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Hystory and Systems
Spring 2013
“Psychology has a long past but only a
short history”
~Ebbinghaus
Why Study the History of Psychology?
History repeats itself: that’s just
one of the things that’s wrong
with history. (Clarence Darrow)
1857 - 1938
Those who do not know history are
doomed to repeat it. (George
Santayana ~ 20th Century Philosopher)
History by apprising of the past,
will enable them to judge the
future; it will avail them of the
experience of other times and
other nations (Thomas Jefferson
~ Third American President)
If I have seen further than others, it is
because I have stood on the shoulders
of giants (Issac Newton).
The less we know of the
past, the more unreliable
our judgment of the
present and future
(Sigmund Freud).
Science progresses
when the old guys die
off and take their
outmoded beliefs with
them (Max Planck, 1858–1947 ~ father of the
quantum theory).
The history of Psychology
doesn’t build one piece of
knowledge upon another.
Instead it tends to act more
like a pendulum. One
generation of thought reacting
(and perhaps overreacting) to
the previous).
History must look at both successes and
failures.
Zeitgeist – “spirit of the times”.
~Boring
Dr. Julian Jaynes
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The Origin of Consciousness in
the Breakdown of the Bicameral
Mind (1976).
• Analysis of early literature (e.g., Iliad, old
Testament)
• No words used to refer to consciousness
nor to mental acts (e.g., thoughts)
Thoughts and feelings of the people are put
directly into their minds by the “gods” or
“muses”.
Achilles called the men to gather, this having been put into his mind by the goddess of the white
arms, Hera, who had pity on the Greeks when she saw them dying . . . and he said to them “I
believe that backwards we must make our way home if we are to escape death through fighting
and the plague”.
Auditory hallucinations produced by the right
temporal lobe.
7th Century BC
~Egypt
Psamtik I - language experiment
Psamtik sought to discover the origin of language by
conducting an experiment with two children.
Allegedly he gave two newborn babies to a
shepherd, with the instructions that no one should
speak to them, but that the shepherd should feed
and care for them while listening to determine their
first words. The hypothesis was that the first word
would be uttered in the root language of all people.
When one of the children cried "bekos" with
outstretched arms the shepherd concluded that
the word was Phrygian because that was the
sound of Phrygian word for "bread." Thus, they
concluded that the Phrygians were an older
people than the Egyptians, and that Phrygian
was the original language of men.
6th century BC
The Discovery of the Mind
Philosophy -from the Greek words philos and
sophia meaning “love of wisdom”.
Discussion and speculation about psychological
issues.
Philosophical Roots
Questions about the Nature of Human Beings?
• Is there only one substance, or is the “mind”
something different than matter?
• Do we have souls? Do they exist after the body
dies?
• How are mind and body connected? Is the mind
part of the soul, and if so can it exist apart from
the body?
• Is human nature the product of inborn tendencies or of experience and
upbringing?
• How do we know what we know? Are our ideas built into our minds, or do we
develop them from our perceptions and experience?
• How does perception work? Are our impressions of the world around us true
representations of what is out there? How can we know whether they are or
not?
• Which is the right road to true knowledge – pure reason or data gathering by
observation.
• What are the principles of valid thinking?
• What are the causes of invalid thinking?
• Does the mind rule the emotions or visa versa?
Ancient Greece - Golden Age
480 - 399 BC
In all history, nothing is so
surprising or so difficult to
account for as the sudden
rise of civilization in Greece”
Bertrand Russell
•
•
•
•
•
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Literature, Art, Architecture
Written History
Mathematics and Science
Schools and formal education
Democracy
Philosophy – attempts to understand
the nature of the world and the human
mind
Political Climate 150 city states
Invented Democracy
Athens
Total Population = 315,000 persons
Slaves
115,000 persons
Free Athenians
200,000 persons
Only 43,000 (men born of two
Athenian parents) were given full civil
rights
– including the right to vote.
Few Greeks could read or write
Explanations for the dramatic growth in learning
and Culture
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•
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The Climate
Commerce and Conquest
Mix of cultural influences
Polytheism
People came from all over Greece and beyond to have their questions about
the future answered by the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo. And her answers,
usually cryptic, could determine the course of everything from when a farmer
planted his seedlings, to when an empire declared war.
YouTube Delphi