The book represents the first attempt to summarize the major factors in the ongoing debate on ideology and psychology. The contributions on historical development focus on concrete research areas, and show the importance of the social context and ideology in the development of psychology. The contrast between positivist and dialectical psychology is a major contribution reflected in many of the chapters. Suggestions are also made for new alternatives to assist in the orientation of psychology.

Foundations of Dialectical Psychology is a compilation of the writings of Klaus F. Riegel on dialectical psychology. The book presents chapters discussing such topics as the dialectics of human development; history of dialectical psychology; temporal organization of dialogues; and the analysis of the concept of crisis and its underlying philosophical model and ideology. Psychologists and students will find the book invaluable.

The book represents the first attempt to summarize the major factors in the ongoing debate on ideology and psychology. The contributions on historical development focus on concrete research areas, and show the importance of the social context and ideology in the development of psychology. The contrast between positivist and dialectical psychology is a major contribution reflected in many of the chapters. Suggestions are also made for new alternatives to assist in the orientation of psychology.

"This study is about ideologies as a form of discourse; i.e., as a culture of critical speech; i.e., as an elaborated sociolinguistic speech variant." -- Preface.

The Existential Dialectic of Marx and Merleau-Ponty is one of the few books to offer an in depth epistemological study linking the works of Karl Marx with a major existentialist thinker. The author first documents the existential and dialectical themes that can be found in Marx's writings and then proceeds to show that Marx's method is strikingly similar to that employed by Merleau-Ponty. It is Merleau-Ponty, however, who has developed this method in detail. Dr. Low thus turns to a thorough analysis and exposition of Merleau-Ponty's first major work, The Structure of Behavior, to reveal Merleau-Ponty's innovative and well-balanced alternative to traditional empiricism and rationalism. Merleau-Ponty's method, as it is revealed here, will be of interest to philosophers, psychologists and social scientists concerned with freeing themselves from the limitations imposed by traditional methodologies.

This book describes and illustrates the nature of dialectical thinking as a cognitive psychological phenomenon, and makes the case that this form of cognitive organizaton is a possible successor to the adolescent formal operations stage. It uses the idea of dialectical thinking to organize theory and research on adult forms of reasoning about specific kinds of issues into a rich and coherent conceptual framework for the study of adult development. This framework makes feasible an approach to the study of adult development firmly rooted in the genetic epistemological tradition as an alternative to the approaches which currently dominate the field.