Robert M. Young (academic)

There are other people called Robert M. Young

Robert Maxwell Young, usually known as Robert M. Young or Bob Young (born 26th September, 1935 in Highland Park, a suburb of Dallas, Texas), is a historian of science specialising in the 19th century and particularly Darwinian thought, a philosopher of the biological and human sciences, and a Kleinian psychotherapist.

Young's initial education was in the United States, at Yale University and the University of Rochester Medical School, but in 1960 he moved to the University of Cambridge for his PhD on the history of ideas of mind and brain. The resulting monograph, Mind, Brain and Adaptation, has been called 'a modern classic' by Peter Gay. From 1964 to 1976 he was a Fellow and Graduate Tutor of King's College, Cambridge and became Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine. From 1976 to 1983 he was a full-time writer. In this period much of his political activities and writing involved radical critiques of science, technology and medicine. His contribution in this area has been compared with that of J. D. Bernal in an earlier generation.

In various books and papers he has argued that science, technology and medicine -- far from being value-neutral -- are the embodiment of values in theories, things and therapies, in facts and artefacts, in procedures and programs. Succinctly put, all facts are theory-laden, all theories are value-laden, and all values occur within an ideology or world view. Scientists and technologists pursue agendas; they have philosophies of nature, world views, usually tacitly held. In studies extending across a broad spectrum of disciplines he has argued that our culture is disastrously riven. It is characterised by sharp dichotomies, each and every one of which is a false  (or, at least, overdrawn) dichotomy, but our beliefs in them preclude unified deliberations about the scientific and the moral:

humanities - science society - science culture - nature qualitative - quantitative value - fact purpose - mechanism subject - object internal - external secondary- primary (qualities) thought - extension mind - body character - behaviour

In order to foster such unified deliberations he set up the publishing house Free Association Books which (while he directed it) published in the areas of cultural theory, critiques of expertise, and psychoanalysis, broadly conceived. The press has been called, inter alia, 'the most important influence on the culture of psychoanalysis since the war'. He also trained as a Kleinian psychoanalytic psychotherapist and began writing on psychoanalysis, but he continued writing and editing in the areas of social theory, the philosophy of science and Darwinian thought and its impact on culture. He then became the first professor of Psychoanalytic Studies and of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, posts he held at the Centre for Psychotherapeitic Studies at the University of Sheffield until his retirement, after which he has worked in private practice in London. He has been awarded an honorary degree by the New Bulgarian University for his role in fostering psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic studies in that country.

The unifying thread in his research, political activities, writing and clinical practice has been the understanding of human nature and the alleviation of suffering and inequality. His work has largely been interdiciplinary, seeking to promote unity in how we think about nature, human nature and culture.

In addition to his books, listed below, he has written numerous scholarly and popular articles, as well as making a number of television documentaries in the series Crucible: Science in Society. He also founded (usually with others) Free Association Books, Process Press, Radical Science Journal, Science as Culture, Free Associations and Kleinian Studies, as well as a number of email forums and egroups in his areas of interest and the web sites http://www.human-nature.com (co-edited with Ian Pitchford) and http://www.psychoanalysis-and-therapy.com (where most of his writings are on-line).

There are assessments of his work and influence at http://www.psychoanalysis-and-therapy.com/rmyoung/pubs.html and http://human-nature.com/science-as-culture/werskey.html

A selection:

‘...by far the most controversial figure in historical Darwin scholarship, and a man who, in addition, may well be the most influential practitioner in the history of the field.’ — Ingemar Bohlin, University of Göteborg

’I agree with few of his conclusions and he agrees with none of mine, but I still think that his is the most exciting mind ever to have turned to the Darwinian Revolution.’ — Michael Ruse, Florida State University

‘...the world’s leading Darwin scholar.’ — John Durant, Imperian College London

Roy Porter was ‘inspired by Bob Young, a larger-than-life Texan historian of the brain sciences and Darwinism who moulded an entire generation of Cambridge historians of science.’ — John Forrester, University of Cambridge

‘Young’s writings provide, within the context of ‘Science’, the best critical account of human nature theory...’ — Christopher J. Berry, Glasgow University

‘Everyone recognises Mind, Brain and Adaptation as a reference point, and it is always cited in histories of brain... It is not just an account of nineteenth-century brain theories but uncovers the central arguments in an attempt to construct a science of mind.’ — Roger Smith, University of Lancaster

‘His book as a whole seems a model for the writing of the history of science. As, perhaps, a good historian of science must be, he is much more than a historian. Of the continuing and current conceptual problems of psychology he shows an awareness which neuro-physiologists who write on mind and brain might be encouraged, by reading his book, to share.’ — P. F. Strawson, University of Oxford

‘[Robert Young] has played a major role in the development of psychoanalytic studies... As a teacher of psychoanalytic concepts, and of philosophical and sociological ideas as they bear upon thinking about human nature, I would think he is without equal. He combines a depth and scope of knowledge with an extraordinary facility for producing lucid and telling synopses of bodies of work, and a unique alertness to the connections and contrasts between different positions, both within psychoanalysis and between psychoanalytic ideas and their correlates in the wider culture.’ — Barry Richards, University of Bournemouth

[Robert Young is] ‘the leading figure in psychoanalytic studies in the UK’. — Simon Clarke, University of the West of England

Robert M Young is arguably the internet's most prolific and informed expert on psychoanalysis and psychotherapy — Timothy R. S. Leuers, Editor of Freudian Links Web Site.

‘Your book is precious to me. It is superb... Your writing is in every way outstanding... In Mental Space you have written a formidably erudite book, a book rendered accessible to my pedestrian mind by the unusual clarity with which your book is written.’ — Harold Searles, Psychoanalyst, Washington DC

‘I have now finished reading your book, finding it quite fascinating, readable and important. There are not many people like you who combine a real knowledge of philosophy, the history of ideas, sociology, etc. with psychoanalysis, so that so many ideas that I had touched on were richly filled out. It is so full of information that I expect to be referring to it frequently.’ — Michael Fordham, Jungian analyst, UK

‘Young’s work has combined research in analytical perspectives that weave together historical st udies of the brain and nervous system, psychological theories, medicine, the human sciences, labour process issues, attention to pedagogy and race, historical and contemporary apparatuses of cultural production and fundamental questions of epistemology. Even a cursory reading of his complex, cogent, incisive writings shows the depth of his scholarship and his groping beyond orthodoxies, whether they be professional or political. He has engaged controversies with deep intelligence in difficult circumstances, and he has had the courage of his convictions in print and in action. I consider Robert Young to be one of the central founders of critical science and technology studies as they have developed in the last twenty years in the anglophone world. His pursuit of the issues where they led, rather than his pursuit of an orthodox academic career, has, in my view, been his greatest strength. Young has attempted to influence cultural and intellectual practice through first-rate historical, pilosophical and political analysis in professional and popular media. Therefore, his major scholarly contribution has been made in the midst of richly interesting, but also independent, publishing, editing, media production and psychoanalytic careers. His work on ‘The Historiographic and Ideological Contexts of the Nineteenth-Century Debate on Man’s Place in Nature’ had an enormous influence on me intellectually, and I was not alone among both junior and senior people in the history of modern biology. That essay, and the other essays published in Darwin’s Metaphor remain gems in Darwin scholarship, representing the best in both humanely engaged and careful research in the humanities and social analysis. His Mind, Brain and Adaptation is still very valuable decades after its publication. His co-edited volumes on Science, Technology and the Labour Process brought sustained analysis and committed critical engagement to fundamental issues in technoscience. — Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa Cruz