19.186 source for a proverb

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 186.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

   [1] From: "Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett" <bkg_at_nyu.edu> (30)
         Subject: RE: 19.183 source for a proverb?

   [2] From: John Lavagnino <John.Lavagnino_at_kcl.ac.uk> (37)
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

   [3] From: Jarom McDonald <jarom_mcdonald_at_byu.edu> (5)
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

   [4] From: "Joseph Raben" <joeraben_at_cox.net> (5)
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 06:34:09 +0100
         From: "Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett" <bkg_at_nyu.edu>
         Subject: RE: 19.183 source for a proverb?

There is a comparable proverb: From a doctor's perspective, everyone is
sick, or something along those lines. The authority on proverbs is Wolfgang
Mieder. -Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

-----Original Message-----
From: Humanist Discussion Group [mailto:humanist_at_Princeton.EDU] On Behalf Of
Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty
<willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>)
Sent: Friday, July 29, 2005 2:16 AM
To: humanist_at_Princeton.EDU

                 Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 183.
         Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                     www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                          www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                       Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

           Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:21:24 +0100
           From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk>
           Subject: source for proverb?

Does anyone here know an attributable source for the apparently modern
proverb, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? I have
found attributions to Abraham Maslow, the occupational therapist, and
Bernard Baruch, the entrepeneur and statesman, but none with a pointer to
published writings.

Thanks for any hints.

Yours,
WM

[NB: If you do not receive a reply within 24 hours please resend] Dr Willard
McCarty | Senior Lecturer | Centre for Computing in the Humanities | King's
College London | Kay House, 7 Arundel Street | London WC2R 3DX | U.K. | +44
(0)20 7848-2784 fax: -2980 || willard.mccarty_at_kcl.ac.uk
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/wlm/

--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 06:34:52 +0100
         From: John Lavagnino <John.Lavagnino_at_kcl.ac.uk>
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

No doubt it's not the origin of the saying, but here's some good
thinking about it from Abraham Kaplan, *The Conduct of Inquiry:
Methodology for Behavioral Science* (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964),
28-29:

      In addition to the social pressures from the scientific community
      there is also at work a very human trait of individual
      scientists. I call it *the law of the instrument*, and it may be
      formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find
      that everything he encounters needs pounding. It comes as no
      particular surprise to discover that a scientist formulates
      problems in a way which requires for their solution just those
      techniques in which he himself is especially skilled. To select
      candidates for training as pilots, one psychologist will conduct
      depth interviews, another will employ projective tests, a third
      will apply statistical techniques to questionnaire data, while a
      fourth will regard the problem as a "practical" one
      beyond the capacity of a science which cannot yet fully predict
      the performance of a rat in a maze. And standing apart from them
      all may be yet another psychologist laboring in remote
      majesty--as the rest see him--on a mathematical model of
      human learning.

      The law of the instrument, however, is by no means wholly
      pernicious in its workings. What else is a man to do when he
      has an idea, Peirce asks, but ride it as hard as he can, and leave
      it to others to hold it back within proper limits? What is
      objectionable is not that some techniques are pushed to the
      utmost, but that others, in consequence, are denied the name of
      science. The price of training is always a certain "trained
      incapacity": the more we know how to do something, the harder
      it is to learn to do it differently (children learn to speak a
      foreign language with less of an accent than adults do only
      because they did not know their own language so well to start
      with). I believe it is important that training in behavioral
      science encourage applications of the greatest possible range of
      techniques.

John Lavagnino
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London

--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 06:35:33 +0100
         From: Jarom McDonald <jarom_mcdonald_at_byu.edu>
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

Maslow wrote, in _The Psychology of Science_ (1966), "I suppose it is
tempting, if all you have is a hammer, to treat every problem as if
it were a nail" (15-16). Of course, Bernard Baruch died in 1965, so
Maslow could very well have been plagiarizing Baruch.

Jarom McDonald

--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------
         Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 06:36:22 +0100
         From: "Joseph Raben" <joeraben_at_cox.net>
         Subject: Re: 19.183 source for a proverb?

May I contribute to the search for the proverb that the version I
have heard is "If you are a hammer, everything is a nail"? I have
assumed it was traditional.

Joe raben
Received on Sat Jul 30 2005 - 01:47:10 EDT