2 Philosophical roots of Psychology

2 Philosophical roots of Psychology

Main

• The main authors and schools of thought, with the aim of outlining the major ideas generated by philosophers that later influenced psychologists.

• Philosophy regarding humanity and the soul

Psychological Thought in the Greek Tradition

Psychological Thought in the Greek Tradition: Plato and Aristotle

• greek

• Humanity in focus

• aristotele and plato

Background of Knowledge about the Psyche

• they relied on prior traditions and knowledge

• Greek religiostry: image of god and humanity → always influences the conception of life and society.

Two types of Greek religiostry:

Olimpic religion

orphic religion

Olympic religion →

Olympic religion →

• The Olympic religion, as described by Homer in his epics, particularly in The Iliad, held
  that the psyche or soul left the body when a person died and wandered aimlessly
  through Hades, with little memory of its origins.

• Gods are immortal, but with “human behaviour.

• Olympian disdain → to pass someone by with Olympian indifference → Olympic religion was anthropomorphic and rational: it sought to provide a comprehensible and relatable explanation of everything that happened from a human perspective (explanation of human being).

Orphic religion →

Orphic religion →

• Believes in the transmigration of souls likely Buddhism.

• It believed in the transmigration of souls, based on a myth surrounding the god Dionysus, who was said
  to have been reborn or born twice.

• the soul was imprisoned in a body and subjected to a "cycle of births.

• the goal was to liberate the soul from the prison (sema) of the body (soma) through katharsis (purification).

Pre-Socratic Philosophical Reflection

Pre-Socratic Philosophical Reflection

• The first thinkers who asked why things exist and attempted to resolve this question in a purely rational way.

• Their reflection initially focused on nature (physis) = the external world outside of humans, because the external world was the first to appear the mind.

• Sought to identify the principle (arché) that constitutes the ultimate reason for all things → identified with elements, homoiomeries, atoms.

• Socrates, and the Greek focus of interest shifted from nature to humanity → exclusively rational questions about the origin of everything.

The emerge of medicine

• They approached first to Temple medicine, which was often intertwined with magical or sacred rituals.

• The emerge of medicine identifies remove from tradition, and more authentic form of medicine.

• Alcmaeon of Croton (c.500 BCE)

• NOTABLE FIGURE: early development of medicine was Alcmaeon of Croton (c.500 BCE), a Pythagorean pre-Socratic philosopher → assumed health consisted of a balance between opposing principles, and mental functions were located in the brain → early step toward understanding the body and mind through a more scientific lens.

• Hippocrates (c.460–377 BCE)

• Hippocrates (c.460–377 BCE) → father of modern medicine. → advanced medical ideas, and complied detailed records on conditions such as mumps, epilepsy, hysteria, arthritis, and tuberculosis → he assumed all diseases, had natural causes and should be treated as such.

• Hippocrates (c.460–377 BCE) psychology based on four humors, imbalance in these humors cause of illness:

  • Phlegm (water)

  • Blood (fire)

  • Black bile (earth)

  • Yellow bile (air)

• (humanistic approach commitment to altruism and medical ethics) He also emphasized importance of strict moral principles for physicians that establishes ethical guidelines, called Hippocratic Oath

Plato (427–347 BCE)

Plato (427–347 BCE)

• Had idealistic conception of reality.

• Paradigms for understanding reality: the spiritual or idealist approach, as opposed to Aristotle's realist or empirical approach.

• Idealist conception of reality → the first things we perceive are the images and sensations of the external world conveyed by our senses → for plato this is not the true world, rather a pale reflection of the authentic realm constituted by forms or ideas, which are spiritual and immutable.

• he was first to establish epistemological themes:

  • The problem of the truth of knowledge.

  • The relationship between sensory knowledge and intellectual knowledge.

• plato assumed = humans exist in a tension and struggle between these two realms → We are designed for the world of ideas but live in the realm of appearances, thus we must strive to fee ourselves from sensory experiences and ascend to the world of ideas (allegory of the cave).

• A first structured view of man → the soul is immortal and united to body as a punishment.

• Inspired by Dionysian-Orphic, Platons dualims evolved → the soul uses the body merely as an instrument and seeks to free itself from it to return to the world of forms from which it originated.

• Plato divides the soul into three parts:

  • The appetitive part, through which we seek to satisfy certain needs (such as food, sex,).

  • The spirited part, which encompasses various emotions as well as the energy to fulfill the desires of the appetitive part.

  • The rational part, which is responsible for understanding.

  • What make plato idealist? → The real world only provides variable sensations, and the ideas, we can not know from being immutable, rather through the recollection of what the soul saw when it inhabited the world of forms → knowing deep down, is remembering.

  • What make plato an innatist? Salvation, it serves to achieve the liberation from the body that every person should aspire to - a close union between philosophy and religion.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

• The first to extensively address many central topics: memory, sensation, sleep, dreams, geriatrics, learning.

• He wrote the first systematic treatise on psychology and
  even the history of psychology.

• He distanced himself from Plato, and at age 47 he founded his own school, the Lyceum, where he developed his own philosophy.

• Aristotle's Empiricism

• Aristotle presents a complex blend of empirical and formalist or idealist thinking.

• He developed the major principles of a highly abstract
  metaphysics: substance and accidents, nature, matter and form, transcendental qualities, act and potency.

• He conducted meticulous empirical observations, reproduction, constitutions of various Greek states.

The Aristotelian Soul

The Aristotelian Soul

• soul is the REAL world

• Reality is what exist, what we see.

• Ideas are not real, they are abstractions generated by knowledge from the real world.

• They are universal concepts if they exist in the mind, or essences if they exist in things.

• The seen takes priority, in contrast to what Plato´s dualism (the unseen).

• Aristotle assume that psyche is what allows us to explain the differences between a living being, and a dead one → The soul is the first entelechy of a natural body that has life in potency.

• Important question for psychology: What counts is experience.

• Aristotel assume the soul is not spiritual → Three types:

• Vegetative: Nutritional, assimilation, and reproductive functions.
  • Sensitive: All vegetative functions plus sensory perception, desire, and local movement.
  • Rational: All sensitive functions plus the possession of a mind (noûs) that can have knowledge and moral life.

The rational soul:

The rational soul:

• Aristotelian intellectualism = Great importance of intelligence → powerful theory of knowledge.

  • all knowledge comes form the senses, from experience (not platonic ideas).

  • Five basic senses that connects us to the reality: sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste → common sense allows us to grasp the reality, such as movement, extension, magnitude.

  • these sensations generate an impression or image that is stored in our memories, however, when these images disconnect from reality, they become free imaginations (dreams occurs, and this is unconsciousness).

  • Aristotle said dreams were not prophetic.

  • the status of Aristotles active intelligence seem to be “collective”.

  • How do we use knowledge? Aristotle approach the use of knowledge fundamentally in three types of operations: induction, judgment, and reasoning = science arise.

Aristotles approach to learning

Aristotles approach to learning

• Humans start from scratch, with blank slate

• Learning occurs through memory and by using the rules of association: similarity," "contrast," "contiguity," and "frequency.

• The repetition of actions creates habits, which are a stable way of being that facilitates actions aligned with the behaviours we have repeated.

Aristotle approach to Motivation

Motivation:

• created theory of motivation: teleological theory (from telos, meaning "end") - every human being is directed toward a goal - moving towards an end.

• There is also a hierarchy of goals, ranging from the simplest or most immediate to the ultimate or final cause, which is the overarching reason behind human behaviour.

• Aristotle, said the ultimate end of man is the good life or happiness, called eudaimonia.

• Notable schools: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Neoplatonism.

Medieval psychology

Medieval psychology: Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas = philosophical and theological creations.

• greek replaced by roman culture → did not approach to theoretical realm.

Saint Augustine (354-430)

Saint Augustine (354-430)

• Considers as the last ancient thinker or the first medieval one.

• He existed when roman empire collapsed, and the dark times of early middle ages were beginning.

• He dominated European thought for a thousand years.

• Three factors that contributed:

  • His intellectual brilliance, reflected in his vast body of work and originality.

  • He achieved the first systematic fusion of Christianity with classical culture, particularly with Platonic and Roman traditions.

  • the fall of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the barbarians would destroy culture in Europe, leaving Augustine as the last beacon shining in the darkness, marking a point of reference.

San Augustine's extensive though:

• The fusion of Platonism and Christianity

• Christianity took advantage as dominant culture, using Plato´s idea to resolve emerging theoretical problems.

San Augustine contributions to psychology:

• Transformed the Greek psyche of Plato into the anima or spiritual substance of Christianity, created directly by God.

• He conducted a detailed analysis of human intimacy, prefiguring the anthropological turn of modernity and even the Cartesian cogito.

• Famous reflections on memory and the structure of temporality.

• He attributed great importance to love as a source of motivation, theorizing his novel "ordo amoris" (order of love).

  • Immortalized in the famous phrase: "Love and do what you will.

• He incorporated a specifically Christian theme into Western
  anthropological thought

The Dark age and Arab Philosophy: Averroes (1126-1198)

The Dark age and Arab Philosophy: Averroes (1126-1198)

• The rediscovery of Aristotle thanks to the Arabs

• It was tensed between the christians and the arabs from years, christians approached to plato, while arabs approached to Aristotle.

• School of translators of Toledo arise, Arabic philosophers, Avicenna (980-1037), and Averroes (1126-1198) known as “the Commentator”, starts to translate Aristotelean texts from Arabic to Latin.

• Averroes ideas:

  • The epistemological thesis of double truth → could exist one truth in philosophy and another in theology, which did not necessarily coincide/be the same.

  • Following Aristotle, he postulated the unity of the agent intellect → part of the soul that allows human to achieve science and that would be the same for all human; so personal immortality was questioned as the unity of the soul.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

• The Christianization of Aristotle, also further explored by Ockham in the post-Thomistic middle years.

• Thomas Aquinas chose to embrace Aristotle and his philosophy, undertaking an enormous task to comment on and integrate it.

• first his ideas was rejected by the Bishop of Paris, however, gradually his ideas gained acceptance and became unofficial philosophy of the church.

• the consequence of Thomism was a reconciliation and
  simultaneous separation of philosophy and faith.

• He argued that human knowledge could and should
  proceed through both avenues, as both were valid and, when used correctly, should lead to the truth = gives important reasons to the truth.

• (if you see both - help leading to the truth) ^^^

The Concrete Project Regarding the Soul

• Thomas Aquinas's position was to integrate Aristotle’s view with the Platonic perspective.

• his definition of soul: the substantial form of the body.

• He mean that the form is the principle that gives life and
  organizes the body (Aristotelian psyche); however, as it is substantial, something that endures through changes, it can continue to exist after separation from the body (Plato).

affected psychology through:

• Knowledge: He maintained the basic Aristotelian theses but insisted (against Averroes) on the individuality of each intellect.

• Motivation: He followed the Christianized Aristotelian teleology. God is the ultimate end to which all things, including humans, are ordered as their final cause, albeit freely. Happiness arises from a loving (not just intellectual) contemplation of God.

• Personality: The person is composed of two levels: the somatic (body) and the spiritual (intellect and will). Feelings, understood as passions, occupy an intermediate realm.

The post-Thomistic medieval thought

The post-Thomistic medieval thought

• Thinking was not accepted before an intense philosophical and theological debate → new ideas led to Renaissance

• William of Ockham (1290-1350) is primarily known for his original stance in the famous debate on universals, which heralded empiricism and some aspects of modern philosophy.

• two basic positions:

  • the Platonists, who believed that universals existed in
    reality (the famous "Ideas")

  • the Aristotelians, who also believed they existed but
    were concretized in things.

  • Ockham made a new proposal; universal did not exist at all, they are just names → there is no reality outside of nominality, called nominalism.

  • Verbal labels were simply a way of grouping meanings to facilitate understanding.

  • Later on, Hume adhere to this.

The Renaissance and the New Science

The Renaissance and the New Science

Characteristics of the Renaissance

• An anthropocentric shift occurred, human potential (centrum)

• Humanism → Human qualities are appreciated for their own sake.

• There is growing interest in the Greco-Roman era, revival of Platonism (more interest), linked to saturation (less interest) of Aristotelian thought.

• Changes were done in favor of man, modifying the relationship
  between man and God that had existed in the Middle Ages, where human affairs were often instrumentalized for religious purposes.

• The Renaissance brought with it a more dynamic, inquisitive, and free mentality, one more interested in the surrounding world.

• Change of object from soul to mind.

• Emergence of modern science and experimental method: what is scientific?

Luis Vives (1492-1540): toward the study of the mind

Luis Vives (1492-1540): toward the study of the mind

• Luis Vives is considered as key figure in this transition of the changed objective from the “soul to the mind”.

• He marks the transition from metaphysical psychology to descriptive and analytic psychology → The University of Wales professor Foster Watson (1860–1929)
  even referred to him as the "Father of Modern Psychology.

• his main work “de amina et vita”

• Through his method, he was the first to describe
  associative processes, explored memory in detail, studied individual aptitudes, compared humans and animal → he said: it must be observed in its operations, because it does not present itself to our senses, whereas through all these, both internal and external, we can know its works.

• this was first steps toward a functionalist psychology focused on vital adaptation and education.

The modern “new science

The modern “new science

• The emergence of modern science was the result of a new investigative and inquisitive mindset, along with a collective effort to overcome the challenges posed by medieval wisdom to advance experimental knowledge.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Role in shifting the Western approach to science → from theoretical knowledge to practical understanding.

• Famous work, Novum Organum: Indications for the Interpretation of Nature (1620) → modified the Aristotelian model.

• Bacon emphasized the practical character of science: not about eternal truths, but about the ability to control and dominate nature, thus generating well-being. Not just contemplation, it needs practicality.

• He pushed science forward, but it was Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton who built it.

This is a complex and fascinating story that resulted in two
fundamental outcomes for the history of the West:

• a new vision of the universe

• the emergence of a new method of knowledge that rationally justified that vision.

The emergence of the scientific method

The main phases of the method were as follows: detection of a problem; analysis; proposal of a mathematical theory that
explains it; conducting experiments—controlled and repeatable by anyone—to validate its accuracy; and finally, approval of the theory, which, being mathematical, had predictive power.

Regarding psychology, all these issues had significant repercussions because this science found itself in an intermediate terrain: it does not study material realities but aims to be a science, which, under the scientific vision of the time, seemed impossible.

Popper, Kuhn, Gödel, has increased; along with the recognition that many human dimensions, such as emotions, feelings, cognitive processes, and decisions cannot be adequately studied through the mathematical scientific-experimental method

The modern era:

The modern era:

• Religious Fragmentation in Europe.

  • Development of Nation-States.

  • The Rise of Reason.

  • Tremendous Advancement in Modern Science.

  • Increasing Importance of the Bourgeoisie

Descartes and the Mind-Body Problem. Rationalism 17th century (relation to plato).

Descartes and the Mind-Body Problem. Rationalism 17th century (relation to plato).

• The philosophy of this era can be divided into two major currents: empiricism, and rationalism.

• Descartes is at the origin of both, his dualism separated reason from the sensible, illuminating two distinct antagonistic worlds.

• Descartes is often considered a rationalist because
  he privileged reason, making his study essential for both our understanding of modern philosophy and rationalism.

• He is the paradigmatic representative of modern philosophy because he breaks with the medieval tradition.

• Famous book is Discourse on the Method (1637) → for Properly Conducting One's Reason and Seeking the Truth in Sciences

• The mind-body problem: through his dualism he separated the reason from the Sensitive. He sought to make philosophy a secure knowledge. He was looking for a Absolute truth from which to draw the rest of the reflections.

• Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I exist): he questioned all known truths in order to find the unquestionable one.

He had significant consequences for philosophy:

• Philosophy Begins in the Interior of Man - This shift is referred to as the anthropological turn, which was continued and deepened by Kant.

  • Cartesian Dualism- the famous mind-body problem (separated material world (the res extensa) from the spiritual world (the res cogitans).

  • Emergence of Rationalism and Empiricism - supported the idea of innate ideas believing that there were concepts we could not have derived from experience, like that of perfection, since nothing is perfect. He emerged idealist philosophy which holds that all knowledge is within the human mind.

Contributions to Psychology

• Transition from soul to mind: he consciousness that individuals
  have of themselves, ideally represented in the cogito. This theme is central to psychology, focusing on consciousness or the individual's experience of self.

• The mind-body problem: the connection between body and mind should occur through the brain. the conception of neurons, and CSF, connection to the pineal gland in humans and bodily related

• An explanation of reflexes and nerves: Explanation of reflexes.

• Nerves as empty tubes with threads connecting sensory receptors to the brain.

• Russian physiology and reflexology approach.

• Study of emotions: Work “Treatise on the Passions”, viewed psychic alterations that arise from somatic changes. Psychic alterations due to somatic alterations

British Empiricism and Associationism

British Empiricism and Associationism (relation to Aristotle)

Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume

• In contrast to rationalism

• characteristic of Anglo-Saxon thought.

• everything in a person's mind originates from experience, not from god or nature.

• Three basic tenets of empiricism are:

  • there are no innate ideas; everything arises from experience, literally reviving Aristotle's old idea of "tabula rasa".

  • mental experience must be analyzed to see if it can be generalized to form a science.

  • mental experience appears as a flow of sensations and associated ideas.

Empiricism. J. Locke (1632-1704)

Empiricism. J. Locke (1632-1704)

• He represents a moderate non-associationist empiricism

• Important work: Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1690)

• Locke realized that the problem lay in the premises, to resolve this, he developed this work, aiming to explain how human knowledge functions, what its possibilities and limits are.

• Asserting that all knowledge arises "from experience” → refers to blank sheets of paper, like Aristotle.

• everything that appear is a result of experience, through two classifications:

  • First, our senses deal with particular sensible objects and lead to the mind distinct perceptions of things, according to the various ways these objects affect them.

    • this obtain the ideas we possess of 'yellow,' 'white,' 'hot,' 'cold,' 'soft,' bitter,' 'sweet,' which we call sensible qualities.

  • Secondly, the other source from which experience supplies ideas to the understanding is the perception of the operations of our mind within us, applied to the ideas attained through the senses.

    • when the soul reflects on and considers the understanding of ideas, which have not arise from external things, such as perception,' 'thinking,' 'doubting,' 'believing,' 'reasoning,' 'knowing, known as different acts of our own minds.

• All human knowledge rests on this experience, which Locke believes is founded on ideas, understanding an idea as anything that appears in the mind, which can be the product of sensation (external) or reflection (internal) - evolve intelligence, memory or imagination.

• he analysed perceptions through distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which arises when we consider the objectivity of our sensations

  • Locke resolves the problem by stating that qualities are properties of objects and sensations are the perception of those qualities.

  • primary qualities → (extension, motion, etc.) that have the ability to produce objective sensations

  • Primary =objective sensations (perceiving movement - actual fact).

  • secondary qualities → which produce sensations but without a clear correspondence between the physical object and the sensation (pain, color, temperature, taste).

    • Secondary =subjective and non-measurable sensations (pain - subjective).

David Hume (1711-1776)

David Hume (1711-1776)

• radical empiricism +total scepticism.

• Everything comes from sensations, but we do not
  know if these respond to reality.

• The self does not exist, it is a label.

David Hartley (1705-1757)

David Hartley (1705-1757)

• landmark work Observations on man; attempt at objective psychophysical psychology.

• Aristotelian association for complex ideas: similarity, contrast and contiguity.

• Interested in HOW ideas are associated and not why.

• Problems: too reductionist a view of reality, no justification of moral duty and no universal knowledge

• The objectives of associationism or associative empiricism are twofold:

• The objectives of associationism or associative empiricism are twofold:

  • To discover how the mind associates sensations, known as the laws of association.

  • To explain complex states through simple ones: the analysis of psychic phenomena.

Valuation and Contribution to Psychology

Valuation and Contribution to Psychology

• Empiricism presents an interesting response to rationalism by emphasizing the realism of knowledge - an unjustified innatism (we can not invent reality to explain our knowledge).

• Everything in our minds is learned gradually from the experiences we live through.

• Empiricism led some of its thinkers to a very reductive
  view of reality, considering that experience is limited to what we know through our senses, suggesting that there is no intellectual knowledge of the world, only pure sensation.

• David Hume combines radical empiricism → everything we know comes from experience, that is, our sensations, but we have no idea if these sensations correspond to reality.

• Move toward introspection, set the soul beside and focus on the mind.

• Locke → impression and sensation occurs in the self, which ultimate foundation of a person.

• Hume → would claim that the self does not exist, but is merely a label (Ockham) constructed through the laws of association.

Kant (1724-1804)

Philosophical Influences on Psychology in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Kant (1724-1804)

• introducing new ideas and for establishing how and on what one should philosophize.

• Influenced by Hume, and accepted some of his staring point without examination → work: Critique of Pure Reason.

• Kant posited that before discussing philosophy, one must determine what the human mind is capable of, a challenge known as the critical problem.

• Kant believed that our perception of the external world gives us a collection of sensations and experiences without order that prevents us from knowing the so-called "thing-in-itself," or what things actually are.

• he said ideas came from our own mind. The mind does not have innate ideas but possesses a kind of molds or constitutive forms that shape the chaotic experience provided by the senses → this generates our knowledge.

Kant posited, giving arise to the idealist movement:

• An active mind in contrast to the passive mind characteristic of associationists

• an idealistic position, as what we know is not what actually exists but a mix or union of our mental categories and sensations.

• Kant, who engaged with psychology, denied the possibility of it being a science → He defined it as the introspective analysis of the mind and thus considered it unscientific because:

  • the mind is not a physical entity, making objective study impossible

  • the mind constantly varies, preventing stable results (universal concepts)

  • the introspective process influences what one seeks to analyze, modifying it.

• Finally, Kant asserted that humans consist of three essential dimensions → representations (intelligence), volitions (will), and feelings.

The Recovery of the Self

The Recovery of the Self

• Important philosophical line, emerging further into the 19th century.

• Objective: to recover the psychic subject (I) replaced by the laws of association.

• Maine de Biran (1766-1824: associationism lacked the subject that experiences sensation. Feeling costs effort and we do not feel
  what we want but what is presented in front of us and offers "resistance".

• William Hamilton (1788-1856): Consciousness is an active relation of the subject to the object. In perception there is memory because it involves distinguishing. Law of reintegration.

• Johann F. Herbart (1776-1841): psychology could not be science, but mental experience could be mathematized. He separated it
  from physics and philosophy. First steps differential psychology.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) father of positivism.

Positivism and the Crisis of Psychology

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) father of positivism.

• The modern man should only reflect on facts—what appears and is shown, observable and empirically verifiable.

• Moreover, he should not seek causes but rather positive relationships (laws) with which to control and predict facts.

• Some of his most significant works include Course in Positive Philosophy (1830-1842) and System of Positive Politics (1851-1854).

• Comte formulated a new order of sciences, called the social fact.

  • according to his premises, there is no humanistic science and psychology does not appear in his classification.

  • he approached introspection, and aligned Kant method.

• Psychology cannot be science: because introspection could not scientifically be verified, as each observer provides subjective data.

• Because the observed organ and the observer are identical, which detracts from scientific objectivity.

• He assume the psychology of the soul which existed until Descartes, was theological, and that the psychology of consciousness was insufficiently positive.

Humanistic Anthropologies of the 20th Century: Existentialism and Personalism

Humanistic Anthropologies of the 20th Century: Existentialism and Personalism

These humanistic philosophies provide a very suitable foundation for developing a non-reductionist integral psychology.

Existentialism begins with Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

• Importance of the singular and free individual, who shapes his or her destiny through freedom.

Personalism was initiated by Emmanuel Mounier (1905-1950)

• The structure of anthropology depends on the concept of personhood.

• Affectivity as a central and autonomous dimension.

• Decisive importance of interpersonal and family relationships in shaping identity.

• Person as a social and community subject.