class: center, middle, inverse, title-slide # Introduction to History of Psychology ## ⚔<br/>with xaringan ### Goran Kardum ### Department of Psychology ### 2021-12-08 --- ## History of Psychology The story of psychology begins in ancient times. -- As a self-conscious formal discipline, psychology is little more than a century old -- But the subject matter captured the human imagination long before psychology became a science. --- ## Lectures Antiquity -- Middle ages and the scholasticism -- Modern age -- Experimental age -- Development of different schools of psychology -- The world of variables - psychology meta-language -- Clinical psychology and the deviations in the behaviour --- ## Roots of Psychology - Roots of Psychology from the context of Philosophy: Greek Philosophy, Scholasticims, Renaissance, Enlightenment to Romanticism (... to the 1/2 of 19. century) -- - Roots of Psychology in Physiology and Natural Science (19. and 20. century): Physiology roots, Psychophysics, Evolution -- - Roots of major 20th Century Schools of Psychology --- ## Interesting, intriguing details of individual psychologists (Greenwood, ) Aristotle spent his honeymoon collecting biological specimens -- Descartes’ skull, of Dr. “Monsterwork” and his lying machine -- John B. Watson’s measurement of the female orgasm (the real reason he was fired from Johns Hopkins University). -- Some of them deal with parapsychology or psychic experience/experiments: Jung, Ramiro Bujas --- ## Why History of Psychology? History as a Key to understanding the **Future** -- - History offers patterns that, when properly viewed, may prove consequential to our understanding and possible control of the present and the future. -- - Psychologists who appreciate their history may be in a better position to understand the discipline while anticipating future trends.) --- ## Why History of Psychology? history as a Way to Enrich the **Present** -- We live in a world of spatial, cultural, and temporal dimensions! That is present time... -- Unfortunately, we can be just as narrow with respect to our time frame as we are with our knowledge of the physical world and other cultures. -- Imagine how it would restrict your view of yourself if you only had memories about the last few years of your life. --- ## Why History of Psychology? History as a Contribution to **Liberal Education** -- Particularly given the increasing specialization in psychology, history can serve to provide context and a broader perspective within psychology (Benjamin & Baker, 2009). -- Knowledge of the history of a discipline accentuates the understanding of influences, developments, and relations and contributes to a more informed and integrated perspective. --- ## Why History of Psychology? History teaches **humility** -- A perspective from past knowledge is larger and more informed than perspectives from the present alone. -- History all too often reveals that our innovative idea is a rediscovery of something known long ago. --- ## Why History of Psychology? History teaches a healthy **Skepticism** -- When we have an understanding of history, we are less likely to fall prey to grandiose notions, utopian dreams, and schemes that promise more than they deliver. -- Psychology has suffered its share of counterfeit ideas, including mesmerism, phrenology, craniometry (the measurement of the skull to determine intelligence and personality), and even some modern therapies. --- ## Why History of Psychology? History influences human **thought processes** Henle (1976) pointed out that most of us find it difficult to see our errors or question our assumptions. -- She argued that human cognition is often resistant to criticism and prone to a degree of **inertia** or **self preservation**. -- For her, knowledge of history “gives us distance not only from our immediate objective, but from our own thinking” --- ## Problems in historiography? What makes history? -- Can history be objective? -- Historiography has multiple meanings: it refers to the writing of history, including techniques and strategies for investigating specific content areas. -- The term also encompasses philosophical questions about history and historical method --- ## Historical consciousness Gilderhus (1992) suggests that primitive peoples often lacked historical consciousness because immediate survival was their primary concern. -- Survival depends on memory along with an awareness of time-based events. This temporal awareness has survival value and contributes to the development of historical consciousness. -- Knowledge of the historical significance of events benefits both individuals and society. -- Historical consciousness grows from the belief that important events carry real significance in the pursuit of religion, politics, or science (Jesus Christ, Holocaust, 9/11 twins...) --- ## Discipline methods --- ## Critical issues in historical studies (King, Viney, Woody, 2016) Why study history? -- - History as a Key to Understanding the Future -- - History as a Way to Enrich the Present -- - History as a Contribution to Liberal Education -- - History Teaches Humility -- - History Teaches a Healthy Skepticism -- - History Influences Human Thought Processes --- ## Some problems in historiography - The Development of Historical Consciousness -- - What Is History? -- - Can History Be Objective? -- - The Tyranny of the Present -- - Is There a Pattern or Direction in History? -- - What Makes History? -- - The New History or the Old? -- - What Is the History of Psychology, the History Of? --- ## Can history be objective? People have a kind of commonsense faith that historical research whether it deals with religious, political, scientific, or social topics is an **accurate reflection** of the landscape of the past. -- Historians do not usually make direct observations. -- The question of objectivity is a critical issue in the philosophy of history. -- Meaning of objectivity involves the attempt to portray all sides of an issue in a fair man- ner, even if something disagrees with the author’s perspective. --- ## the Tyranny of the Present Historians are creatures of the present, but can they free themselves from natural biases im- posed by their world view? -- Must have a well-developed **empathy** for their subject. -- **Presentism** emphasizes the difficulty in divorcing historical facts from current perspectives. -- --- ## Is there a Pattern or direction in history? Few hypotheses about the direction of history that are applicable to the history of psychology. -- **Cyclical hypothesis** claims that history repeats itself. Cycles exist in every science, and psychology has seen its share. -- For example, neuroscientists in the twentieth century wondered if the right and left hemispheres of the brain mediate different emotional and intellectual processes, or do the hemispheres function in a more integrated fashion? Interest in lateralization of function in the cerebral hemispheres is not new. --- ## Linear progressive hypothesis Each generation builds upon discoveries from previous generations. -- Each new generation works up from a stronger base, giving rise to growth and progress in human knowledge and among human institutions. -- The German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was the best-known modern champion of progress theory. --- ## Chaos hypothesis It became clear that the entire structure of human achievement could be brought to ruin by a chance technological accident or by the design of political systems deficient in world perspective. -- According to the **chaos hypothesis**, history itself has no overall identifiable and universal meaning. -- For some, psychology is the product of a **chaotic history**. Koch argued that psychology’s history is “a succession of changing doctrines about what to emulate in the natural sciences—especially physics". --- ## What makes history? We turn now to an issue of controversy among historians, one that holds special relevance for students of psychology. -- The central question here asks whether history is fashioned through the bold actions of exceptional people or the “spirit of the times” in which they live. The **great-person theory** suggests that uncommon individuals tran- scend the conditions of their day and shape history through their courage or wisdom or some other virtue. -- In contrast, the German terms **Zeitgeist** (spirit of a time) and **Ortgeist** (spirit of a place) argue that prevailing conditions, not individuals, forge historical events. The idea is that no person is greater than his or her time. --- ## Philosophical issues Epistemology The term epistemology is derived from the Greek episteme, which means to understand or to know. -- - A priori and a priori knowledge -- - Nativism versus Empiricism -- - Instinct versus Learning -- - The Role of Emotions in Knowledge -- - Science and Epistemology -- - Relevance of Epistemology to Psychology --- ## Problem of Causality --- ## Free Will and Determinism --- ## The Mind–Body Problem --- ## The Problem of Explanation --- # References --- class: center, middle # Thanks! Slides created via the R package [**xaringan**](https://github.com/yihui/xaringan). The chakra comes from [remark.js](https://remarkjs.com), [**knitr**](https://yihui.org/knitr/), and [R Markdown](https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com).