BOESCH,ERNST,E. AT 80 - REFLECTIONS FROM A STUDENT ON THE CULTURE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Using recollections of Ernst Boesch as a teacher, the author summarize s Boesch's impact on his own thinking but also on psychology in genera l and cultural psychology in particular. Special attention is paid to the methodological and theoretical frame which Boesch espouses, includ ing systematic methodological pluralism functionalism, action theory, contextualism and the powerful application of introspective and hermen eutic methods. Achieving an intellectual coalitionof ideas generated b y different schools of thought (most notably Janet, Rey, Lewin and Pia get), Boesch proffers in his work an original and integrative view on mind and human behavior. In his approach, cultural psychology is not i dentical with cross-cultural psychology but treated as an endeavor whi ch highlights the cultural and contextual in any aspect of human funct ioning.