Comprehensive Psychology and Philosophy: Greek Roots, Theories, and Key Thinkers

Hippocrates

Known as the 'father of modern medicine,' he explained psychological disorders using naturalistic frameworks similar to modern medicine, such as naming depression 'melancholia'.

Galen of Pergamon

An ancient Roman philosopher who argued that a significant portion of personality is innate, serving as a precursor to the modern concept of temperament.

Stoicism

Founded by Zeno of Citium, this influential therapeutic philosophy taught self-control through reason and the complete extirpation of emotions to achieve a state of tranquility.

Epicureanism

This 'philosophy of the garden' was founded by Epicurus and sought ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) through a quiet life of friendship and simple pleasures.

Quixotic Principle

Derived from Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, this principle refers to the adoption of an identity in accordance with literary characters, historical models, or specific behavioral precepts.

Tabula Rasa

A Latin phrase meaning 'blank slate,' associated with Aristotle's defense of democracy, asserting that humans are born with no innate knowledge.

The Divine Comedy

Published in 1321 by Dante Alighieri, this epic poem is a self-insert journey where the author travels through Hell guided by the Roman poet Virgil.

Syntactic approach

The dominant approach of logical positivism characterized by treating scientific theories as a special language.

Division of Language

Scientific language is divided into three sets of terms: observation terms, theoretical terms, and mathematical terms.

Layer Cake Model

Theories are structured in levels, with observation terms at the bottom and axioms at the top.

Operational Definitions

To prevent theoretical terms from becoming metaphysical 'superstition,' they are linked to observation terms.

Goal of Science

For the syntactic approach, the primary functions of science are description, prediction, and control.

Preparadigm period

The 'pre-history' of a science before a community of practitioners settles on a shared intellectual and social structure.

Historiography

It is centered around methods and the issues inside the discipline of history.

Presentism

The perspective that is concerned with how a field got this way to understand its condition.

Historical analysis

It refers to new history that is analytic rather than its current condition, frequently incorporating statistics and analytical techniques.

Externalism

An approach to the history of science that considers science within its larger social context.

Anomaly

Refers to observations that are inconsistent with a reigning theory or paradigm.

Crisis

When anomalies resist defensive maneuvers by scientists to fit them into the current paradigm.

Revolution

The overthrow of a reigning paradigm and its replacement with a new one.

Ancient Greece

Credited with founding the core of both psychology and Western philosophy.

Science of Psychology

Started with Greek philosophers' focus on epistemology, the study of knowledge.

Practice of Psychotherapy

Has its roots in the Hellenistic period of the Classical world.

Happiness philosophies

Philosophies focused on helping the public cope with everyday life.

Policy

Psychologically based policy began with Greek democracy, involving citizens in argument and decision-making.

Fundamental Motto

The motto 'know thyself' inscribed upon the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, marking the beginning of psychology.

Protopsychologists

Physician-philosophers who explained mind and behavior using physiology.

Sophists

Paid professional teachers who focused on human life and political success, experts in rhetoric.

Socrates

Philosopher who sought the universal nature of virtue and focused on the care of the soul.

Alcmaeon of Croton

First to identify the brain as the seat of sensation and thought.

Empedocles of Acragas

Proposed that objects emit 'effluences' that enter the body through senses.

Protagoras

Sophist who asserted 'Man is the measure of all things,' endorsing a relativistic view.

Cultural Relativism

The belief that morality and laws are cultural conventions that vary between societies.

Elenchus

Socratic method of cross-examination used to draw knowledge out of students.

Aporia

A state of enlightened ignorance reached through Socratic questioning.

Eudaemonia

Often translated as 'happiness,' it refers to living well through virtue.

Pneuma

Vital life force believed by Galen to be essential for life.

Theoria

Requirement for explicitly stated and defended knowledge.

Dikaiosune

Justice defined as getting what one fairly deserves.

Pleonexia

The vice of grasping for more than one is due.

Akrasia

Weakness of will leading to knowingly doing wrong.

Phusis

Greek word for the single underlying element of nature.

Arête

Virtue or excellence, originally a prize won in battle.

Plato's rational soul

Located in the head, motivated by reason and pursuit of virtue.

Plato's spirited soul

Located in the chest, motivated by the pursuit of honor.

Plato's desiring soul

Located in the belly and genitals, driven by bodily needs and appetites.

Hysteria

Derived from the Greek word for uterus, believed to cause emotional overreactions.

Galen's ventricles

Believed to store pneuma, controlling bodily movements and thoughts.

Plato's dualism

View of the body as a prison for the soul, influenced by Indian religious ideas.

Rational Soul

Located in the head, it is the only immortal part of the soul and is motivated by reason and the pursuit of virtue.

Spirited Soul

Located in the chest, it pursues arête (honor or excellence).

Desiring Soul

Located in the belly and genitals, it is motivated by bodily needs and lust.

Plato's Chariot Metaphor

Illustrates the struggle between the rational soul (charioteer), spirited soul (white horse), and desiring soul (black horse).

Idealism

Plato's cognitive philosophy asserting that true knowledge resides in the realm of Being rather than the physical world of Becoming.

The Forms (ιδεα)

Eternally perfect, nonphysical objects that physical objects are merely imperfect copies of.

Metaphysical Realism

Forms like Justice, Beauty, and the Good are real, universal properties, not subjective opinions.

Learning as Recollection

Plato proposed that learning is a process of remembering what the soul beheld in heaven before being reincarnated.

Metaphor of the Line Plato

illustration of the hierarchy of knowledge and the intelligible world divided into four sections.

World of Appearances

The lower section of Plato's line, involving imagining and belief.

Thinking

Represents mathematical knowledge, considered imperfect because it relies on unproven axioms.

World of the Forms

The highest level of knowledge achieved through philosophy, encompassing the ultimate Truth.

Aristotle's Model of the Soul

Describes how sensory data transforms into abstract knowledge through a hierarchy of faculties.

The Special Senses

The first stage where the five senses receive perceptible forms of objects without their physical matter.

Common Sense

The first interior sense that integrates data from the special senses into a coherent mental representation.

Imagination

Allows the soul to represent the form of an object in its absence and judges perceived objects.

Memory

Acts as a storehouse for images created by common sense and imagination, organized by three laws of association.

The Mind (Nous)

Unique to the rational human soul, it acquires universals or general knowledge of an essence.

Passive Mind

The potentiality of the mind, having no character of its own to take on the form of experienced objects.

Active Mind

Pure thought or actuality that acts upon the contents of the passive mind to achieve rational knowledge.

Material Cause

The physical substance or 'stuff' that a thing is made of.

Essential Cause

Defines what a thing is in its essence—its definition or 'catness'.

Efficient Cause

Refers to the process of creation or how a thing comes into existence.

Final Cause

The purpose or goal for which a thing exists.

Soul as the 'Form' of the Body

Aristotle defined the soul as the essential cause (form) of a living body.

Function Over Substance

The soul is a set of functions rather than a separate thing trapped in the body.

Modern Functionalism

Suggests that the 'mind is what the brain does', distinguishing life by the complexity of functions.

Cynicism

A school of thought advocating for living as naturally as possible, rejecting social conventions.

Diogenes

The most famous figure of Cynicism, known as 'The Dog'.

Antisthenes

A notable Cynic who preferred madness over pleasure.

Crates

A Cynic who lived in a 'dog marriage' of full equality with his wife, Hipparchia.

Skepticism

A school founded by Pyrrho of Elis, aiming for 'quietude' by suspending judgment.

Sextus Empiricus

Chronicler of Skepticism's teachings.

Cicero

A notable Stoic adherent who was a Roman politician and writer.

Epictetus

A slave-turned-philosopher and notable Stoic.

Marcus Aurelius

A Roman Emperor and notable Stoic philosopher.

Magna Mater

The 'Great Mother', a popular mystery cult from the Near East during the Hellenistic and Roman eras.

Attis

The god of vegetation and lover of the Magna Mater, associated with cycles of death and rebirth.

Emasculation

A ritual where male aspirants to the priesthood would emasculate themselves to mimic Attis.

The Bull Sacrifice

A ritual where initiates were covered in the blood of a sacrificed bull, symbolizing rebirth.

Ataraxia

Freedom from disturbance, sought during the instability of the Hellenistic and Roman eras.

Syneidesis

The Western idea of personal conscience, an inwardly felt sense of right and wrong.

Ibn Sīnā

Also known as Avicenna, developed a detailed faculty psychology synthesizing Aristotle's theories.

Common Sense (Ibn Sīnā)

The faculty that receives and unites different sensory qualities from external objects.

Retentive Imagination

The part of the mind that retains qualities perceived by the common sense.

Compositive Animal Imagination

Allows for the active, creative, and associative use of mental images in animals.

Compositive Human Imagination

The human version of the creative faculty, capable of inventive thought.

Estimation (Ibn Sīnā)

An instinctive faculty that makes judgments about the intentions or value of objects.

Memory (Ibn Sīnā)

Stores the results of estimation, specifically general conclusions derived from experience.

Recollection

The faculty responsible for retrieving past estimations stored in memory.

St. Bonaventure

A philosopher representing the Platonic-Augustinian mystical understanding of human nature.