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Edward Bradford Titchener:. Psychology has a short history but a long past. The subject matter extends back to ancient history. Psychology – a “soft” science. It deals with the warm, “soft” world of human beings: thoughts, emotions, attitudes, etc.
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Edward Bradford Titchener: • Psychology has a short history but a long past. The subject matter extends back to ancient history. • Psychology – a “soft” science. It deals with the warm, “soft” world of human beings: thoughts, emotions, attitudes, etc. • Because human beings operate with a will of their own within a complex network of situations and relationships, scientists cannot answer with certainty as they do with inanimate objects.
Dialectical Tradition - • There can be no meaning and thus no knowledge without opposition. There are at least two sides to every issue. (Right and wrong, good and bad, joy and sorrow..) • Socrates – we may begin in error but will eventually arrive at truth if we continue our dialectical conversation.
Socrates – truth meant uncovering what is already there. Hence, the discipline of psychology is considered to be dialectical. • “The first step toward wisdom is knowing what it is that you don’t know.” • Therefore, thinking skills require an awareness of what one does believe and a knowledge of alternatives regarding what one could believe!!!!!!!!!
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY • Psychology:Psyche- soul/mind • Logos – study of • Aristotle – wanted to know everything about life/dissected plants and animals. • Knowledge comes from experience. • (his method of observation is the basis for contemporary science). • Plato – Rationalism: reasoning gives access to inborn knowledge.
Early Thinkers: The Cause of Mental Illness- 1.Plato – when the irrational psyche overwhelms the rational psyche. (when you have “lost it!”)!!! 2.Hippocrates – natural/biological causes. 3.Galen– four (4) bodily “humors.” 4.Socrates – emotional causes. 5.St. Augustine – mind/body connection.
More Recent Contributions: • Rene Descartes – French mathematician/ Dualism; Interactive Dualism. • Thomas Hobbes/John Locke – Monism • Nativists – we are born with certain inherent truths in us; pre-disposition. • Empiricists – “tabula rasa” or blank slate- knowledge comes from experience.
Hermann Von Helmholtz – studied receptors in the eye and ear / physiology. • Gustav Fechner- founded Psychophysics (our response to physical stimuli: music, art. etc.) • Charles Darwin – “Natural Selection”/survival of the fittest. • British naturalist/ social scientist
“The Origin of the Species” – 1859 • Ques: Why did some plants that belonged to the same species survived and others did not? • Darwin’s belief contradicted the beliefs of the Catholic Church: • Three (3) Humiliations - • 1) the earth is not the center of the universe. • 2) we are subjected to passion and subconscious desires. • 3) we are creatures of nature like other animals but from a simple to more complex life form.
In Medicine: • Paul Broca – damage to a specific area on the left hemisphere of the brain lost the ability to speak fluently. • Carl Wernicke – damage to another specific area on the left hemisphere of the brain lost the ability to understand speech.
Pseudoscientific Schools of Thought: • Phrenology – coined by Johanne Spurzheim and further developed by Franz Joseph Gall. • (Measured the bumps and indentations on the skull). • Mesmerism – Franz Anton Mesmer/ waved a magnetic wand and people were better. The forerunner of Hypnosis.
