Automatic Playing Project

 

A Phenomenological Exploration of a Bridge in Palmerton Pennsylvania

Matthew Giobbi, March 2024

Palmerton

Hardcover, Available at AMAZON

 I visited the neighborhood in Palmerton with my camera. Not far from the intersection the rail line cuts through the neighborhood, diagonally crossing the streets at roof level. Knowing Kline was captivated by the steel trestle of the railroad bridges, my eye too was captured by the lines and shapes. In fact, these railroad bridges are so characteristic that I would say they are a defining feature of the neighborhood in Palmerton and in nearby Weissport. Franz would have walked these bridges from Lehighton many times. 

Four Sketches from Historic Stories from "Die Wind Kaft" of Wind Gap, Pennsylvania for Solo Trombone

 Sheet Music & Notes

Psychology for Creative & Performing Artists Lectures

Ways of Thinking: From Art to Social Science

I entered into psychology as many of us do; through the life-theorists. I call them life-theorist because they are not merely clinicians who treat the psychologically disturbed, but also, they think about our common experiences of living, and how to go about those experiences most effectively. They can also be called life philosophers because their interest is often less on acquiring facts and more on effective living. Most of us enter into psychology via our interest in Freud, Maslow, Jung, and others that have come to be called psychotherapists. For me psychology was never wholly about therapy and patients; it was more about living, life, and thinking; the psychology of the practitioner.

On the Thought Experiment Method in Psychology

*This blog post was originally published in 2013.

Thought experiments are a standard practice in physics, as they are in philosophy, but are curiously absent in academic psychology. Albert Einstein relied on thought experiments in developing the theories of specific and general relativity. In fact, most of the "hard" sciences are comfortable with entertaining thought experiments. However, academic psychology has a tradition of undervaluing the method in favor of quantifiable research. One would be hard-pressed to find a contemporary research paper in academic psychology that utilizes the method of thought experiment.

One criticism of research psychology that has gained considerable support recently is: there has been a lot of data collecting in psychology, but not a great deal of thinking about that data.  We tend to spend more time training our psychology students to use statistical packages for analyzing data, rather than to engage in penetrating and inspired thinking.