The following issue has been put together as a way of paying special tribute to Kurt Danziger's contributions to Canadian psychology. The decision was made back in the fall of 1994 on the occasion of Kurt's retirement from York University. A number of individuals, including this author, wanted to acknowledge the special role Kurt played in establishing the History and Theory Option at York University and his role in Section 25 of the Canadian Psychological Association.

The issue contains a collection of papers prepared by colleagues, as well as past and present students of Kurt Danziger. The issue begins with a "Background" to Kurt's career. It is followed by papers written by Norman Endler and Raymond Fancher of York University. Norman Endler acknowledges Kurt's special role as a friend and colleague for the past thirty years, while Raymond Fancher discusses Kurt's role in setting up York's Graduate Option in History and Theory of Psychology. The biographical papers conclude with a transcript of an interview with Kurt Danziger conducted by Adrian Brock inthe Summer of 1994.

The second part of this issue contains the papers that were presented at this year's CPA meeting in Charlotettown, P.E.I., in a symposium Barry Kelly organized and chaired, entitled "A Tribute to Kurt Danziger." A number of individuals participated in this symposium. They were: Betty Bayer, Adrian Brock, Katalin Dzinas, Charles Tolman, and Richard Walsh-Bowers, with some comments from Ian Lubek. Unfortunately, Kurt Danziger was not at the CPA meeting in P.E.I. and did not get to hear or respond to the papers presented. While Barry Kelly did ensure that the session was video-taped so that Kurt would have the opportunity to see and hear what the panellists had to say, everyone, particularly those who presented papers greatly missed his presence. The decision to include the papers in this special issue was made some time after the Symposium and primarily due to the fact that the papers generated a very lively discussion amongst those in attendance. The papers published here are, with minor modifications, the papers presented in the Symposium. Some of the papers are formal in style, while others are informal and designed to stimulate discussion among the members of Section 25. All of the papers address, to varying degrees, Kurt's recently published paper "Does the History of Psychology Have a Future?" It was agreed by those who participated in this Symposium that the best way to pay tribute to Kurt Danziger was not by enumerating his many accomplishments as a psychologist and as a historian, but by engaging in dialogue and debate about one of his provocative contributions dealing specifically with the future of the discipline upon whichhe has left such an indelible mark.

Kurt Danziger has taught in the Department of Psychology at York University, Toronto, from 1965 up to his retirement in 1994. In recent years both his teaching and his research have been largely devoted to the history of psychology, especially the history of psychological methodology. Much of this work is presented in his book, Constructing the Subject: Historical Origins of Psychological Research, published by Cambridge University Press in 1990.

Kurt Danziger is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He received the CPA Education and Training Award in 1994, having taken a leading role in establishing the History and Theory option of the Psychology Graduate Programme at York University and having supervised many of the students who took this option.

His work has also received considerable recognition in Europe. He gave the opening address at the conference on the history of psychology that took place at the University of Hagen, Germany, in 1989, and has given invited addresses in Britain and the Netherlands as well as in Canada. He was a guest professor at the University of Konstanz, Germany, in 1988, and was guest editor for a special issue on the history of psychology of the journal History of the Human Sciences which is published in Britain. Some of his books have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Danish. He is on the editorial board of such journals as Theory and Psychology, History of the Human Sciences, German Journal of Psychology, and Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

An unusually wide range of experience in academic settings all over the globe provides the background for Kurt Danziger's deep appreciation of the importance of social and cultural context forpsychological theory and research. He was born in Germany, but his family emigrated to South Africa just before World War II. There he completed his schooling and took a degree with distinction in chemistry. Then he switched to the study of philosophy and psychology. He obtained his doctorate in experimental psychology at the University of Oxford in 1952. His first teaching position was at the University of Melbourne, Australia. That was followed by eight years at two South African universities, a period during which he was also Visiting Professor in Indonesia. Before he settled in Canada he was Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Upon his departure in 1965 he was declared a "prohibited person" by the then South African government, a ban which remained in force for a quarter century.

Kurt Danziger's interest in research practice is based on many years' experience of empirical research in different areas of psychology. His early research publications reported on his experimental work with white rats, but, under the influence of the work of the ethologist N. Tinbergen, he became sceptical of the value of much of this work. There followed a period of research on conceptual development in the Piagetian tradition as well as experimental work on time judgement. His South African background led to a long engagement with social psychological topics reflected in numerous research papers, as well the books Socialization (1971) and Interpersonal Communication (1976). Although the bulk of his research output has appeared in the psychological literature, Kurt Danziger has also published studies in sociological, historical, and philosophical journals. He is now writing a book on the history of fundamental concepts in psychology.