Defining the subject -- Ancient foundations : Greek philosophers and physicians -- Minds possessed : witchery and the search for explanations -- The emergence of modern science : Locke's "Newtonian" theory of mind -- Three enduring "isms" : empiricism, rationalism, materialism -- Sensation and perception -- The visual process -- Hearing -- Signal-detection theory -- Perceptual constancies and illusions -- Learning and memory : Associationism, Aristotle to Ebbinghaus -- Pavlov and the conditioned reflex.

Watson and American behaviorism -- B.F. Skinner and modern behaviorism -- B.F. Skinner and the engineering of society -- Language -- The integration of experience -- Perception and attention -- Cognitive "maps", "insight" and animal minds -- Memory revisitied : mnemonics and context -- Piaget's stage: theory of cognitive development -- The development of moral reasoning -- Knowledge, thinking and understanding -- Comprehending the world of experience : cognition summarized.

Psychobiology : nineteenth century foundations -- Language and the brain -- Rationality, problem-solving and brain function -- The "emotional brain" : the limbic system -- Violence and the brain -- Psychopathology : the medical model -- Artificial intelligence and the neurocognitive revolution -- Is artificial intelligence "intelligent?" -- What makes an event "social"? -- Socialization : Darwin and the "natural history" method -- Freud's debts to Darwin -- Freud, Breuer and the theory of repression.

Freud's theory of psychosexual development -- Critiques of Freudian theory -- What is personality? -- Obedience and conformity -- Altruism -- Prejudice and self-deception -- On being sane in insane places -- Intelligence -- Personality traits and the problem of assessment -- Genetic psychology and "The bell curve" -- Psychological and biological determinism -- Civic development: psychology, the person and the Polis.