Pesquisa psíquica e os limites da Psicologia científica em William James: tradução do Relatório Report on Mrs. Piper’s Hodgson-Control

Abstract

This study aims to translate and analyze the report Report on Mrs. Piper’s Hodgson-Control (1909), in order to examine the epistemological status of psychical research in the work of William James and to understand how such investigation relates to the process of consolidation of scientific psychology in the late nineteenth century. Based on a bibliographical review of the formation of modern psychology, the activities of the Society for Psychical Research, and James’s intellectual trajectory, the epistemological status of psychical phenomena and the tensions between naturalism, empiricism, and spiritualism are discussed. The work is characterized as theoretical, historical, and documentary research, including a full translation of the 1909 report, carried out according to criteria of conceptual fidelity and preservation of the original argumentative style. The analysis demonstrates that James did not adopt a dogmatic stance toward the investigated phenomena, rejecting both premature metaphysical acceptance and automatic skeptical dismissal. The report reveals a methodology grounded in the comparison of competing hypotheses and in the evaluation of degrees of probability, emphasizing interpretative caution as a central principle. It is concluded that psychical research occupied a significant place within James’s scientific project, functioning as an epistemological laboratory in which the limits and possibilities of the emerging psychological method became visible.