History of Psychology

1
History of Psychology

• From scientific revolution to modern days

2
Overview of the course

• Topic of the course
• History of modern psychology
• Period between 1500 and 2000
• Themes
• What and where does psychology come from
• How did its major topics develop
• How did the object of psychology change over time
• What are the major schools/perspectives in
  psychology
• What is the relationship between older ideas, and
  our notions
• Foundations of psychology

3
Foundations of psychology

• Look at these in the perspective of time
• Object of psychology?
• Mind? Behavior?
• Mind body problem
• Dualism, materialism, functionalism
• Problem of consciousness
• What is mental life? Reductionism
• What kind of science is psychology?
• Natural science? Social science? Humanities?
• Experimental, clinical, hermeneutical
• What kind of practices constitute psychology
• Research, testing, counseling, treating patients
• Psychology and society
• What sort of society will maintain psychology?
  How does psychology fit into society?

4
Working methods

• Lectures
• Obvious
• I will provide the lectures for the students
• Seminars
• Small group work
• Aim get everybody actively involved in the
  meeting
• Stimulate discussion
• Active involvement makes for better mastery of
  content

5
Seminars

• 2 presentations per seminar
• Character of presentation
• Summary of readings
• Comment and/or criticize authors
• Formulate questions and identify problems for
  discussion
• Most important make up your own mind
• What do I think about this position?
• What is my view on this result
• 2x 45 minutes 2 presentations
• 15 minutes for presentation
• 30 minutes for questions and discussion
• Questions may be both for information/clarificatio
  n
• And critical discussion

6
Readings

• Primary text
• Thomas Leahey, A History of Psychology Main
  Currents in Psychological Thought, 2003
• Essential text
• Must have in whatever form
• Internet
• Number of sites about History of Psychology
• See course manual
• Each seminar find 1 or 2 articles relevant to
  topic/problem

7
The course manual

• Introduction
• Bring your course manual to class
• Topics or problems
• Read the problems
• Think about the problem (What is it about? Do I
  understand it fully? What do I think about it
• Problems are the basis for the presentations
• Each presentation is about a problem of an aspect
  of a problem
• In detail explained in the schedule from week to
  week
• Sheet with literature per problem is available

8
Assessment

• Attendance
• For the grading
• Your presentation (20)
• Your participation (5)
• Test (75)
• Nature of test
• open or essay questions

9
Schedule Week 1

• 1 31-3 Lecture 1
• Overview of the course and Beginnings in in 16th
  century
• 2 1-4 Seminar 1
• a. Presentation on Leahey on history, Hop Ch. 1
• b. Presentation on Science in 16th cent
  Scientific method, Hop ch 1, 2 The great
  classical philosophies and 4
• 3 2-4 Lecture 2
• Origins of psychology in the scientific
  revolution
• 4 3-4 Seminar 2
• a. Presentation on subjective and objective
  characteristics, Hop Ch. 4 5
• b. Presentation on Structure of consciousness,
  Hop Ch. 4 5
• 5 4-4 Lecture 3
• Nineteenth century

10
Schedule week 2

• 6 7-4 Seminar 3
• a. Presentation Wundt, Hop Ch. 6 7
• b. Presentation Darwin, Hop Ch. 6 9
• 7 8-4 Lecture 4
• Darwin
• 8 9-4 Seminar 4
• a. Presentation Behaviorism, Hop Ch. 9, 10,11
• b. Presentation Chomsky, Hop Ch. 11
• 9 10-4 Lecture 5
• Language in Primates
• 10 11-4 Seminar 5
• a. Discussion language in primates. All students
  look for relevant material on internet
• b. Presentation Psychoanalysis, Hop Ch. 8

11
Schedule week 3

• 11 5-5 Lecture 6
• Psychoanalysis
• 12 7-5 Seminar 6
• a. Presentation on Mind Body problem Hop ch 4, 5,
  6, 7 and 9,10, 11
• b. Idem Hop ch 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9,10, 11
• 13 8-5 Lecture 7
• Mind body problem

12
Schedule week 4

• 14 13-5 Seminar 7
• a. Presentation Cognitive psychology Hop Ch. 11
  12
• b. Presentation Test psychology, Hop Ch. 13
• 15 14-5 Lecture 8
• Test Psychology
• 16 15-5 Seminar 8
• a. Presentation Psychological society Hop Ch. 14
• b. Presentation Overview of the course Hop Ch 1
  to 14
• 17 ?? Test

13
Modern science

• Origins in 16th century
• Modern conception of science influences domain of
  psychology
• Next lecture origins of object of psychology
• Mind and consciousness
• Today focus on nature of science, and methodology
• What was the nature of the new science?
• What methods came to be used
• How was the new science organized

14
Scientific Revolution

• From Vitalism to mechanism
• From a closed world to the infinite universe

15
Scientific revolution

• Sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
• Origin of modern science
• Some background
• Geo-political changes
• The expanding world
• Developments in knowledge and technology
• The expanding universe

16
Geo-political changes

• Political unrest in 16th century
• Fall of the Habsburg empire
• Definitive split of Christianity
• Roman Catholicism against Protestantism
• New approaches to the scripture
• Loss of centre, loss of foundation for knowledge
  and society

17
The expanding world

• Age of discoveries
• Just before 1500 discovery of the Americas
• Growing trade and contact with new worlds
• Asia, Africa
• New plants, animals, new cultures
• At odds with what is known

18
Development of knowledge and technology

• Examples
• Water and wind power
• Printing press
• New scientific instruments
• Telescope
• Microscope
• Universe expands both to the small and the ultra
  big
• The world is far bigger than ever imagined

19
The expanding universe

• Infinity of space
• Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
• The eternal silence of these infinite spaces
  frightens me.
• Endpoint in the 17th century
• How from a closed world to an infinite universe?
• Some steps

20
Ptolemys earth centred system

• Closed world

21
Copernicus solar centred universe

• Fixed spheres
• Closed world
• Finite

22
The infinite universe

• Disappearing sphere
• Infinite distances

23
Support for Copernicus

• Galileo Galilei
• Telescopic observations

24
Galilei and the muses
25
Drawings of the moon

• Undermines idea that celestial bodies are perfect

26
Improved telescopes
27
Another infinity

• The world of the small
• Microscope
• Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek
• Beyond the visible
• Examples

28
Organs of a bee
29
Capillaries in tail of tadpole
30
Seeing and expectation

• Human Sperm
• Swammerdam
• Preformation
• Relation with religion
• Predestination

31
The expanding world

• Both upward and downward
• Expanding of the universe
• New forms of knowledge
• Break with Aristotle and his followers
• New type of explanation
• From teleology to mechanism

32
Aristotles world

• Inner essences and natural places
• Why does smoke rise?
• Because it is light in nature and hence strives
  to reach its natural place in the sky
• Why do stones fall?
• Because their heaviness strives to be as low as
  possible. The earth is their natural place
• Example
• Nature abhors a vacuum

33
Horror vacui

• Column of water
• Water/mercury rises in a tube, because it wants
  to fill the vacuum above itself
• Teleological explanations
• Goal-directed processes
• New science
• Mechanical explanation
• Model of a mechanical balance

34
Barometer

• Water/mercury rises as a result of the weight of
  air
• Blaise Pascal and the Puy de Dome experiment
• Less weight at higher altitude

Air
35
Vacuum in a vacuum

• Elegant experiment by Pascal
• But did he do it?
• Robert Boyle
• Against science like that of Pascal
• Boyle real experiments
• Artificial vacuum
• Air pump

36
Air pump

• Robert Boyle
• Create a vacuum by pumping out air

37
Experiment and mechanism

• Create artificial situations in experiments
• Manipulate observations
• Give detailed instructions to repeat the
  experience
• Explain phenomena by invoking a mechanical
  process
• Compress air
• Spring of air
• Air consists of spring like small particles
• Other example

38
Magnetism

• René Descartes (1596-1650) - World as a clock

39
Mechanism and life

• Descartes and pain
• Stimulus of fire
• Sets in motion particles in nerve
• Travel to brain
• Perceived by mind
• Feel pain
• Complete mechanical process
• Where did Descartes get idea?

40
Automatons support mechanism

• De Vaucansons duck
• All mechanical life
• As impressive as our computers

41
The new science

• New way of explaining
• Mechanicism
• New method
• Progress through method
• We moderns are not more intelligent than the
  ancients
• We use method
• Francis Bacon
• The Great Instauration

42
The Great Instauration
Ships sail the sea of knowledge and return with
new science Future of permanent progress in
knowledge 1620!
43
Scientific Revolution and psychology

• Mechanicism
• If physics only deals with matter
• How do we account for subjective experiences
• Color, smell, taste, pain
• Galilei
• These are not part of natural science, as they
  are subjective
• Physics does not deal with the subjective

44
Psychology

• The subjective becomes the object of psychology
• Psychology is mortgage of physics
• Is psychology autonomous?
• Descartes Matter and mind are separate
  substances, and completely different?
• Reductionism Psychology will be eaten by natural
  science
• Relevant till the present Is psychology
  ultimately just biology or is it an autonomous
  discipline?
• More detail in the next lecture