Early foundations of psychological thought - PS1101 HP

What is a Zeitgeist?

Events and discoveries that happen by mere chance, the preceding factors act as a precursor for a certainty discovery to be made

What is the Matthew effect?

Attribute more success and credit to well-known people than deserved which is turn inflate their perceived impact

What did Stocking (1965) Presentism argue about?

Looking at the past and interpreting them in the values and context of the present

What is Historicism?

The study of the past

What is Animism?

Early civilisation relied on practical knowledge to survive

What is the scholastic method of learning?

It was a common method of obtaining knowledge during the ancient and medieval period

What was the scholastic method of learning based on?

It was based on authority, the facts were the truth and it cannot be questioned.

What is the socratic questioning principle believe?

There should be constant questioning to ensure that an answer can be found and to not rely on authority

What does the socratic questioning principle deal with?

Hypothetical scenarios and justification of beliefs

What was Plato keen on?

Emphasising reasoning as a form of knowledge – that we can only understand the world through reasoning

What are platonic forms?

Objects we see are based on an ideal

How does Plato view the soul?

He saw the soul with an animalistic side which takes over the soul for pleasure and violence

How has Freud further developed Plato’s view on sleep and dreams?

Freud’s view of dreams being where desires are revealed

What is deductive reasoning?

It is a logical approach where you progress from general ideas to specific conclusions

What did Aristotle help create?

Distinction of different natural sciences

What is inductive reasoning?

It is a method of drawing conclusions by going from the specific to the general

Plato’s view on the distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning.

Knowledge can be obtained by deductive reasons based on known truths

Aristotle’s view on the distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning.

He identified that not all the ways we think can be deduced alone. We can still gain some information by induction instead. But deduction is the better method of reasoning but induction can still occur

What did the Ancient Egyptians believe about organs?

only essential organs are needed for the afterlife, they are put into canopic jars

What did the Ancient Egyptians believe about the brain?

It was needed as there was no clear essential purpose.

Who documented that the brain does have essential purpose?

Edwin Smith (papyrus)

How did Edwin Smith realise the essential purpose?

Strange relationship with brain damage and leg functioning

How did Plato describe the soul?

As an inner essence, spiritual and was the basis of our being/consciousness

What did Plato think emotions were controlled by?

The heart

The soul has three parts.

Reasoning - brain

Sensation - heart

Appetite - liver

What was Aristotle’s view of the soul and brain?

Heart was animalistic and was hot (the soul could be seated here). While the brain acted to cool the tempers of the heart.

What was Aristotle’s view of the soul and brain?

The heart was essential for life, brain was secondary in creation

The heart connects to all parts of the body whereas the brain does not

Brain is not affected by emotion unlike the heart (similar to Plato’s view), it is rational and insensitive

Memory according to Aristotle

Recall is active search in the past and follows the Laws of association:

• Law of Contiguity

• Law of Similarity

• Law of Contract

• Law of Frequency

What did Greek physician Galen argue?

Ventricles were responsible for life

How did people believe that Spirits would affect us?

Enter these ventricles and depending on which one, different behaviour is produced

Religion and scientific revelation in the early-Middle Ages

Suggested that human discovery of truth or other scientific facts and knowledge was guided by divine illumination.

What did Avicenna (Ibn Sina) 980-1037 do?

Introduced music therapy, which is used to help treat melancholia.

What did Avicenna (Ibn Sina) 980-1037 propose?

That humans have 7 interior senses and 5 external senses

What is Ockham’s Razor?

It attempts to trim down explanation to its most succinct form, strives to explain the most complex ideas in the most simplest terms