Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 The Beginning of the Road
- 2 In Blaj
- 3 In Orăştie
- 4 Student in Cluj
- 5 The University of Leipzig
- 6 Hamburg University
- 7 The University of Berlin
- 8 My Postdoctoral Exam
- 9 Scientific Researcher for the Rockefeller Foundation
- 10 Harvard University
- 11 Yale University
- 12 The University of Chicago
- 13 Columbia University
- 14 The University of Chicago Once More
- 15 America’s Scientific, Cultural, and Sociopo litical Landscape 1
- 16 At the Universities of London and Paris
- 17 At the Department and Institute of Psychology in Cluj
- 18 Democracy and Dictatorship
- 19 The Repercussions of the International Political Crisis
- 20 The Attack against Rector Goangă
- 21 The Vienna Award
- 22 The Legionnaire Insanity
- 23 Marshal Antonescu’s Government
- 24 Under Stalinist Occupation
- 25 The Romanian-American Association
- 26 The United States Lectures
- 27 Dr. Petru Groza
- 28 My Dismissal from the University
- 29 The Ordeal
- 30 Malmaison
- 31 At the Interior Ministry
- 32 The Trial
- 33 The Calvary
- 34 In Aiud Penitentiary
- 35 Back to the Interior Ministry
- 36 In Jilava
- 37 Aiud Again
- 38 Jilava Once More
- 39 The Piteşti Penitentiary
- 40 In the Penitentiaries at Dej and Gherla
- Appendix: Nicolae Mărgineanu, Curriculum Vitae
- Index
8 - My Postdoctoral Exam
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 The Beginning of the Road
- 2 In Blaj
- 3 In Orăştie
- 4 Student in Cluj
- 5 The University of Leipzig
- 6 Hamburg University
- 7 The University of Berlin
- 8 My Postdoctoral Exam
- 9 Scientific Researcher for the Rockefeller Foundation
- 10 Harvard University
- 11 Yale University
- 12 The University of Chicago
- 13 Columbia University
- 14 The University of Chicago Once More
- 15 America’s Scientific, Cultural, and Sociopo litical Landscape 1
- 16 At the Universities of London and Paris
- 17 At the Department and Institute of Psychology in Cluj
- 18 Democracy and Dictatorship
- 19 The Repercussions of the International Political Crisis
- 20 The Attack against Rector Goangă
- 21 The Vienna Award
- 22 The Legionnaire Insanity
- 23 Marshal Antonescu’s Government
- 24 Under Stalinist Occupation
- 25 The Romanian-American Association
- 26 The United States Lectures
- 27 Dr. Petru Groza
- 28 My Dismissal from the University
- 29 The Ordeal
- 30 Malmaison
- 31 At the Interior Ministry
- 32 The Trial
- 33 The Calvary
- 34 In Aiud Penitentiary
- 35 Back to the Interior Ministry
- 36 In Jilava
- 37 Aiud Again
- 38 Jilava Once More
- 39 The Piteşti Penitentiary
- 40 In the Penitentiaries at Dej and Gherla
- Appendix: Nicolae Mărgineanu, Curriculum Vitae
- Index
Summary
In my postdoctoral dissertation I ran into the same difficulties as I had in my doctoral thesis, generated by the contradiction between units of efficiency with units of time, as well as with the substantive, relational, and process interpretation of the phenomenon of transfer. Is this due only to identical elements, as Thorndike claims, explainable through Aristotle's substantive logic? Or is it due to relational identity between structures, as in configurational psychology, in which case the explanation has to be provided through isomorphism? What is the role of process, which is based on the third dialectic principle of logic?
I could not provide satisfactory answers, but the horizon of the paper was wider than that of the doctorate, and the ideas are more fleshed out, and maybe even deeper. I felt more and more, though, a need to go deeper into mathematical methodology, without which I could not solve my problems in an entirely scientific manner. For this, I needed to go not only to Britain but also to America, where these mathematical psychology issues had started to be treated very competently, a fact which Professor Goangă had started to recognize.
Both in writing my doctoral and postdoctoral dissertations—and especially during my time in Germany—I became convinced that the central problem is that of the person itself, which requires even more logical and mathematical methodology. Would I be able to combine my interest for methodology with personality psychology?
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Witnessing Romania's Century of TurmoilMemoirs of a Political Prisoner, pp. 78Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2017