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Summary Introduction to Psychology and History of Psychology (Book notes)
- Instelling
- Tilburg University (UVT)
Detailed notes on all assigned chapters for the course Intr. to Psychology & History of Psych.
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PIONEERS OF PSYCHOLOGYCHAPTER 0
reflexivity of the field – the human ability to become aware of and reflect upon one’s activities/
psychological study changes how humans think about themselves/ the study of how self-
understanding changes over time is a for of psychology itself
historiography – theory, history, methods and assumptions of writing history
internalism/externalism – nature of factors/perspective that influence the writing of history
Great Man approach – history is told through the contributions of eminent people whose ideas
have shaped the field
Zeitgeist approach – “spirit of the times” is taken into account and its effect on the ability of
certain people to become historically significant
presentism – viewing a subject from the standpoint of the present, explaining today’s
circumstances by the fact that we studied into the mistaken assumptions of people in order to gain
wisdom
historicism – an attempt to recreate the past as it was actually experienced by the predecessors
without distortion by foreknowledge of how things worked out
sophisticated presentism – combination of presentism/historicism
new history of psychology – Laurel Furumuto/ psychology went beyond the celebratory aims and
great accomplishments/ it is important to consult archival and other primary sources
critical history of psychology – reflects the diversity of the field
origin myth process – Franz Samelson/ the stories passed from one textbook to the other tend to
be oversimplified, misleading or completely wrong
continuity-discontinuity debate – when to start the history of psychology
indigenization – local/national contexts affect the development of psychology
personalistic-contextual approach to the book
CHAPTER 1
1. Gorgias – a sophist / claimed he could persuade anyone to adopt any opinion on any subject
2. Heraclitus – one can never step in the same river twice for its fluid contents change constantly even
while its banks and course remain the same
3. Socrates
left no written records since he believed they weaken the faculties of serious thinking and
memory; Xenophan, Plato and Aristophanes left descriptions of him
Plato called him a gadfly
his only real wisdom lay in knowing how much he did not know
nativism is attributed to him (fully formed but forgotten knowledge lies within the psyche and it
just needs help from empirical experience to bring it out)
assertion that the human mind contains innately within itself features and predispositions
that enable it to interpret and comprehend empirical experiences in ways that go far beyond
their raw sensory input
the idea that the human psyche is immortal and repeatedly becomes reincarnated in different
bodies – the previous knowledge is forgotten but under certain conditions it can be recalled
4. Plato
his works are now known as the Socratic dialogues (his written portrayals of Socrates, which
emphasized the importance of higher rational thinking and mathematical reasoning that
reside innately within the human mind)
established the Academy for scholars that want to congregate and pursue their intellectual goals
dialogue Meno which is associated with Socrates
his birth name might have been Aristocles
, notions of appearances (actual conscious experiences, ex. seeing a tree ) and ideal forms (the
essence of all actual experiences, ex. all trees)
idealism is associated with Plato
the higher realm of ideal forms is more fundamental than the empirical world of transiently
experienced appearances
one of his works “The Republic” contains the allegory of the cave with shows the appearance-
ideal forms distinction
the human psyche innately consists of appetites, courage and reason ; these three components
give rise to three classes within society – those dominated by their appetites were the ordinary
masses of a civil society/those dominated by courage became the soldiers who protected the
society/the small group of people in whose psyche the reason prevailed is the elite guardians who
should govern the society
in the debates nurture-nature and heredity-environment, Plato favored nature and heredity
nativism
he believed the underlying true world of ideal forms could be partially/indirectly understood
5. Aristotle
“we must honor truth above of friends” about Plato
the first great proponent of empiricism (knowledge comes from direct observations of the
outside world)
did not directly deny the existence of innate faculties
created his own school in Athens called Lyceum
careful observations followed by systematic classification was the way to acquire knowledge
according to Aristotle and his student Theophrastus
the beginning of the biological field of taxonomy
for Aristotle the mind was the main organizer of knowledge and it was active and he did not
agree with the idea that the mind was simply the origin of ideas and knowledge as Socrates and
Plato claimed ;
his writing On the Psyche is considered to be the first systematic work on psychology
fundamental functions of all psyches: nourishment, reproduction (which two form the
vegetative soul) ,memory, imagination, locomotion, sensation (which four form the sensitive
soul), reason (which formed the rational soul and was considered the highest function)
Aristotle believed that our psyche has an innate set of categories into which the memories and
ideas of empirical experiences are classifies and organized: substance, quantity, quality, time,
relation, location, activity ; all caused events should have 4 essential components: a material
cause/a formal cause/an efficient cause/a final cause
the idea of purposeful unmoved mover
Plato and Socrates had regarded the human psyche as a reservoir of innate ideas and forms,
which may be brought out or partially revealed by empirical experiences. Aristotle, by contrast,
emphasized empirical experiences as the necessary “raw materials” the psyche subsequently
processes by means of its inborn categories, thereby creating the abstract concepts and “ideal”
general laws the Platonists thought were innate.
, older Plato points upward to the higher
realms of reason and ideas, while the
younger Aristotle gestures downward
toward the empirical solidity of the
earth ; a Renaissance painting called
School of Athens by Raphael
PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS
- Thales - became famous for his accurate astronomical and meteorological observations ; promoted
the idea that water was the most important element in the physical makeup of the cosmos ; worked in
the filed of physics
- Zeno – pondered the concept of infinity in the idea that any linear distance contains an infinite
number of intermediate points between its beginning and end. ; challenged his fellow philosophers to
resolve the Achilles and the tortoise paradox
- Pythagoras
- Protagoras – “Man is the measure of all things”
- Hippocrates – extensive body of medical writings, which regarded diseases as natural phenomena
(Hippocratic Corpus) ; Hippocrates proposed a humoral theory to explain health and illness as the
result of the balance or imbalance among four prominent liquid substances, which they called humors,
found in the human body: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. ; emphasis on balance and
moderation when it comes to general treatment of diseases
- Xenaphon – a student of Socrates
ATOMIC THEORY
- Democritus – formulated an atomic theory, which held that there is a limit to the divisibility of all
material objects, and that they are ultimately composed of tiny, solid, unbreakable particles he called
atoms ; Democritus’s atomic theory proposed material and efficient causes of the universe, but denied
the reality of any underlying plan or final purpose
- Epicurus –adoption of the atomic theory for him stated that one should not be afraid of the punitive
whims of the capricious gods and should try to live life as tranquilly as possible in the pursuit of
socially acceptable “happiness” – moderate hedonism ; The Epicureans consistently maintained that
the human psyche, along with the body and all other objects in the universe, are nothing but
collections of material atoms
- Lucretius - he learned about Epicurean philosophy and celebrated it in an extraordinary extended
poem with the Latin title De Rerum Natura
THE ISLAMIC PIONEERS
- Al-Kindi – introduced the Indo-Arabic numerals
- Alhazen – theory of visual perception ; Book of Optics (In this work Alhazen resolved a debate that
had gone on since classical times about whether vision worked because of “probes” emitted from the
eyes out to the sensed objects, or because of signals or rays originating in the objects and impressing
themselves on the eyes) ; experiments with camera obscura ; he described the “moon illusion”—why
the moon appears larger when rising from the horizon than when positioned high in the sky
- Avicenna – the book Canon of Medicine and the Book of Healing/the book of the Cure (this work
more than any other summarized and crystallized classical Greek thought and preserved it for future
study,) ; Avicenna made a distinction between interior (the interior senses all involved doing
something with those exterior sensations) and exterior (constituted the basic capacities for receiving
, impressions via the organs of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) senses ; he added a motivating
function which he referred to as “appetition” (provide the impulses to approach desirable objects and
avoid undesirable ones) to the traditional sensitive soul of Aristotle’s notion ; the floating man
experiment concerned the rational soul - self-awareness was an innate capacity of the human
rational soul, and evidence for the soul’s or the mind’s distinct existence independent of the body
and its physical sensations
CHAPTER 2
1. Descartes
suggested mechanistic explanations for the traditional functions of the Aristotelian sensitive
soul/psyche
book: Rules for the Direction of the Mind
he viewed the mind and body as two interacting but distinctly different entities, each
requiring its own kind of analysis and explanation (interactive dualism)
the idea of analytic geometry (which integrates algebra and geometry)
simple natures – fundamental properties of physical phenomena which cannot be doubted
and whose existence could not be analyzed – extension (the space occupied by a body/particle)
and motion (the movement of an extended particle/body throughout space) are qualified as simple
natures
our sensory experiences could be deceiving
primary (shape, quantity and motion – everything in the universe arises from them) and
secondary qualities (our conscious experiences of the world are secondary)
he hypothesized a sun-centered universe
Descartes hypothesized three kinds of particles corresponding to the classical elements of fire,
earth and air
we perceive objects as a result of the vibrations which the air particles create when reaching the
eye
a yellowish liquid in the brain known as animal spirits which according to him were responsible
for our emotions
Descartes’s general point of emphasizing the centrality of the brain and nervous system in the
initiation and control of behavior marked the modern origin of the field of neuropsychology
a reflex diagram ; reflexes are unconditional ones or acquired responses
behaviors can be influenced by internal emotional factors
he replaced the Aristotelian concepts of vegetative and sensitive soul with mechanistic
explanation – all non-humans (animals) could be explained as automata/robots
we, as humans, have capacities for consciousness, free will and rationality, which constitute the
Aristotelian sensitive soul ; the immaterial soul/mind interacts with the bodily machine but they
are two separate entities
his most famous work: Discourse on Method
the conclusion “I think therefore I am” is the certainty that Descartes was looking for
his conception of an independent and self-aware rational mind showed clear echoes of Avicenna’s
floating man and Plato’s notion of a psyche equipped with innate ideal forms
perfection, unity and infinity are innate ideas according to Descartes
the idea of psychological dualism had already been established but what was notable about
Descartes’ view was that phenomena are not the result of the body or mind working alone but
rather the various interactions between them played an important role – interactive dualism
any body without a soul would be an automaton, a soul without a body would have consciousness
only with its existence and innate ideas the body adds richness and complexity to the mind’s
consciousness and the mind adds conscious rationality/volition to the causes of behavior
the pineal gland is where body and mind interact
passions – the conscious awareness of feelings such as love, anger etc.
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