plato (c. 428–347 BC) / history of psychology

plato (c. 428–347 BC)

As a devoted student of Socrates and Aristotle's teacher, Plato shaped the core vocabulary, methods, and topics of philosophy, science, and politics. He wrote his ideas as conversations called dialogues, featuring Socrates as the main speaker

plato argued about:

• Senses provide only illusion, and only reason can provide true knowledge

• Plato argued that mental illnesses may be associated with irrational drives, discord among parts of the soul, or ignorance

• Learning is remembering knowledge of the Forms from before our birth.

theory of forms

Plato believed that the physical world we see is only a changing, imperfect shadow of a higher, unchanging reality made of perfect "Forms" or "Ideas" (such as absolute Justice, Beauty, and Truth)

tripartite mind

the appetitive soul, the affective soul, and the rational soul

Plato’s allegory of the chariot

The soul is compared to a charioteer trying to control two horses, human passions Indignation / righteousness and baser passions such as anger, greed, lust

Plato’s theory of anamnesis or recollection proposes:

that learning is indeed the process of the soul remembering innate knowledge of the eternal Forms acquired before birth

platos cosmology was primarly articulated in the:

timaeus

timaeus

bridges the history of ancient psychology and metaphysics by proposing that the physical universe is animated, ordered, and governed by a divine World Soul (psyche) that mirrors the structure of the human mind

Plato's idealism

introduced dualism, rationalism, and structural models of the mind long before the discipline became an empirical science

platos idealism did what?

laid foundational conceptual groundwork for the history of psychology

platos materalism

Platorejected materialism entirely, establishing an uncompromising spiritualist and dualist framework that profoundly shaped the early history of psychology

Materialism

that all mental states, consciousness, and behavior are entirely reducible to, or caused by, physical and biological brain processes

what was platos century?

He lived during the 5th and 4th centuries BC