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

• 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 Age480 - 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

• 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 personsSlaves 115,000 personsFree 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

• The Climate• Commerce and Conquest • Mix of cultural influences• Polytheism

YouTube Delphi

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.