and biology. goodey examines a wide array of classical, late medieval and renaissance texts, from popular guides on conduct and behavior to medical treatises and from religious and philosophical works to poetry and drama. focusing especially on the period between the Protestant reformation and 1700, goodey challenges the accepted wisdom that would have us believe that "intelligence" and "disability" describe natural, trans-historical realities. instead, goodey argues for a model that views intellectual disability and indeed the intellectually disabled person as recent cultural creations. His book is destined to become a standard resource for scholars interested in the history of psychology and medicine, the social origins of human self-representation, and current ethical debates about the genetics of intelligence. c.f. goodey has researched and published on the history of "intellectual disability," including the ethical and social implications of the concept, for more than 20 years. His articles have appeared in a number of scholarly journals, including History of Science, Medical History, History of the Human Sciences, Political Theory and Ancient Philosophy. He formerly held teaching and research posts at ruskin college, oxford, the open university and the university of london institute of education, and is currently an independent consultant working for national and local government services on learning disability in the uK.

Research paper thumbnail of Development: The History of a Psychological Concept (Cambridge University Press, 2021)

This book details the history of the idea of psychological development over the past two millenni... more This book details the history of the idea of psychological development
over the past two millennia. The developmental idea played a major
part in the shift from religious ways of explaining human nature to
secular, modern ones. In this shift, the ‘elect’ (chosen by God) became
the ‘normal’ and grace was replaced by cognitive ability as the essentially
human quality. A theory of psychological development was
derived from theories of bodily development, leading scholars to
describe human beings as passing through necessary ‘stages of development’
over the lifespan. By exploring the historical and religious
roots of modern psychological concepts and theories, this book
demonstrates that history is a method for standing outside psychology
and thereby evaluating its fundamental premises. It will spark new
interest in the history, sociology and philosophy of the mind sciences,
as well as in the rights of children and developmentally disabled
people.

Research paper thumbnail of (ed. with Patrick McDonagh and Tim Stainton) Intellectual Disability: A Conceptual History, 1200-1900 (Manchester University Press, 2018)

This collection explores how concepts of intellectual disability evolved from a range of influenc... more This collection explores how concepts of intellectual disability evolved from a range of influences, eventually converging with earlier and decidedly distinct ideas, including 'idiocy' and 'folly', which were themselves generated by very specific social and intellectual environments. This book brings together essays from some of the leading historians of ideas of intellectual disability, and extends across legal, educational, literary, religious, philosophical, and psychiatric histories.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning Disability and Inclusion Phobia: Past, Present, Future (Routledge, 2015)

The social position of learning disabled people has shifted rapidly over the last 20 years, from ... more The social position of learning disabled people has shifted rapidly over the last 20 years, from long-stay institutions, first into community homes and day centres, and now to a currently emerging goal of "ordinary lives" for individuals using person-centred support and personal budgets. These approaches promise to replace a century and a half of "scientific" pathological models based on expert assessment, and of the accompanying segregated social administration which determined how and where people led their lives, and who they were.

This innovative volume explains how concepts of learning disability, intellectual disability and autism first came about, describes their more recent evolution in the formal disciplines of psychology, and shows the direct relevance of this historical knowledge to present and future policy, practice and research. Goodey argues that learning disability is not a historically stable category and different people are considered "learning disabled" as it changes over time. Using psychological and anthropological theory, he identifies the deeper lying pathology as "inclusion phobia", in which the tendency of human societies to establish an in-group and to assign out-groups reaches an extreme point. Thus the disability we call "intellectual" is a concept essential only to an era in which to be human is essentially to be deemed intelligent, autonomous and capable of rational choice.

Interweaving the author's historical scholarship with his practice-based experience in the field, Learning Disability and Inclusion Phobia challenges myths about the past as well as about present-day concepts, exposing both the historical continuities and the radical discontinuities in thinking about learning disability.

Research paper thumbnail of (ed. with Christian Laes and M. Lynn Rose) Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies A Capite Ad Calcem (Brill, 2013)

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) Enabling Education: Experiences in Special and Ordinary Schools (Tufnell Press, 1998)

Research paper thumbnail of (with Linda Jordan) Human Rights and School Change: The Newham Story (Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, 1996)

Research paper thumbnail of John Locke's idiots in the natural history of mind

History of Psychiatry 5, 1994

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 18 OF 'A ... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 18 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of Mental disabilities and human values in Plato's late dialogues

Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie, 1992

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 1 OF 'A H... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 1 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of " 'Ordinary Lives' means Ordinary Schools: The need for a unitary 0-99 policy for adults and children with learning disabilities", in Tizard Learning Disability Review 25(1), 2020.

In the UK in 2019, around 120,000 people with learning disabilities are still institutionally seg... more In the UK in 2019, around 120,000 people with learning disabilities are still institutionally segregated for a large portion of their waking lives, despite policy being focused on inclusion. The people are mainly children and adolescents and the institutions are special schools and colleges. In this paper I address the policy gap between inclusion in ordinary ('mainstream') schools and inclusion in ordinary adult life. I ask why what has been accepted at least in principle for the adult two thirds of the learning disabled population is still denied to the other, younger third. In the following sections I summarise the present discrepancy; point out the indivisibility between the rights of children and those of adults; and outline the rationale for future government strategy to establish a 0-99 policy.

Research paper thumbnail of Learning disability history: A guide to method for the prospective researcher

British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2022

Here I question the status of ‘learning disability’ as a basic concept. This kind of questioning ... more Here I question the status of ‘learning disability’ as a basic concept. This kind of questioning may be thought a task for philosophy, or at least for ‘theory’ or ‘disability studies’. However, I challenge the usefulness of these approaches, identifying history instead as the discipline best placed to reveal the category errors that surround the concept. These begin with the word ‘disability’ itself, which subliminally identifies learning disability as a natural impairment like physical and sensory impairment, rather than as it actually is: the creation (unlike these latter) of human beings ourselves over the long historical term. The error of dealing with learning disability as if it were a natural kind is reinforced, in conventional histories, by the elementary mistake of making retrospective diagnoses. I illustrate these points by taking certain major items of the psychologist’s vocabulary – ‘the mind’, logical reasoning, abstraction, development, normal intelligence, and autism – and show briefly how such things do not exist in nature but, in both a conceptual and a material sense, have emerged from the long course of historical contingencies. My examples demonstrate the need for and validity of a historical method specific to learning disability, which can radically expand the horizons for researchers and busy practitioners, and contribute to the liberation of people carrying learning disability labels.

Research paper thumbnail of “Foolishness” in Early Modern Medicine and the Concept of Intellectual Disability

Medical History, 2004

The texts by Paracelsus, Felix Platter and Thomas Willis under consideration here have two things... more The texts by Paracelsus, Felix Platter and Thomas Willis under consideration here have two things in common, despite their separate historical and cultural settings. First, they describe people who seem to relate both to their own world and to the external world in problematical ways which the authors variously call stultitia, fatuitas or stupiditas: “foolishness”. My translation is intentionally imprecise and will, I hope, restrain the reader from jumping to the conclusion that it signifies any clinical concept recognizable in modern medicine; it is, rather, an algebraic x whose content needs further investigation. The second common factor is that these are precisely the texts which some commentators do indeed believe to contain “early” diagnoses of a modern concept of intellectual disability (“mental retardation”, “learning disability” etc.). This belief, of axiomatic status, presupposes that some such concept has existed across different historical periods in a more or less mutua...

Research paper thumbnail of Agency in the darkness: ‘fear of the unknown’, learning disability and teacher education for inclusion

International Journal of Inclusive Education, 2018

This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the 'fear of t... more This paper proposes inclusion phobia as a sharper and more operative definition of the 'fear of the unknown' often cited as an explanation for resistance to inclusive education. Using 'severe and profound learning disability' as the paradigm case, we situate the phobia surrounding this label in its social and historical context. Our hypothesis is that resistance to inclusion for this group is not rational but amounts to a thought disorder in a psychiatric sense. Using qualitative case studies of pre-service teachers on practicum and head teachers engaged in decisions about admissions, we demonstrate the workings and impact of inclusion phobia. We illustrate its trajectory from a general social dysfunction, to the systems that channel it to the individuals caught up in it. Our aim is to expose inclusion phobia so that, teacher educators, teachers and pre-service teachers might, in knowing it, find new ways to 1 Sensitivity: Internal Pre-publication version remedy it. In doing so, long standing resistance to inclusive education is made more tractable. We conclude with our own proposals for an anti-phobic curriculum for teacher education.

Research paper thumbnail of "Where the Wild Things Were: Victor of Aveyron and the pre-emptive critique of developmental disability in the early modern novel", Social History of Medicine 30(4), 2017: 807-826

The history of psychology, with its notions of ‘development’, has returned regularly to Victor of... more The history of psychology, with its notions of ‘development’, has returned regularly to Victor of Aveyron. He has become a test case for the emerging mind-sciences’ ability to tame, civilise, educate, and cure. Historians have established first his idiotism, then his mental retardation, and most recently his autism, in various retrospective explanations à la mode as to why he failed to become a fully rational and therefore perfect adult being. Literary and cultural historians, meanwhile, have noted his subsequent influence on the wild monsters of Romantic fiction. What has not been noted is that he has some deficient
fictional predecessors too. The present article looks closely at these and sets him in their context. Alongside Victor, as a paradigm case for the early history of psychiatry, three seminal early modern novels are considered, two German and one English: Simplicius Simplicissimus, Wilhelm Meister’s Years of Apprenticeship and Tristram Shandy.

Research paper thumbnail of "Liberal or conservative? Genetic rhetoric, disability, and human species modification", Laws 5 (4), 41, 2016, Special Issue: Precision Medicine, Law and Disability

A certain political rhetoric is implicit and sometimes explicit in the advocacy of human genetic ... more A certain political rhetoric is implicit and sometimes explicit in the advocacy of human genetic modification (indicating here both the enhancement and the prevention of disability). The main claim is that it belongs to a liberal tradition. From a perspective supplied by the history
and philosophy of science rather than by ethics, the content of that claim is examined to see if such a self-description is justified. The techniques are analyzed by which apparently liberal arguments get to be presented as “reasonable” in a juridical sense that draws on theories of law and rhetoric.

Research paper thumbnail of "What is developmental disability? The origin and nature of our conceptual models", Journal on Developmental Disabilities, 2001.

Research paper thumbnail of "From natural disability to the moral man: Calvinism and the history of psychology", History of the Human Sciences, 14(3), 2001.

Some humanist theologians within the French Reformed Church in the 17th century developed the not... more Some humanist theologians within the French Reformed Church in the 17th century developed the notion that a disability of the intellect could exist in nature independently of any moral defect, freeing its possessors from any obligations of natural law. Sharpened by disputes with the church leadership, this notion began to suggest a species-type classification that threatened to override the importance of the boundary between elect and reprobate in the doctrine of predestination. This classification seems to look forward to the natural history of mind that emerged later in the century with John Locke.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 11 (PLUS PAGES 331-333) OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Tim Stainton) "Intellectual disability and the myth of the changeling myth", Journal for the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 37(3), 2001.

This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the "changeling" or substitute c... more This article investigates the historical sources for the idea of the "changeling" or substitute child as an explanation for congenital intellectual disability. Pre-modern sources for this idea are elite and theological as much as popular and folkloric, nor do they refer to intellectual disability in any sense recognizable to us. Rather, both the concept of intellectual disability and the notion of a transhistorical changeling myth emerge from the historical core of modern psychology.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 16 ('THE WRONG CHILD') OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) "Autism in special and inclusive schools: 'There has to be a point to their being there' ", Disability & Society, 14(2), 1999.

What kind of schools are most suitable for pupils affected by autism? This article reviews meanin... more What kind of schools are most suitable for pupils affected by autism? This article reviews meanings of autism and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). We report evidence from observations in schools and interviews with pupils and adults, drawing on a qualitative ...

Research paper thumbnail of " Politics, nature, and necessity: were Aristotle's slaves feeble minded?" Political Theory, 27(2), 1999.

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 2 OF 'A H... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 2 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) "Theories of consent", British Medical Journal, 317(7), 1998.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) "Doctors, ethics and special education", Journal of Medical Ethics, 24(1), 1998.

This discussion paper is drawn from a qualitative research project comparing the effect of specia... more This discussion paper is drawn from a qualitative research project comparing the effect of special and ordinary schools on the lives of children, young people and their families. Special schools are recommended by health professionals who seldom know how ineffective these schools are. We question the beneficence and justice of health professionals' advice on education for children with disabilities and other difficulties. Cooperation with local education authorities (LEAs) plays a considerable part in the work of community paediatricians, clinical medical officers, therapists and other health professionals encountering children with "special needs". The "needs" range from physical disability and sensory impairment to learning difficulties and emotional or behavioural difficulties. This cooperation involves routine administrative problems, but it raises broad ethical issues too, particularly in respect of current tendencies in state schooling towards the integration or inclusion of these children in mainstream schools and classes.

Research paper thumbnail of "On Aristotle's 'animal capable of reason' ", Ancient Philosophy, 16(2), 1996

A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS IN PAGES 34-36 OF 'A... more A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS IN PAGES 34-36 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of (with Priscilla Alderson) "Research with Disabled Children: How Useful is Child-centred Ethics?" Children & Society, 10(2), 1996.

... Abstract: Describes a research project on mainstream versus segregated education for special ... more ... Abstract: Describes a research project on mainstream versus segregated education for special needs students, exploring whether research with children necessarily raises unique questions about ethics and methods. Claims ...

Research paper thumbnail of "Why study the history of learning disability?", Tizard Learning Disability Review 20(1), 2015

Research paper thumbnail of "Learning disability from the Devil to DSM-IV", The Psychologist (April 2012)

Research paper thumbnail of "Behavioural phenotypes in disability research: historical perspectives", Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 50 (6), 2006

Western medicine has a long history of accounting for behaviour by reducing the body to ultimate ... more Western medicine has a long history of accounting for behaviour by reducing the body to ultimate explanatory entities. In pre-modern medicine these were invisible "animal spirits" circulating the body. In modern medicine, they are "genes". Both raise questions. The psychological phenotype is defined by human consensus, varying according to time and place, while the genotype's DNA exists in a realm of material reality. There are deep philosophical and methodological problems in linking one realm to the other. Nyhan's original application of the phenotype-genotype pairing merely claimed that the two realms could be matched because of their common susceptibility to statistical treatment. His behavioural example was "stereotypy". It has since extended to include such things as "social cognition" in Turner's syndrome (Skuse), thus revealing increasingly clearly that the two realms are fundamentally and ontologically separate. The problems are not merely epistemological but ethical, since the looseness of psychological categories involves a blurring of the boundaries between behavioural phenotype and social stereotype. The latter may then be underwritten as "real" by being associated, spuriously, with the empirically demonstrable reality of genetic material.
A SUBSTANTIALLY SIMILAR VERSION OF THE ARGUMENTS IS AVAILABLE ON OPEN ACCESS AS CHAPTER 12 OF 'A HISTORY OF INTELLIGENCE AND "INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY": THE SHAPING OF PSYCHOLOGY IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE' (ROUTLEDGE 2011), EITHER FROM THE PUBLISHER OR FROM MY ACADEMIA.EDU PROFILE.

Research paper thumbnail of Time, order and the concept of a human interior: Pathways towards Condillac

Delphine Antoine-Mahut and Anik Waldow (eds). Condillca and his Reception: On the Origina and Nature of Human Abilities, 2024

Psychology is one historical subset of a broader enquiry with a much longer past than its own exi... more Psychology is one historical subset of a broader enquiry with a much longer past than its own existence as a formal discipline: namely what are the questions that people ask each other, about each other? And, in a more peculiarly modern way of putting it, how do the individual’s abilities relate to their goals and eventual destinies? The positing and study of a human nature, and the very possibility of such a thing as “human sciences,” form one historically specific phase in the framing of such questions. I examine here how the hundred years leading up to Condillac dealt with such matters, and finish with an account of how they relate to his work on psychology and education.

I see the influences on Condillac in the century prior to his flourishing not as the historian of philosophy might see them, as a matter of doctrine and belief to be debated at some more or less explicit level, but rather as what the philosopher of history might term that era’s “absolute presuppositions,” that is to say, things about which it would not occur to contemporaries to ask questions in the first place. The nature and very existence of “abilities” might be counted among them. Condillac was the receptor of a whole set of presuppositions about human interiority, scarcely perceptible to himself. They had religious sources, and as such they are necessary to his role as a participant in the more or less seamless transition from an expressly religious to a quasi-secular psychologistic framing of human interiority, a transition that was both a de- and a re-sacralization. My question then is, what is it that would enable us to position Condillac along the uninterrupted historical course that runs from a Christian interiority to a psychological one?

Research paper thumbnail of Learning disabilities, in (eds) C. Blakemore and S. Jenner, The Oxford Companion to the Body (OUP 2001)

Research paper thumbnail of "Intelligence, Heredity, and Genes: A Historical Perspective", Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (Nature Publishing Group, 2006)

Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2001

... Standard Article. Intelligence, Heredity, and Genes: A Historical Perspective. CF Goodey. ...... more ... Standard Article. Intelligence, Heredity, and Genes: A Historical Perspective. CF Goodey. ... How to Cite. Goodey, C. 2006. ... Some of the first 'idiots' we know by name are family members of seventeenth-century geniuses, such as William Harvey's nephew and Christopher Wren's son ...

Research paper thumbnail of Natural logic and the course of time: from theology to developmental psychology

In: Julie Brumberg-Chaumont and Claude Rosental (eds), Logical Skills: Social-Historical Perspectives, (Springer) , 2021

The modern human sciences assume a fixed relationship between logic and the place of human beings... more The modern human sciences assume a fixed relationship between logic
and the place of human beings in the natural order which have sprung from an emerging notion of correspondence between the externality of logic as system and the human being’s subjective logical abilities. Although this notion has evolved over many centuries, its onset was historically specific and can be located in medieval Christian thought which made “Man” the primary illustration for demonstrating the syllogism. First, this evolved so as to contribute to the birth of the study of “Man” in the modern human sciences. Secondly, it was accompanied by a re-definition of the human interior in terms of linear time, with the possibility of salvation as its end
or goal; this was structured by “stages” involving the completion or perfection of an interiority that replaced earlier, static definitions of the human essence. Precursor notions for psychological “development” accompanied the interpenetration between logic and theology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The fundamental
intra-human divide between “elect” (saved) and “reprobate” (damned) in the theory of predestination began to overlap with that between the scholastics’ “rational animal” and the non-logical other. The placing of a subjective logic within this fundamental division remains subliminally in foundational human science texts such as Locke’s Essay and Rousseau’s Emile. Thus it was from distant roots in natural logic that it, and modern psychology in particular, called in question the full humanity of
two groups: children in general, and adults deemed “developmentally disabled.”

Keywords Natural logic · Predestination · History of the human sciences ·
Psychological development · History of psychology · History of childhood ·
History of religion · History of logic

Research paper thumbnail of (with Simon Jarrett): "Learning Difficulties: Intellectual Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century", in (eds Christopher Gabbard and Susannah B. Mintz) A Cultural History of Disability in the Long Eighteenth Century (Bloomsbury, 2018)

Research paper thumbnail of Disability History and Greco-Roman Antiquity, in (eds. M. Rembis, C. Kudlick, K. Nielsen) The Oxford Handbook of Disability History (2017)

Research paper thumbnail of "Exclusion from the eucharist: the re-shaping of 'idiocy' in the seventeenth-century church", in (eds) Patrick McDonagh et al., Intellectual Disability: a conceptual history, 1200-1900 (Manchester University Press, 2018), 80-103.

I describe here how sections of the church, faced with the social, political and denominational c... more I describe here how sections of the church, faced with the social, political and denominational chaos of the English civil wars and revolution, developed an obsession with the formal, codified assessment of human types. The church catechism was the diagnostic manual by which a pastor would assess the understandings of his flock and grant them access to holy communion, or, conversely, deny it. In the latter case, driven by circumstance and the dialectic of religious dispute, a novel type of ‘idiocy’ was singled out that differed from madness inasmuch as it was permanent and promised no lucid intervals, and differed from the ‘reprobation’ of sinners and hypocrites inasmuch as idiocy was not willful as theirs was. ‘Idiots’, then, marked a category that should be excused but not included. In this sense they were direct precursors of those pathological minority ‘idiots’ who by the nineteenth century’s would be featuring in a modern science of the mind, as a stage on the almost seamless journey from elimination by excommunication to elimination by pre-natal testing, and from the catechism to the IQ test.

Research paper thumbnail of "Inclusion phobia and the dilemma of being special", in (eds) B. Gaventa and E. de Jongh, Knowing, Being Known, and the Mystery of God (VU University Press Amsterdam, 2016)

For Hans Reinders, asker of difficult questions, it is appropriate that our editors should have u... more For Hans Reinders, asker of difficult questions, it is appropriate that our editors should have unearthed one of existential difficulty. The Psalmist's intuition about the secret omnipresence of God opens up not just a routine range of interpretations but a chasm. This holds true not only at a theological level but also in terms of the anthropology and history of inclusion and learning ('intellectual') disability.

Research paper thumbnail of "Intelligence, heredity, and Genes: A Historical Perspective", in Encyclopedia of the Life Sciences (Nature Publishing Group, 2006)

Research paper thumbnail of (with M. Lynn Rose) "Mental states, bodily dispositions and table manners: a guide to reading 'intellectual' disability from Homer to late antiquity", in (eds) Laes, Goodey and Rose, Disabilities in Roman Antiquity: Disparate Bodies a Capite ad Calcem (Brill, 2013)

When, as historians of the ancient past, we try to decipher or classify the medical and psycholog... more When, as historians of the ancient past, we try to decipher or classify the medical and psychological descriptors of disparate human characteristics, we find that we are clumsy foreigners, disoriented and barely literate. We only become nimble on the terrain -more familiar to us -of methodologies of discrimination: it is political, social and economic status, as always, that shapes categorisation.

Research paper thumbnail of "Learning disabilities: the researcher's voyage to planet earth", in (eds.) Hood, Mayall and Oliver, Critical Perspectives in Social Research: Power and Prejudice (Open University Press, 1999)

Research paper thumbnail of "Learning difficulties and the guardians of the gene", in (eds) Clarke and Parsons, Culture, Kinship and Genes: Towards Cross-Cultural Genetics (Macmillan, 1997)

Research paper thumbnail of "The psychopolitics of learning and disability in seventeenth-century thought", in (eds) Wright and Digby, From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency: Historical Perspectives on People with Learning Disabilities (Routledge, 1996)