Why study the History of Psychology

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Why study the History of Psychology?

• Hugo Munsterberg (1899) - APA address on
  "Psychology and History"
• Ties together areas of Psychology
• Helps explain how Psychology evolved
• Santayana - "Those who do not know history are
  doomed to repeat it.
• Embeds what we do within a larger context
• Must be conversant in the history of our field

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How to Approach the History of Psychology?

• Interdisciplinary perspective?
• Systems, schools, or historical figures?
• Two perspectives Rationalism vs Empiricism
• Rationalism knowledge through the use of reason
• Empiricism knowledge through experience
• Our goal in this course is to weave a historical
  tapestry of Psychology through these two threads

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Where Should We Begin?

• 1892 - APA founded by G. Stanley Hall
• 1879 (Wundt's laboratory)
• 1816 (Herbart's "Lehrbuch zur Psychologie")
• 1600's and Descartes (beginning of "modern era")
• Ancient Greeks
• Egyptian Book of the Dead
• Prehistoric times

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Historical Facts

• History's facts cannot be verified like empirical
  data
• 3 different biases affect history
• 1. Presentist Bias - tendency to discuss past
  ideas and people in terms of present society and
  cultural norms
• e.g., Goddard (1912) The Kallikak Family A
  Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness

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• 2. Idiosyncrasies of authors
• e.g., Boring (1950) - "History of Experimental
  Psychology
• 3. Memory reconstruction, especially with
  autobiographical material

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Naturalistic vs. Personalistic Theories of History

• Naturalistic - spirit of the times (Zeitgeist)
• e.g., Discovery Multiples
• Personalistic - "great mind" or "great person"
  theory

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Major Issues in Psychology
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Mind-Body Problem

• Monism - only one exists, either body or mind
• Materialism - only body
• Mentalism - reality exists in the mind
• Dualism - both mind and body exist
• Interactionism - mind and body are separate but
  they interact
• Parallelism - mind and body are separate and do
  not interact

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• Double aspectism - mind and body are two aspects
  of the same thing
• Epiphenomenalism - mind is a by-product of the
  brain

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Reductionism vs. Non-reductionism

• Whether psychological phenomena have basic or
  complex explanations, basic being more related to
  biology, chemistry, physics

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Nature vs. Nurture