Summary History of Psychology
Session 2 - Origins of a Science of the Mind: From Social Practices to Theory
(1600-1800)
Two ways to organize the history of psychology:
- Ancient Greek to present or beginning modern psychology (19th century)
16th – 18th century – the period that made modern psychology change possible.
Psychology with a big ‘P’ = discipline of psychology with its scientific practices, methods,
professions, organizations and institutions.
Psychology with a little ‘p’ = psychology as a subject matter, including conceptions of the mind and
behavior that existed before the birth of a science of psychology, such as everyday psychology
What factors enabled the emergence of the modern self?
Main change = birth of modern self (individuality and autonomy), responsible for their actions and not
the communities in which they are living. (16th/17th century) people saw themselves as part of
community not as individual
1. Protestant Reformation:
- Initiated by Luther in 1517
- Idea of salvation by personal relationship with God personal responsibility inwardness =
paying attention to inner life, living a good life to articles of faith
- Different from Catholic insistence on collective identity
2. New technologies of self-perception and self-expression
3. Modern capitalism and self-regulation
4. Changes in family life: birth of modern privacy
5. Physiognomy and phrenology
Can you explain what is a technology of self-expression and a technology of self-perception and
provide an example for each?
- Invention modern mirror (16th century) seeing yourself as others see us (sense of self), self-
awareness and looking at expressions
- Diaries and letters self-scrutiny, more in 16th century, in tune with own emotions
o Why then? Before empires with universal language, after nation states more centralization
with post-offices and migrant movements
- Technologies due to Gutenberg (movable printing press) and literacy
o Self-help books (self-control and self-transformation, conformity to community)
o Novels (thoughts and emotions of everyday people focus on inner life and self-
identification)
o Before: only books about observations of others, no main character.
- Philosophy of technology: technology is never neutral, they transform and mediate relationship
with the world. People had a self before 16th century, they just got access to instruments that
increased sense of self and generated greater sensitivity to individuality.
How does capitalism impact self-regulation?
- Formal marketplace exchange with strangers versus short informal value chains in a community
- Industrial revolution urban migration and selling labor on marketplace
- Rivalry with other workers comparison, self-monitoring and self-auditing for self-regulation
- Self-regulation and energy are key in modern capitalism:
o New technologies self-regulate (steam-engine, a self-regulating device)
o The market self-regulates, not from the state ideal balance supply and demand
, o People must self-regulate (adapting behavior)
What changes in family life generated or reflected a new need for modern privacy?
- Before: family was extended family 18th century apart from rest of family
- Marriage based on affection intimate space needs to be protected with privacy
- Change in home design: rooms with specific purposes, less intrusion from others
- Interesting for us, because now there looks like an ending to modern privacy
What is physiognomy?
- New technologies read the signs of the body during industrialization and urbanization (1700s)
- Physiognomy = seeing correlations between the body and internal qualities or abilities
o Capitalism + industrial revolution more life options people wanted advise
o Branded as a science based on empirical observation laws of behavior and character
connected to body parts + required experts
o First to facilitate self-management and social management
What is phrenology? Why did it claim to be “scientific”? Who invented it?
- Franz Joseph Gall (inventor)
- Objectives:
o Shape of skull showed developed brain areas which you could use more helps with career,
marriage choice of partner, child rearing and help children succeed in marketplace
o Self-improvement: not only diagnostic, people can work on underdeveloped areas or use
developed ones.
o Well-organized with fees, instruments and books and very popular at some places till 20 th
century
- Scientific claims not real modern science; folk wisdom + non-intellectual replaced by hard
science based on brain localization
Time of uncertainty:
- Religious conflicts, political turmoil (English civil war)
- Modern science questions ancient authorities and religion:
o The mathematization of nature (knowledge by empirical science with applied mathematics
(observing/experimenting))
o Galileo: mathematics should be used for laws of nature
- Three problems:
1. How to rebuild knowledge from scratch?
2. How to reach certainty? (in humans and science)
3. How to build civil peace? (given the context of constant war)
Why is Descartes’s work important for psychology?
Descartes: 1596-1650, contributions to mathematics, physics, biology, philosophy, lived in France, the
Netherlands, Sweden, took part in the 30 years’ war
- Important for:
o Foundations of knowledge and vindication of modern science
o Mind-body problem
o (Incomplete) naturalistic approach to the mind
- Descartes’ challenge:
o Descartes is arguing against several views:
Sceptics: claim to have no knowledge or only conjectures
Scholastics: acceptance of beliefs based on authority + rhetorical disputes
The Catholic Church, opposed to modern science
, o Main point: If scientific knowledge cannot be firmly established, it would be no better than
scholastic knowledge and there is no reason it would be preferable to the church’s teachings
about nature
- Demolition man: if you want to reconstruct the foundations of knowledge, than you have to start
from the beginning and construct something lasting and unshakeable in science.
- Hyperbolic doubt;
o Systematically explore possible sources of alternative explanations for my beliefs and of their
perceived degree of certainty:
Can I rule alternative explanations out?
Any reason for doubting would provide us with less than knowledge.
Anything that can be doubted should be regarded as false.
- Arguments leading to doubting everything:
o My sensory perceptions are sometimes unreliable, I might be dreaming, I sometimes make
mistakes in mathematics, I might be the victim of a general illusion that makes all my beliefs
false (17th century evil demon who changes reality = today’s computer simulation scenarios,
Brain-in-a-vat)
o Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. Because of all the doubts, there is not much left,
except the truth that he is thinking
- From my existence to the reconstruction of knowledge:
o Myself is independent of the existence of physical objects and the mind is prior to the body
o Controversial argument for uncovering the foundations of knowledge:
I am a finite and thinking being, yet I have the idea of an infinite and perfect being; God
a perfect being would not be perfect without existing God exists God would not
deceive me, so external world exists and my senses and abilities are reliable.
What is naturalism?
Naturalism: the view that reality is exhausted by nature, contains nothing supernatural and can be
investigated by the methods of modern science
- Materialism is older; it says that all there is, is mater. Now we don’t talk about materialism, but
physicalism. There are other forces that exists and are the primary opponents of nature.
- Naturalism, materialism and physicalism all talk about science can investigate this exhaustively
In what sense was Descartes’ version of naturalism “incomplete”?
Descartes was an incomplete naturalist, because there was according to Descartes still a seat of the
soul that escapes from those laws
What was Descartes’ error? Why was it a productive error?
Descartes’ productive error:
- Error: mind and body interact in a particular part of the brain (does not explain how something
immaterial can have an effect on something material and vice-versa)
- Why is it productive? Because for Descartes everything can be investigated by modern science,
including the brain, including certain acts of cognition (memory, emotions)… but not the soul.
