René Descartes moved Paris in 1615, in the midst of an identity crisis. He did not think of his elite education as valuable because it had been too focused on the past. He also found it depressing that philosophy had never produced anything that was doubtful or uncertain. He became one of the first influential thinkers to have fully mechanical explanations for the traditional functions of the sensitive psyche or soul of Aristotle. Descartes described the human mind and body as two cooperating, yet different entities. According to him, both need their own analysis and explanation.
Descartes (1596-1650) was born in La Haye in France. He grew up with his grandmother. His father was a wealthy lawyer, but Descartes had little close ties with his family. His intelligence was noticed by his father, after which he sent his son to the most progressive school in France.
Young Descartes learned about a science which was dominated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). The Aristotelian view of the universe placed the earth in the middle, surrounded by a number of rotating crystalline globes, namely the planets in our solar system, the moon, the sun and the stars. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) published a book in 1543, in which he assumed that not the earth, but the sun was the centre of the system. His view was not taken seriously, however.
Descartes convinced his teachers that he could think best if he meditated in bed, allowing him to stay in bed all morning while other students were already working. When he left La Flèche at age 16, he was the best student of the best school in the country. He then migrated to Paris, and got influenced by Marin Mersenne, a French monk who offered Descartes intellectual and personal support. In 1618, he went into the army to see if the practical experiences of the "real world" would provide more satisfactory knowledge. The actual war had not started yet, so Descartes experienced seven months of boredom and learned quickly that the military had no more useful knowledge than scholars did.
A turning point for Descartes was when he met Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) in the Netherlands, a physician and internationally known mathematician. He became a mentor to Descartes and helped him to get back his intellectual interest. With his support, Descartes wrote his first scholarly work, an essay about music. When Beeckman had to leave Breda, Descartes went with him, and during the trip to the south he got two insights. According to a legend, the inspiration came when he saw a fly humming in the corner of his room. He suddenly realized that the position of the fly at any time can be exactly determined by three numbers, represented by the perpendicular distances from the fly of the two walls and the ceiling. Generalizing from this idea, he acknowledged that every point in space can also be defined by his numeric distances from randomly defined lines or planes. In short, Descartes had a means to unite and integrate the rather separate mathematical disciplines of geometry (with motifs) and algebra (with numbers). This was the foundation of the analytical geometry.
This idea soon came enormous practical applications - for example, it would help astronomers to describe and calculate the orbits of planets. Given Descartes' great previous complaint about mathematics (the lack of practical utility), he certainly had a good reason to be happy with this invention. If he would have done nothing else in his life, he would still have had an important place due to his analytical geometry in the history of science.
He got his second insight in the German city Ulm. His vivid dreams were violent and full of panic, until a flash of light filled the room with rays and then his sleep became calm. He dreamed about a book with the phrase "which path in life shall I follow? " The book disappeared but came back with new and better engravings. According to Descartes this was the idea for a new method for obtaining true knowledge.
Descartes’ first rule of acquiring knowledge was to accept nothing as true unless it presented itself so clearly in his mind that there was no reason for it to be doubted. He doubted everything from that moment on. Descartes wanted to use systematic doubt to arrive at well-founded concepts which, like geometric axioms, would be the starting points for deductive reasoning in all non-mathematical fields. He became a man with a mission.
He began by claiming that the most basic and fundamental properties of physical phenomena, which he called ‘simple natures’, of which existence can neither be analysed nor doubted. According to Descartes, there were only two simple natures; extension (space occupied by a physical particle or body) and movement . According to him, all physical phenomena could be explained in terms of these two properties. All physical properties are probably the result of elongated, material particles in motion.
Descartes also thought that living bodies can be seen as mechanical ingenuities, explainable according to the same principles. In the same period, the well-known Italian researcher Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) published something very similar. In his work 'The Assayer 'from 1623, Galileo distinguished between primary and secondary characteristics of physical matter. The secondary properties of matter ( sound, smell and touch of one object) come after the primary properties (shapes, quantity and movement) to the human senses. The primary properties are inseparable from the matter. Our conscious experience of the world is secondary to, and of a completely different order than the elementary primary qualities that cause them.
Descartes' first publication was titled 'Le Monde' (the world), containing his basic understanding of the physical layout of the universe, and the subjects ‘light’ and ‘vision’. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition for encouraging the Copernican theory of the universe. Descartes’ first manuscript was for security reasons therefore only published after his death by his successors. His second work was "L'Homme" (the human), in which he presented his physical principles for analysing living bodies.
In "Treatise of Light", Descartes described his physical ideas, based on the analysis of said material particles in motion. Like Aristotle and unlike Democritus, Descartes believed that there could not be a void or vacuum, and so he thought of the entire universe as completely filled with different types of material particles in different forms of movement. When a particle moves, it does not leave an empty space behind, because the space is filled up by other particles. The three basic type particles in Descartes’ universe are the classical elements of fire, air and earth. Fire is seen by Descartes as unthinkable small, as 'a virtually perfect liquid', capable of filling up any space of any shape or size. He sees the element of air as slightly larger, but still too small to be able to observe directly. All material objects - including planets, comets and the earth with all objects on it – are presumably composed of the washing up of the earth particles. These are the third and heaviest variation in Descartes' hypothetical universe. As the original title of Le Monde, Treatise of Light suggests that most of this first treatise is about the phenomenon of light. The air particles naturally rearrange themselves into columns between objects, the material basis of forming light rays.
Descartes conceptualized the eye as a physical mechanism activated by the physical properties of light waves. From this point of view, he also described the structure of the living body, which according to him consisted of different physical systems that work on the hand of the laws of nature. He further developed this mechanistic view of the human body in the second, physiological part of 'Le Monde', the 'Treatise of Man'.
Descartes was not the first scientist to investigate human bodies in a mechanistic manner. Galileo examined the bones and joints of the body in terms of leverage-systems. William Harvey (1578-1657) analysed the heart as a physical pumping mechanism in a revolutionary demonstration. He showed that blood is not always is re-created, but that it is constantly circulating through the body. So, the actual contribution that Descartes delivered lies in the scope of his research, and not so much in the idea of it examining the body as a physiological mechanism in itself.
According to Descartes, all processes in the body are comparable to those of an automatic machine and he was mainly interested in the system of nerves. According to him, the brain contained ventricles filled with a clear yellow liquid, which he called "animal spirits" (known today as cerebrospinal fluid).
He mechanically analysed ten physical functions. He concluded that these bodily functions came into being mechanically. He then decided to replace the traditional concepts the vegetative and animal souls with mechanical explanations. Sensory stimulation in the form of vibrations that stimulate the sensory organs can be the nerves according to Descartes. As a result, vessels in the brain can be opened, allowing the animal spirits back to the nerves and muscles and glands can flow, causing movement or secretion occurs. Even though Descartes did not use the term, he formulated the idea for what we did now refer to the reflex: a neurophysiological sequence of activity through which a specific stimulus from the outside world automatically elicits a specific response in the organism. He distinguished between two types of reflex responses. The first one flows the vital souls directly along the nerve through which the stimulus came in, resulting in an automatic and immediate response. The second kind is the type of reflex that is responsible for learned reactions in which the response is not directly linked to the stimulus. This is similar to it current concept of the conditioned reflex.
Descartes also experienced that internal factors such as emotions also play a role in animal reactions. He suggested that localized currents, whirlpools, or what he called disturbances, can develop in parts of the animal soul reservoir. These can thus influence the receptiveness of the nearby nerves. In this way, souls are directed towards the muscles. Because of such variations a person or animal might develop a proclivity or tendency to different emotions such as anger or fear. The reactions of a body are thus determined by a combination of external stimulation, and an internal 'emotional' willingness of the animal souls to respond in a certain way. Others mechanistic consequences of the animal souls are the states of sleeping or waking. Descartes saw the sleeping brain as relatively without soul, with weak tissues and weak nerve fibres with an inability to transmit the most external vibrations. A sleeping organism is therefore, in general, non-responsive to external stimulation, with only a few isolated and decoupled experiences, or dreams, created by a momentary tightness in the nerves. During the wakeful hours, the ventricle is maximally filled with animal souls, causing it surrounding brain tissue and the nerves are highly sensitive to external stimulation.
According to Descartes, the difference between humans and animals was in human characteristics awareness and willpower. Actions can arise because they want this or because it follows from rational considerations. This didn’t relate to Descartes’ ideas of the mechanical body, but from the presence of a soul or spirit, which he thought to interact with the physical machine inside human beings. So he resigned from the Aristotelian concept of vegetative and animal souls, but retained the thought of the rational soul.
In the autobiographical 'Discourse on Method' Descartes described his first attempts on systematic doubt, meaning that everything is doubtful. Because of all this doubt, he eventually came with an idea of which he was absolutely certain and what became one of his most famous passages: I think; therefore I exist (cogito ergo sum). His own rational thoughts, or soul, were an unquestionable reality. This led to the conclusion that thoughts are in contrast with the body. Ideas are independent of specific sensory experiences, even if they can be suggested by certain experiences. However, they arise from the nature of the thinking soul self. Descartes called this the innate ideas of the soul.
The innate idea of 'perfection', in combination with his certainty of the reality of his own mind, also suggested to him that God had to exist, who embodied all aspects of perfection. For Descartes, there now were certainties of his conscious soul and a God. Because of this, this also meant that he could also trust the knowledge his senses provided him, because the integrity of the mind that it perceives and the perfection of the God who developed both matter and spirit were certain.
Descartes is considered a dualist because he sharply distinguishes between body and spirit. He also emphasized that many important phenomena are not the result of only the body, or only the mind. Instead, there are many possible types of interactions between the two. For this reason, Descartes' position is also called interactive dualism. Around 1640, Descartes went further into this dualism, mainly because of his friendship and correspondence with Princess Elizabeth or Bohemia (1618-1680). He used this correspondence as the foundation of his important work that he called 'Treatise on the Passions of the Soul' (1649). A body without a mind would, according to Descartes, be a like a vending machine, completely under the mechanistic control of external stimuli and the internal hydraulic or 'emotional' state, and completely without awareness. The body adds richness to the content of the consciousness of the soul, while the soul adds rationality and will power to the causes of behaviour.
Descartes believed that the conscious perception accurately represented the real world. According to him, there had to be one specific location in the body where the double impressions of the eyes could become one unit, before they reached the soul. According to Descartes, this should be in the brain. He then learned about the pineal gland, a small structure near the centre of the brain, that ends into a large ventricle. Because this pineal gland was undivided, according to Descartes here the sensations of the divided body come in and become a unity before they are presented to the soul. The strategic location of the gland in the, with soul-filled, ventricle, also meant that the idea was to feel the commotion of the animal souls, which in his opinion were the cause of emotions. Descartes called these conscious experiences of this commotion the 'passions' - the conscious experience of feelings. First, it feels the specific nature of the movement of the gland, and therefore has a conscious sensation of a passion (a feeling like love, hatred, fear, wonder, or desire). Second, the soul can come from a conscious attitude towards that passion, trying to influence it by initiating voluntary movements in the pineal gland that strengthen or inhibit these emotional disturbances of animal spirit. For example, if the soul experiences anger, it can attack this offensive person by influencing the pineal gland to get even more souls in the nerves that encourage offensive reactions. Alternatively, the soul can inhibit the attack by the gland move, to block the flow of souls in those nerves. For relatively mild emotions, the soul may ignore or suppress these influences. This happens, for example, when mild background stimulation is suppressed when a person needs to concentrate.
In 1649, Descartes was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden to move to the North and become a philosopher at her court. This he did, and there he wrote frivolous verses to celebrate the life of Christina. Descartes died at the age of 53. He never married but became father of one daughter. She died, however, as a child. Descartes' basic ideas about the nervous system and the brain as a control centre that regulates behaviour turned out to be true, just like the general idea of a reflex. Descartes' more general philosophies of mind have similarly been just as influential.
Gottfriend Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) and John Locke (1643-1704) were both philosophers. Leibniz was impressed by the book 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding' that Locke had written. In it, Locke described the nature of human knowledge from an empirical perspective. Empiricists believe that knowledge has a sensory origin. However, Leibniz thought that Locke's empiricism went too far, and he did not see the role of several important properties in the mind that are innate. He tried to get in touch with Locke, but because it did not work, he worked out his ideas in a manuscript called 'Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entree Humain '(New Essays on Understanding Man), in which he supposedly went in dialogue with a representation of Locke. Locke died, however, just when the work was finished, and Leibniz did not want to discuss with a dead author, leaving his work only to be published half a century after his death.
Leibniz and Locke have many similarities and differences. A big similarity is that they both tried to integrate Descartes’s work with their political ideas of a larger and more general philosophy of the mind. Yet they both reacted differently to different aspects of Descartes' work. Locke accepted his basic ideas about physics and philosophy, while he rejected the idea of a constant conscious thought with innate ideas. He supported the suggestion of Aristotle that the mind, at birth, is an unwritten book, that a person absorbs impressions from the external world and then collects them and reflects. Locke stated that all human knowledge comes from experience. Leibniz, on the other hand, rejected the physical aspects of Descartes on logical grounds. He agreed with the conscious soul of Descartes but concluded that the ultimate "substance" of the universe is a kind consciousness-bearing entity. He suggested a philosophy of the mind that emphasized the Nativist and rationalistic tendencies of Descartes.
John Locke (1632-1704) was born in Wrington during the revolution. His father fought in the civil war of 1642, under the direction of Colonel Alexander Popham, the man who later sponsored the 15-year-old Locke, so he could get lessons at the famous Westminster School in London. In this tolerant environment Locke learnt that there are two or more sides to most statements and issues. After 5 years at Westminster, Locke won a scholarship at Oxford University. After Locke earned a title in classical antiquity, he studied very seriously with Thomas Willis and a handful of other progressive Oxford doctors and thus he became a competent doctor himself. Robert Boyle (1627-1691), is the founder of Boyle's law, which describes that the volume of a gas varies inversely with the top pressure. This was the basis for modern chemistry. Boyle helped Locke with opening a small scientific laboratory in Oxford, which led to a new kind of chemistry. During that time, Locke read Descartes' work, reinforcing his conviction that you should not just assume anything on the basis of authority. Locke's interest grew wider with the years and at the age of, almost, 34, he was successful in classical antiquity, medicine, science and diplomacy.
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683) was a favourite of King Charles II and was appointed by him to be the first Lord Ashley, a baron, and then in 1672 'Earl of Shaftesbury'. He was on his way to become the most influential politician in the kingdom. In 1666 he met John Locke for the first time. The chronically ill Ashley was in in Oxford that year for the medicinal water they had there. The doctor who normally brought him that was sick and asked John Locke do it in his place. A friendship arose between Locke and Cooper. They both had a preference for tolerance in religion and a moderation of the government. Locke then became Cooper's personal doctor and moved to London when Cooper’s cyst became dangerous. Locke met the famous physician Thomas Sydenham and decided to perform a radical operation after which Cooper recovered again. Locke was now, besides a trusted politician, also a medical counsellor.
Cooper became the leader of the eight developers and owners of the 'Carolina territory 'in the United States. His good friend Locke also had a lot of influence and played a major role in compiling the original fundamental constitutions, also called the legal code. This document contained a limited religious tolerance and a limited democratic right to vote.
The Royal Society was a scientific organization Britain. Robert Boyle was already a member of it, and in 1668 Locke also became a member. He then came with the idea to explore the core of knowledge and thought. He wanted to discover what we could know with exact certainty and what not. He worked on this idea for 19 years and this led to his big book called 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'. From 1679 on, there was a crisis in politics and in the monarchy about the succession of the English king. Shaftesbury didn’t want that his Catholic younger brother would take over the throne, which led to a quarrel between Charles and Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Locke and Shaftesbury then both fled to the Netherlands. Once he was in the Netherlands, he continued working on his manuscripts ‘Essay Concerning Human Understanding’ and ‘Two Treatises of Government'. While he was doing that, the political climate in Groot- Britain had changed in such a way that it was then safe to publish these works. Charles II was succeeded by his Catholic brother James II, but after three years he was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange. Locke then returned to England. Soon, thanks to his publications, Locke became the most famous philosopher in England.
Locke believed that the recent discoveries of Boyle, Huygens and Newton represented the top of human knowledge. He adopted their observational and inductive methods as being ideal model for the best functioning of the human mind. In his essay, he presumed the existence of a human mind that basically operates according to the inductive model, and all its knowledge develops from observations of the external world. He saw the mind as receptive and often passive, and one of the primary functions would be to receive sensations. He therefore did not agree with Descartes, who stated that people have innate ideas that go deeper than the experiences that they have. Locke said that these ideas often cannot be found in inexperienced or weak spirits (he meant young children and mentally disabled). His conclusion was, therefore, that these ideas cannot be innate. He was therefore in favour of Aristotle's tabula rasa, the blank page.
According to Locke, the human spirit has two kinds of experiences. First, it experiences sensations of objects the external world. Secondly, it experiences reflections of the operations of one's own mind. Such experiences produce representations or ideas in the mind, which do not only immediately take awareness, but also to remain in the form of memories. The inexperienced, earliest sensations and reflections of children evoke a number of simple ideas. Simple ideas of sensation are concepts such as redness, loudness, coldness or saltiness. With more experience simple ideas are combined by the mind in different combinations to create complex ones form ideas . For example redness, roundness and sweetness can be combined to the idea of an apple. Locke states that all simple components of such ideas earlier have to be experienced. Without a concrete experimental basis of simple ideas, the clearest, 'true', complex ideas are impossible.
Locke also looked at what human minds can know about the nature of ideas. He stated that knowledge "is nothing other than the perception of the connection and agreement, or difference and aversion, of ideas". A small number of perceptions are immediate and irresistible, such as the immediately recognized difference between black and white. Locke calls this ‘intuitive knowledge’. This is followed by demonstrative knowledge, which is obtained by stepwise, logical inferences, each part of which is intuitively certain, but the total pattern is not. Finally, he identified sensitive knowledge. This knowledge is acquired through certain patterns sensory experiences. It is this sensitive knowledge of which most of the human knowledge depends. Locke introduced the term association of ideas to it combine ideas. The first category of natural associations includes the redness and roundness of apples and the relationships in the scientific laws that were recently discovered by scientists like Boyle and Newton. The second category includes all accidentally connected ideas, such as by culture. Only the natural associations are true knowledge. Locke did not specify how ideas become associated. After his death, his successors introduced the terms 'law of association by proximity' and 'law of association by equality' around Locke's principles. Like Galileo and Descartes, Locke assumed a distinction between primary qualities that are inseparable from acquired objects, and the secondary qualities imposed on objects by sensations. The primary qualities are firmness, size, figure and mobility. Material objects in the world actually have these qualities and these form the image of the external world. Secondary qualities are sounds, colours, temperatures, tastes and smells. These characteristics arise from both the sensory organs as from the objects themselves. Locke considered these secondary qualities as less 'true'. Thus, secondary qualities had to be acquired to obtain true knowledge explained in the more basic primary principles.
The essential message of the Essay was that all knowledge comes from experience, but also that no one's experience can be sufficient to gain a complete and correct knowledge of the world. This was in line with the new British political climate. Because no one could claim exclusive access to the truth, there was tolerance for religious questions and participation in public affairs was encouraged. Locke described these implications in his second big book in 1690 called 'Two Treatises of Government'. In this book, he applied the theory of social contract and he further elaborated the theory. This theory was earlier introduced by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Hobbes regarded people as naturally aggressive, self-centred and predatory. This led to our ancestors forming a group with centralized power so that they could organize resistance against other groups and combat aggression within their own. Hobbes found that for survival, compliance with the centralized authority was necessary, regardless of the form that this authority. Locke also saw that rulers and their subjects were tied together by one implicit social contract, but he had a more positive view of humanity in its natural status. He stated that people have the opportunity to gain more valid knowledge from their own experiences. In doing so, they can benefit from the combined experiences of groups people. He viewed the arrangement of the social contract as a rational choice, in which real benefits are brought in by individuals, by investing in protective and regulatory functions of a centralized authority. When the government defends the interests of the violated people, these people have the right to be heard, to revolt and / or appoint a new authority. In 1693, Locke published a short work in which he argued for education based on experiences and scientific observation. He also produced four revised versions of his Essay.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) was born in Leipzig. At the age of fourteen, he was accepted into the University of Leipzig. He then worked briefly in Nuremberg, and migrated to Mainz, where he gained a position as adviser to the Prince-Elector. In his early years as adviser to the elector, he worked on the development of a new one method for teaching the subject of law, a system for libraries, and a system for the review of school textbooks. He also began to study the history and culture of China.
In 1672 he was sent to Paris as a diplomat. Leibniz became interested in mathematics and had three important contributions in this field. The first was mechanical: he designed a calculator, a predecessor of modern computers. His second contribution was the description of binary geometry, the representation of all numbers with only 1s and 0s. This became the basis of count in electronic computers. His third contribution was the 'infinitesimal calculus'. Beside the scientific and practical importance of this, the calculus suggested two important ideas for Leibniz 'philosophy. First, the principle of constant and continuous change. Secondly, the calculus was mental fiction, and could not be concretely observed in reality, though it did reflect reality.
In Amsterdam, Leibniz had two important experiences. First he met the philosopher Spinoza (1632-1677), a brilliant Jewish student who was a pantheist – the notion that God is the universe. Secondly he met Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, who developed the modern microscope.
The new duke who served Leibniz in Hanover was married to Sophie the Countess Palatine (1630-1714), the youngest sister of the confidant of Descartes, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Sophie became Leibniz’ friend and supporter, and her daughter Sophie Charlotte joined her. This mother-daughter team became the first audience for Leibniz' philosophy and his letters to them became the basis of his important work. Leibniz was open-minded and not ethnocentric and maintained correspondences with China. He published reactions from China in a book 'News from China'. He found that China and Europe could learn a lot from each other.
Leibniz died when he was 70. Half a century later, publications from his manuscripts and private pieces revealed the true extend of his genius, just like a philosophy of mind that led to a scientific psychology in Germany. His most important psychological work was the extensive response to Locke's Essay, the 'New Essays' on human understanding. He had previously communicated these ideas in his correspondence with the two Sophies, and in a short work, De Monadology.
Leibniz looked at populations of microorganisms in a pond through Van Leeuwenhoek’s microscope in Amsterdam. He saw the universe as a hierarchy of living organisms within other, larger organisms. He did not agree with Descartes and said that despite the fact that a living body is some kind of divine machine, it surpasses any artificial automaton because it isn’t made up out of dead matter but of other living organisms, which again have other living parts contain, to the infinite. He also did not agree with Descartes and Locke that the fundamental units are dead, material particles that move and interact with each other. According to Leibniz, one can never come to a small piece of matter and say that that's the real thing. This also applies for movement. The ultimate units of the world are, according to Leibniz, dynamic entities that are energetic and purposeful, with some capacity of consciousness. He called these units monads.
Leibniz also believed that monads should differ in their capacity of consciousness and made a hierarchy of four classes. The uncovered monads had only a small capacity of consciousness, similar to someone in deep, dreamless sleep. A level higher were the feeling monads, with capacities for conscious sensation and perception of material objects and for the memory of these experiences. When they were merged, it became the soul of an animal. Even higher were the rational monads, which can form the soul or spirit of man. Leibniz also called consciousness apperception, in which an impression or idea is not alone observed, but also further interpreted in terms of underlying principles and laws. Apperception also includes reflexivity, the subjective feeling of the self. Standing at the top were the supreme monads, equal to god. In summary, Leibniz' universe was more of an organism than that of a mechanism. Each monad had its own purpose but were coordinated by larger goals and the consciousness of a supreme monad.
Leibniz was a supporter of Plato's nativism. He called all innate ideas and predispositions 'necessary truths' and he saw his ideas as additions to Locke's points. Locke saw sensations from the outside world and subjective reflections on his own mind as the two sources of ideas, but did not say much about the reflections, while Leibniz did. In some points, Leibniz summarized what Locke had already said. Locke however, claimed that the mind is not constantly active. According to Leibniz, the mind was always active, even during dreamless sleep. However, you are not always aware of this activity. Leibniz called this 'minute perceptions' - they are real, but do not enter consciousness. Sometimes we do become aware of our minute perceptions, for example when we move our attention to background noise. Usually, however, they remain in our subconscious. Leibniz thought that minute perceptions also play a role in motivation, because they would determine our behaviour in many situations, even when we do not think about them. So, according to him, we would never be indifferent to a situation. The difference between Locke and Leibniz was mainly due to their different goals. Locke wanted to discover the limits of knowledge and establish new rules for solving political and daily issues. He was primarily an empiricist. Leibniz was more of a nativist and saw the active spirit as a primary subject of interest.
Locke’s way of thinking was especially influential in English-speaking countries, as he was the founder of British associationism. Berkeley applied his idea of association principles to the systematic analysis of depth perception. A century later, David Hume helped the know-how association by formalizing contiguity and equality. Hume's fellow scholar Hartley (1705-1757), claimed that ideas are the subjective results of very short vibrations at specific locations in the brain that become connected. Later, in the 19th century, James and Stuart Mill claimed that the most important differences in character, behaviour and intellect come from associationist principles, meaning by differences in experiences and associations. Galton did not agree with that, which became the start of the nature-nurture debate. In the 20th century, the ideas it associationism and Locke came together in what then became behaviourism. Leibniz’ theory was more dominant in Europe, for example with Kant and Wundt. You can also see his ideas return in Freud's psychoanalysis and Piaget’s developmental schemas.
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Introduction to the book Pioneers of Psychology - Pioneers of Psychology - Fancher & Rutherford Historiography is the official term for the concept of writing about history, but it is difficult to determine when 'the history of psychology' exactly begun. Psychology, as a field of study, did not become an independent department within universities until the mid-nineteenth century, yet it was not uncommon for man to give thought to the mind and behaviour. General psychological and philosophical theories already arose in ancient times and these ancient theories can also be relevant for modern psychology still.
Over the last century, psychology has become one of the largest scientific studies there is. Within its stream, many sub-disciplines have arisen, some of which are related to each other. Every one of these branches has its own history, but it is sadly impossible to fully treat all of these different histories in a book.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Francis Galton (1822-1911) and B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) have not only each left behind their well-known, published works, but also a lot of unpublished data. These unpublished works included background stories and information about their private lives that influenced their scientific work. This interaction between biographical and theoretical factors led to a greater appreciation and understanding of the abstract work and thinking they performed.
This is why this book contains a more personalistic way of writing. The goal is to give an accurate representation or important psychological ideas, which get more meaning when viewed in the context of the scientists' lives. In result, it will become clear how modern ideas have come about. The theories that we know now of as incorrect can become more understandable when seen in the view point of the researcher and it will be made clear how these theories have led to progress.
The pioneers in this book had to fulfil three criteria. Firstly, they must have been important for the development or psychological thinking. Secondly, because the ideas in this book are presented in the context of the life of the researcher, biographical information must also be available. In addition, the pioneers needed to have contributed to the broad field of psychology in a meaningful way.
For instance, Plato, known for his nativist conception of the brain, and Aristotle, known for his empirical view and observations, are not addressed in this book due to a severe lack of biographical information. Therefore, our starting point will be René Descartes, at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Though excluded, Aristotle and Plato do return in René Descartes’ work, thus giving an overview of the important
.....read more Why does one study history of psychology? – Chapter 0Studying history offers the opportunity to take a step outside the internal mechanisms of the discipline of psychology. This can help you to see how all the elements have evolved in relation to specific problems.
A second advantage of studying history is seeing how ideas that we see as old or incorrect today, actually seem logical within their original context. This can help to better evaluate current psychological findings. This historical awareness can also contribute to your personal ability to critically evaluate contemporary ideas.
A third reason is that it helps us to appreciate the 'reflexive' nature of the field. Reflexivity refers to the human ability to become aware of and reflect on your own activities. This reflection can lead to changes in the understanding of yourself.
Psychologists have always been interested in studying their own history. One of the first American texts on the history of psychology appeared in 1912: Founders of Modern Psychology, by G. Stanley Hall. Another early text was A History of Experimental Psychology, published in 1929 by Boring. He wanted to strengthen the status of psychology as an experimental science.
It is clear that the history of psychology has the interest of psychologists for various reasons. In the US, John Watson was very influential. He was trained as a clinical psychologist but decided in 1959 to dedicate himself solely to the history of psychology. He published an article titled History of Psychology: A Neglected Area, resulting that in 1965, a department of the APA arose that devoted itself to history: division 26.
Historiography is the technical term for writing about history, but it can also refer to historical work. Some historians solely focus on the development of important ideas and their intellectual and disciplinary contexts, neglecting the social and political factors that played a role in them.
This distinction is called internalism versus externalism. Most historians try to find a balance between these two positions. Some adopt what they call the 'Great Man Approach', in which history is told by the contributions of important people in the field. In this case, external factors are often ignored. The Zeitgeist approach takes into account the fact that the ‘spirit of time’ can influence someone's ideas. In this book, a balance is maintained between the internalistic and externalist stand point, and between the Great Man and the Zeitgeist approach.
Some historians use presentism, which means they try to view a subject from the present and explain current circumstances by emphasizing that we have made progress thanks to
.....read more Foundational ideas from the Antiquity - Chapter 1
Plato (424-347 BC) came from a wealthy family in Athens and was schooled mainly by sophists. Plato, however, wanted a modest teacher and found Socrates (470-399 BC). Socrates claimed that his only special wisdom was that he was aware of much he didn’t know. He wanted his students to appreciate what was true and permanent instead of temporary and popular.
He did this by conducting dialogues with his students, to discover their inner capacities of finding truths. The fact that Plato chose Socrates and, therefore, philosophy still has consequences to this day. Socrates didn’t leave any written documents of his thoughts because, according to him, trusting in writing weakened the faculties of memory and serious thinking. Plato, however, made many written accounts of him: the Socratic dialogues. These emphasize the importance of the higher capacities of rational thinking and mathematical reasoning.
The dialogues became the source of nativism - in which the innate is important, opposite to acquired qualities - and of rationalism, in which reason is emphasized. When Plato was 30, he founded the Academy, a place where pupils of different ages and interests could pursue their intellectual goals.
In 367 BC, Aristotle (384-322 BC) arrived at said Academy and became a top student. At the age of 37, he left again. Aristotle placed much more emphasis than Plato on the systematic observation of the natural, empirical world of the senses. He became the first supporter of empiricism - the notion that true knowledge is obtained from sensory experiences of the external world.
400 years before Plato's time, settlers from Greece spread and collected writings from wealthy Greek-speaking colonies. These colonies were developed very differently and had founded different types of governments. The Greeks, however, were all very proud of their language, and thought of all who spoke a language other than Greek as barbarians.
Shortly before Socrates began teaching, Protagoras (490-420 BC) claimed that it was useless to speculate on big questions such as the ultimate nature and layout of the universe. He was a sophist and focused on purely human experiences and behaviour. The sophists tried to understand people.
Hippocrates (460-370 BC) is often mentioned as a pre-Socratic, and, like Protagoras and the Sophists, he dealt with everyday human concerns. However, Hippocrates was mainly a physicist. He attracted a school of students and followers, called the Hippocrats, who together produced many medical writings known as the Hippocratic Corpus. In this, diseases were described as natural phenomena, instead of the result of demons or supernatural influences. The Hippocrats had a ‘humoral’ theory to explain health and viewed disease as the result of the disbalance or four
.....read more Philosophy of the mind: what are the thoughts of Descartes, Locke and Leibniz? - Chapter 2René Descartes moved Paris in 1615, in the midst of an identity crisis. He did not think of his elite education as valuable because it had been too focused on the past. He also found it depressing that philosophy had never produced anything that was doubtful or uncertain. He became one of the first influential thinkers to have fully mechanical explanations for the traditional functions of the sensitive psyche or soul of Aristotle. Descartes described the human mind and body as two cooperating, yet different entities. According to him, both need their own analysis and explanation.
Descartes (1596-1650) was born in La Haye in France. He grew up with his grandmother. His father was a wealthy lawyer, but Descartes had little close ties with his family. His intelligence was noticed by his father, after which he sent his son to the most progressive school in France.
Young Descartes learned about a science which was dominated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). The Aristotelian view of the universe placed the earth in the middle, surrounded by a number of rotating crystalline globes, namely the planets in our solar system, the moon, the sun and the stars. The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) published a book in 1543, in which he assumed that not the earth, but the sun was the centre of the system. His view was not taken seriously, however.
Descartes convinced his teachers that he could think best if he meditated in bed, allowing him to stay in bed all morning while other students were already working. When he left La Flèche at age 16, he was the best student of the best school in the country. He then migrated to Paris, and got influenced by Marin Mersenne, a French monk who offered Descartes intellectual and personal support. In 1618, he went into the army to see if the practical experiences of the "real world" would provide more satisfactory knowledge. The actual war had not started yet, so Descartes experienced seven months of boredom and learned quickly that the military had no more useful knowledge than scholars did.
A turning point for Descartes was when he met Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) in the Netherlands, a physician and internationally known mathematician. He became a mentor to Descartes and helped him to get back his intellectual interest. With his support, Descartes wrote his first scholarly work, an essay about music. When Beeckman had to leave Breda, Descartes went with him, and during the trip to the south he got two insights. According to a legend, the inspiration came when he saw a fly humming in the corner of his room. He suddenly realized that the position of
.....read more Physiologists of the mind: which important scientists examined the brain in the period between Gall and Penfield? - Chapter 3Nowadays, we see the brain as the organ responsible for our intelligence and higher mental possibilities. However, it took about 200 years before this concept was accepted. Aristotle could hardly believe how a bloodless, numb and generally not impressive-looking organ could be the source of the highest human faculties. He supposed these functions were to be contributed to the heart. Descartes saw a number of important functions in the brain, however attributed the greatest functions to the rational soul.
Locke's teacher, Thomas Willis (1621-1675), paid more attention to the brain and was in 1664 the first to accurately publish a detailed work about it, named 'Anatomy of the Brain'. Willis saw that the brain tissue was not undifferentiated, as Aristotle thought, but consisted of two kinds of substances. Firstly, there is a fleshy, grey mass that forms the outer layer, also know as the cortex, (the inner part of the spinal cord and several discrete centres within the brain). Secondly, there is a fibrous white mass in the other areas. He speculated that this white mass consisted of narrow channels whose function is to distribute the "souls" that are created in the grey mass. In addition, he also accurately described the blood vessels in the brain, which proved that the brain is not a bloodless organ. Other doctors discovered that strokes can occur in the brain, and that, in case of injuries on one side of the brain, there are often paralysis or loss of feeling on the other side of the body. However, the brain only really became a topic of interest around 1800, in which the German physiologist Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828) played a big part.
Gall confirmed and developed many of Willis' basic ideas about the grey and white matter. He showed that the two halves of the brain are linked by stems of white matter that are called commissures and that other, narrower pieces of white fibres connect the two halves of the brain to the opposite sides of the spinal cord. This helped explain why damage on one side of the brain can lead to paralysis on the other side of it body. He also showed that the brain is in fact the centre for higher mental activity (by describing that animals with a larger brain tend to be more complex, more flexible and display more intelligent behaviour). Gall's anatomical findings were the basis for the later discovery that the brain and spinal cord consist of billions of neurons. Neurons are connected by dendrites, which receive signals from other neurons via axons. Axons tend to cluster together and thus form the white matter, while the cell
.....read more The sensing and perceptive spirit: which developments took place in this area in the period between Kant and the Gestalt psychologists? - Chapter 4The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) became known because of what he called 'my dogmatic slumbers'. He was trained in the Leibnizian tradition and had written before on subjects such as the origin of God and the difference between absolute and relative space. He was stimulated by one of John Locke's successors to start thinking about 'critical philosophy’, which ultimately led to subtle but crucial changes in how Germany, until then, thought about humanity and nature.
It was the Scotsman David Hume who caused Kant to become inspired to bring empiricism and associationism to an extreme. In addition, he started the logical status of the causal connection (the intuitive belief that certain events are directly 'caused' by certain other prior events).
They started from a cause, which implied a necessary consecutive relationship between certain preconditions and subsequent events. It also suggests that when we observe events, we immediately attribute causality to them. Hume brought this assumption, however, in doubt. He states that 'causality' is nothing more than that we expect events that took place in a certain way in the past, will occur in the same way in the future. The supposed connection between the events is never directly observed, so causality only has a probable rather than an absolute base.
From a practical point of view, these considerations make no difference. People thrive best in the real world by anticipating regularities in nature, whether or not this causality is genuine or assumed. For a philosopher like Kant, who dealt with the essential nature of human knowledge, this matter was crucial. Kant responded to this challenge with a simple but revolutionary variant of the nativist argument. He argued that even though causality could not be proven to exist in the external world, it nevertheless seemed to be an inevitable part of our experience. Therefore, according to him, it will be an innate quality in our minds.
He assumed two separate domains of reality, one complete within the human mind and one complete out there. The external or noumenal world consists of things-in-itself: objects in a pure state of independence of human experience. Despite that assuming that a certain object exists and that it interacts with the human mind, the noumenal world can never directly being seen. When this object encounters the human spirit, said spirit transforms the object into the inner or phenomenal world. The term phenomenal comes from the Greek phainomenon, meaning 'appearance', and reflects Kant’s argument that people never directly experience the true reality of things-in-themselves. Instead they experience a number of 'apparitions' or 'phenomena', which are the creation of an active mind who experiences the noumenal world.
To create this
.....read more How did Wundt develop experimental psychology? - Chapter 5The German Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) developed a "Thought-meter" to test the assumed assumption that, when two different stimuli reach our senses at the same moment (for example, when we hear someone speak and at the same time see his lips moving), we also become aware of both stimuli at the same time. On page 174 is his 'thought-meter' with an explanation. When Wundt tested himself, he concluded that he had not consciously experienced visual and visual stimuli at the same time, despite the fact that they took place simultaneously. Instead separate moments of attention were needed. Wundt acknowledged that, like Herman Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner, that he now had a clear psychological process subject to experimentally study, while Kant had implied that this was impossible. Wundt therefore suggested that there was sufficient ground for setting up a new field of experimental psychology. This possibility he introduced in his book from 1862, ‘Contributions to the Theory of Sensory Perception’. He is still seen as the father of modern academic and experimental psychology today.
Wundt was born in a small village in Germany, where his father was a pastor. The family had good academic connections. As a child, Wilhelm got malaria, after which his parents decided to move to Heidelberg, with a healthier climate. He grew up as an only child and was often picked on. Wilhelm was a real daydreamer, and his first year in high school became a complete failure. Wundt's parents sent him to Heidelberg to live with his aunt and brother Ludwig. Here he found more connection with peers. However, he did not receive a scholarship to the University. Under the supervision of his uncle Arnold, professor of anatomy and physiology he did, however, have academic success.
Wundt's first experiment was led by the German chemist Robbert Bunsen (1811- 1899), and in 1854 he won a gold medal from the university for examining the effect of the nervus vagus on the breathing. Years later, Wundt worked as an assistant to Helmholtz. The 'thought-meter' was very similar to Helmholtz's work on the speed of nerve impulses. Astronomers had problems with the reaction speed for years. According to Helmholtz personal comparisons and differences arise because there are individual differences in the length of a person's sensory and motor nerves, or in the speed in which the nerves send impulses. It is also possible that the differences arise due to the speed of the central processing in the brain. He could demonstrate this with his thought-meter.
Wundt believed that his discovery, that stimuli are first registered in consciousness responded to it, supported the general philosophical tradition of Leibniz. This is a psychology that explains the receptive and creative qualities of the
.....read more The evolving mind: what psychological developments did Darwin bring? - Chapter 6Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) was unexpectedly asked for the position of naturalist on board of the ship the H.M.S. Beagle. Darwin would support the captain with geological, mineralogical and biological observations, but would also accompany the captain for the next five years in his room. Upon his return, Darwin was known as a talented and respected geologist and collector of biological samples. He had made a number of important observations, which were the beginning of his development of the theory of evolution through natural selection: a revolutionary biological theory with immeasurable implications for psychology.
Darwin came from a rich and respected family. His father was a doctor, his mother was from a famous family that produced Chinese tableware, and his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731- 1802), was one of the most famous intellectual figures of his time. From early on in his live, Darwin possessed two important qualities. First of all, he was very curious and had a love for nature. He was also a warm and sympathetic man, which made him loved with almost everyone he met.
Darwin was sent to a medical school where he learned taxidermy. He didn’t think medications was interesting enough and he had bad memories of this school period. His father therefore placed him at the University of Cambridge, where Darwin was prepped to become an Anglican pastor. Here he became a member of a club called the Gourmet Club. This club was known for their hunt for birds and beasts, which were previously unknown to the taste buds of man. However, this came to an early end when they tried to eat a brown one owl.
Darwin liked geometry, but nevertheless had 'an argument' with binomial theory. Instead, he liked nature, and especially collecting beetles provided him with a lot of fun. He called this his "proof of my zeal." Darwin's enthusiasm for natural history and his friendly personality drew the attention from Cambridge's more scientifically oriented faculty. These people were mainly John Stevens Henslow (1796-1861) and Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), professors in botany and geology. Darwin went on one of their excursions to the countryside and spent a lot of time with Henslow. After graduating in 1831, he went to the north of Wales for a summer for a geological tour with Sedgwick.
Darwin's journey on the Beagle began in December 1831. Darwin devised a sample bag, which he dragged behind the ship and in which he caught thousands of sea creatures he subsequently
.....read more Measuring the mind: what are Galton's thoughts about individual differences? - Chapter 7London's International Health Exhibition of 1884 was characterized by a remarkable exhibition called the anthropometric laboratory that drew many spectators. These spectators became test subjects in this laboratory and eventually received some comparative information about themselves. The devices in it laboratory tested the test subjects different ways and gave them their score and the average score of the previous test subjects.
At that time, these tests were seen as mental tests to measure aspects of intelligence. Today, we see that intelligence uses "higher" mental processes, such as thinking, reasoning and logic. Nevertheless, the creator of these tests, Francis Galton, argued that the people with the highest intellectual possibilities, logically also had the most powerful and most efficient nervous systems and brains. He thought that the powers of one's brain was possibly in relation to its size. So the first test to measure the supposed intelligence of a person was to measure size of one’s head.
He also thought that someone's neurological effectiveness should be related to the speed in which this person can respond to something, therefore there was also a test of response time. He believed in two incorrect, but then generally accepted prejudices, which according to him proved a major correlation between sensory acuteness and intelligence. The first prejudice was that people with intellectual disabilities have both a sensory and intellectual disability. The second bias stated that women were generally less intelligent than men and that they can perceive things less vividly.
Fechner's psychophysics had studied the limitations of sensory discrimination and the Wundtian mental chronometry experiments had carefully measured the reaction time. But these previous studies only focused on established, general psychological principles that apply to all people, while individual differences in sharpness of mind or response time were avoided or rejected. The founder of the Anthropometric Laboratory assumed a Darwinian framework in which variability and adaptation were included. Individual differences in sharpness and reaction time were not "errors" or "irregularities" that were to be avoided but instead were the basic mechanism of evolution and therefore an important subject of interest. The anthropometric laboratory led to the development of the psychology of individual differences. This is a discipline that focuses on measuring variations between people at certain psychological characteristics.
Francis Galton (1822-1911) was the younger cousin and friend of Charles Darwin. He was a curious person and was discoverer, geographer, meteorologist and a biological researcher before he turned his attention to measuring intelligence and other psychological attributions. Many of his psychological ideas (such as his theory of measuring intelligence) were found to be incorrect and too simple. He was, however, the pioneer who came up with the idea that tests
.....read more American pioneers: what are the thoughts of James, Hall, Calkins and Thorndike? - Chapter 8It became clear at the conference in Munich in 1896 that psychology was slowly becoming a respected scientific and academic discipline. The two professors who were responsible for this, were sadly not there: Wilhelm Wundt and William James (1842-1910). Ironic enough, despite the contribution of both professors to the creation of an intellectual climate, both the professors did not appreciate each other's work. Wundt thought that there was little new information or original content in James’s writing, except for his style, which Wundt called personal and informal (he thought it was beautiful literature, but that it did not fall under psychology). Another reason that Wundt was not all that enthusiastic about James' work, for one was because James also criticized the work of Wundt. The reason for this was in the fact that it took James twelve years old to write his book "The Principles of Psychology ". The two professors each had their own style and stood behind different ones psychology, yet they were two of the most influential professors of their time.
William James was born in New York. He was the eldest child and came from a rich family. During his childhood and adolescence, he regularly moved with his family around in Europe and America. His father, Henry James Sr., had suffered a restless life and experienced regular anxiety attacks. After he had recovered, he focused on teaching his children and he searched for the best place to do so. Despite that he never actually found this perfect place, all four children remained highly motivated to study.
James had a talent for drawing and art, but because the subject was rejected by his father, he was sent to Harvard in 1861 to study chemistry. At Harvard, he shifted his attention from chemistry to physiology and in 1864 he registered himself at the medical school. A year later ,he interrupted his studies to go on an expedition, supervised by Louis Agassiz (1807- 1873). Agassiz was a biologist and one of the most outspoken critics of Darwin's book 'Origin or Species'. During this trip, James found out that biology was not suitable for him anyway and he returned home.
James convinced his father in 1867 to let him go to Germany, for the mineral baths that were good for his back among other reasons. But after a series of events in 1870, he experienced his first anxiety attack as well and he had trouble recovering from it. Until he read an article about free will in 1870, written by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier (1815-1903). Because of this he started to believe in free will. Also an article
.....read more Psychology as behavioural science: how is this area affected by Pavlov, Watson and Skinner? - Chapter 9Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) was interested in the congenital and reflexive saliva reactions in dogs, which he first called psychic secretions. It was about this saliva that arose automatically and involuntarily once there food was nearby. Pavlov saw that when dogs had become accustomed to the routine of the laboratory, they already started to drool as soon as they entered the research room came in. The dogs had associated the research room with food. These reactions were clearly learned and the result of experience and not of innate reflexes.
Pavlov saw himself as a physiologist and did not want to be associated with 'soft' psychology. After reading Sechenov's book, he became inspired enough to define his research into pure define physiological terminology. He called the psychic secretion conditioned reflexes and he called innate reflexes unconditioned reflexes. The relationship between the two could be examined in the laboratory and interpreted in physiological terms. Although Pavlov hated psychology, psychologists were interested showed for his work. One of those interested was Watson. He claimed the subject of psychology was the objective, observable behaviour, not the traditional mind and its subjective awareness. Inspired by the conditioned reflex of Pavlov, he became the founder of behaviourism.
As a poor, but gifted student, Pavlov started to study physiology at the University of St. Petersburg. There he focused on the new mechanistic physiology and soon he was known as an exceptionally accurate researcher who even helped doctoral students to get their degree, even before he got his own degree in 1883. Not that he could get started right away: jobs in conducting research were rare. Only after he was forty did he become a professor the St. Petersburg military medical academy, where he set up his own laboratory to carry out his dream: an experimental study into the physiology of the digestion.
Pavlov was known for having two different sides, depending on his environment. In his personal life he was known as naïve, but in the laboratory he was the complete opposite. There he was strict: his animals had to be well fed and the laboratory always had to be well stocked and taken care of. The remarkable thing about his laboratory was its organization. Although he had difficulty organizing his personal life, he succeeded in keeping his laboratory in order very well. Experiments were systematically performed and repeated. New employees were never assigned to a new or independent project, but always had to test existing experiments again. If the new and the old results matched, the new employee could start a new project. Systematic work was something that Pavlov gotten a strain on early on, and that was what he learned to others: working systematically at
.....read more Social psychology: how did this psychology develop in the period after Mesmer? - Chapter 10Johann Joseph Gassner (1727-1779) was a priest who claimed that he could cure disease through exorcism. A lot of patients reported improvement after treatment, but many others thought he was going too far and applied it carelessly. That is why the Viennese physicist Franzz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was asked to investigate the treatments of Gassner. Mesmer could try to cure patients in a similar way, but then through magnetism rather than of supernatural exorcism. Mesmer duplicated the effects of Gassner and stated that the effects were the result of a strong magnetic force. He explained Gassner's results in a naturalistic and scientific way. Gassner was banished and was not allowed to perform any more exorcisms. Mesmer did a number important discoveries about the phenomenon of hypnotism and has made an attempt to explain this scientifically. He also researched the social influence processes.
Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815) was able to cure patients in the same way as Gassner, but he did also provoke a natural force as a therapeutic mechanism, instead of a so-called supernatural exorcism. He healed many patients and explained that this was due to a strong magnetic force that was concentrated in his own body. So he delivered a naturalistic and 'scientific' explanation. Gassner was then exiled and was not allowed to exercise exorcisms any longer. Mesmer made important discoveries about hypnosis, the process creating a mental concentration that leads to a state of high influenceability and tried to explain this in a scientific way. He also did important research in the field of social influence, which have led to many developments in the social psychology.
Of his life before 1766, little is known. In 1766 Mesmer got his doctorate in medicine. Much of his dissertation he had taken over from someone else, but one of the parts that he had not copied was about a force he called animal gravity. He argued that magnetism was caused by a group of invisible and mysterious liquids such as electricity, gravity and gases such as helium. His plagiarism remained unnoticed. He married a rich widow and became an active socialist. He was also a good amateur musician and became friends with Mozart. In 1773, Mesmer began to treat a patient who suffered from periodic seizures consisting of symptoms such as convulsions, vomiting and inflammation. He let his patient swallow some pieces of iron and placed magnets on different parts of
.....read more The mind in conflict: what does Freud's psychoanalysis mean? - Chapter 11Joseph Breuer and Bertha Pappenheim came up with the "cathartic method" as treatment. In that method. Breuer hypnotized Breuer Pappenheim and asked her to go back to the first times she had experienced a specific physical sensation (such as her symptoms). Hypnotizing made it easier to reach forgotten memories (but only high emotion memories, associated with symptoms). By recovering the forgotten memory, she can release the oppressed emotions. This way the symptoms could disappear.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), friends with Breuer, remembered the method years later tried it out. He found out that it works better than direct hypnosis. Together with Breuer, he wrote the book "Studies on Hysteria", which became the starting point for Freud's new field. He called this field psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis played an important role in the history of the Mental Hygiene Movement and the Child Guidance Clinics. In the book, different cases they showed and brought on the general hypothesis that patients with hysteria suffered this because of their repressed memories. It was not about normal memories, but memories about emotion-laden experiences that were stored in the unconscious, which turned them into a disease ("pathogenic ideas"). Without access to normal consciousness, the emotional energy that accompanies the pathogenic ideas is not expressed in the normal way and thus cannot be released. The stimulus that normally aroused the memories was now used to the pinched emotional energy, causing the hysterical symptoms. The hysterical symptoms were conversions (the transition of emotional information into physical energy). With hypnosis, people can consciously gain access to the pathogenesis ideas, allowing the normal expression of their pinched energy to take place. This is because the cause of the symptoms is directly addressed. One downside is that the "cathartic method" is only applicable to people who can be deeply hypnotized.
Freud grew up as the oldest child in his family, but with half-brothers who were as old as his mother and a nephew (grandson of Freud's father) who was older than he. By this unusual family composition Freud may have become susceptible to family relationships, which he later emphasizes in his theories. When Freud studied at the University of Vienna, he met the philosopher Franz Brentano, who became his inspiration. In 1874, Brentano published a book, "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint". In his book, he emphasized the Act psychology, in which he put the essential nature of the subjects within psychology and those within the physical sciences directly opposed to each other. The physical sciences studied objects, while for Brentano, the basic units of psychological analyses were previously actions, which always referred to the contents of an object. For example, where the basic unit of physical analysis was probably an atom, the psychological base unit was an action like thinking about an atom or believing it that a certain atom exists. So all mental phenomena have a component that indicates what they are "about", a way in which the object is involved or implied in the consciousness. This, Brentano called intentionality.
Brentano also believed that each psychological theory must be dynamic, or able to take into account the influence of
.....read more Personality psychology: what are the thoughts of Allport and Maslow? - Chapter 12As discussed earlier, Titchener was involved in a new scientific approach of psychology, namely structuralism. He had tried to scientifically analyse experiences, but in the form of the most elementary sensations and feelings. Titchener was the opponent of Freud. The invitation that Gordon W. Allport (1897-1967) received for the conference "Society of Experimentalists", set up by Titchener, was probably one of the biggest mistakes he’s made, considering Allport was more focused on the subject of personality. Titchener responded negatively to Allport and belittled him during the conference. The disappointment in Allport was temporary, however, because he was the first to teach at the university in personality psychology.
Abraham H. Maslow (1908-1970) also could not find himself in Titchener's model. Allport and Maslow were similar to each other in the fact that they are both regularly the limits of psychology and searched for, but that was also just about it. Allport was interested in personality psychology, in which the subjects varied from individual case studies to statistical analysis of mutual relationships on a large scale. Maslow was interested in which factors caused people to be "normal" or "healthy". He formulated an influential theory on human motives, as they are in a hierarchy and became a supporter of humanistic psychology. Both theories formulated by Maslow and Allport were an important part of the development and evolution of modern psychology as we know it today.
Allport became fascinated by his teacher Munsterberg at Harvard, who felt that there were two fundamentally different types of psychology: Firstly, psychology is causal and objective, and is aimed at emphasizing deterministic and mechanistic relationships between specific stimuli and the reactions they produce. The other kind of psychology is purposeful and subjective, which requires psychologists to gain insight into certain thinking processes and perspectives of the participants and to share these insights.
After graduating, Allport became an English and Sociology teacher at a small school in Turkey. Later on he returned to Harvard for a PhD in psychology. He always had great admiration for the psychoanalysis and promoted this to academic psychologists. As an assistant to Floyd, he learned a lot about new developments in psychology. One of these topics was personality. Some psychologists were interested in measuring non-intellectual characteristics with personality tests. The corresponding concept of personality studies, according to Allport, was the focus on individual differences in properties. They suggested a model for of personality, consisting of four groups: intelligence, temperament, self-expression and sociality. In Hamburg, Allport met the professor
.....read more The developed spirit: how have Binet and Piaget contributed to the study of intelligence? - Chapter 13During the late 1880s Binet studied the behaviour of his daughters. He also tried new psychological tests on them. Some tests were about reaction time and sensory discrimination. He discovered that his daughters, without developed intellect, it did about as well as adults. He did not think the measurements were good indicators of intelligence. He wanted tests that were about higher and more complex functions, such as language and abstract reason. He was not the only pioneer in testing intelligence, Piaget did this too. He discovered that children have no concept of objects as stable and permanent, and as separate from yourself and your perception. The hypothesis the result is that the intelligence of a child is not is less than that of an adult, but qualitatively different is. There are different development stages.
Alfred Binet (1857-1911) was born in France. Binet graduated in law but then went to the medical school. However, he did not like this either. He read a lot of books in the library of Paris at the age of 22. He discovered books about experimental psychology and was instantly inspired by this. In 1880, he had his first scientific publication. He also became enthusiastic about the association psychology of John Stuart Mill. According to Binet, intelligence also works through the law of association. Then Binet became Charcot's assistant, and this remained the case for over a year. He published three books and more than 20 articles on various topics.
Eventually Binet found out that he had had too much faith in Charcot's name and prestige and had not been critical enough. Binet began to do experiments with his daughters at home. He was very aware of the individuality of everyone's intelligence. Deeply impressed by the individuality of man, he decided to work with his colleague Victor Henri in 1895 to set up a program that they called individual psychology (not too confuse with Alfred Adler's approach). They were looking for a series of short tests that would take less than 2 hours and could be carried out with each person. With the help of such tests, one was able to obtain as much information as you could with years of observations and interviews.
Binet anticipated many projective tests. He was looking for a combination of several long-term tests that could serve as a replacement for the extensive case study, but unfortunately he did not find it. He had confirmed his conviction with the help of the direct testing that the higher, complex mental functions, the significant intellectual differences could be measured.
Together with
.....read more What does cognitive psychology entail? - Chapter 14There are three issues at the heart of this chapter. First, Hobbes was busy with analysing the properties and processes that underlie human reason. Hobbes was concerned with how the mind receives and acquires knowledge. His answer led to a second point. He suggested that mathematical calculations and logical reasoning are the same. Thirdly, since the use of Indo-Arabic numbers, mathematics had become a routine process through it apply a few simple rules.
Blaise Pascal's machine (1623-1662) was the first in a series of theoretical and technological innovations to create a mechanical likeness of the human mind. The Pascaline stands known as one of the first machines specially built for artificial intelligence (AI). After the "Pascaline", Leibniz came up with a new mechanism, which he called the "stepped cylinder". This could also carry out multiplications and divisions.
Leibniz began by constructing a new universal language for philosophy, the signs of which would function in the same way as the mathematical symbols. He imagined that different words would contain a different word, and that there was a logical hierarchy. An example is: the concept of "human" is included in the concept of "animal", and the concept "animal" is back in the concept of a "living thing". When the new universal language would be complete, all concepts would be given a rating that reflects the exact degree of inclusiveness in relation to each other. People would go out with the help of the new language different languages and cultures can not only communicate with each other, but also be able to calculate solutions for the problems that divided them. However, the dream of Leibniz didn’t ever come true. Logical statements could not be reduced to arithmetic. Classic logic and traditional arithmetic was seen as an example of general symbolic logic. Leibniz also came up with the idea of binary arithmetic - the representation of all figures through of ones and zeros.
Charles Babbage (1792-1871) designed a mechanical calculator that was very accurate in generating arithmetic tables and calculate polynomial functions. This machine he called the "difference engine" because it would use the "method of difference" to calculate things. He also came up with the analytical machine (or the "programmable computer"), with which he practically could perform all kinds of calculations. The machine consisted of five main components: An input system for the data and instructions. "The mill" to be able to carry out the calculations. This part was similar to
.....read more What does the applied psychology mean? - Chapter 15Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916) was known for his articles about how psychological knowledge could be applied in daily life. He felt that scientific psychology is superior to the normal human brain and that the methods had to be used to improve the way people judge others and the world around them. Munsterberg also showed interest in the influence of emotion, suggestion and dissociation on perception. He felt that these processes had consequences for the psychology of testimony and detecting deceit. That's why he thought that psychological expertise also applied had to be in court.
Munsterberg was eventually seen as the father of applied psychology. One of the first publications of Munsterberg was a report, in which he challenged Wundt, his teacher, about the subject of "will". He felt that the concept of will was actually the experiencing of one’s internal motor process when it is in response to a stimulus. After Munsterberg permanently established himself at Harvard, his interest grew towards applied psychology. Areas where he wanted to introduce applied psychology were legal testimony and individual psychotherapy. In the period in which psychotherapists assigned themselves the task to heal the mind, Munsterberg saw himself as an objective, scientific outsider. Every therapy that simply just assumed the existence of the unconscious (just like Freud had introduced), he saw as unscientific. The techniques used by Munsterberg were in stark contrast to those of psychoanalysis and were more functional in nature. In the approach that Munsterberg used, Clients were trained to forget their problems and deviant behaviors suppress. One of the interests of Munsterberg was the application of psychology in the business and industry. This approach was called psychotechnology.
To deal with the rapidly growing urbanization and industrial expansion, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) designed a system, which he named scientific management. The purpose of this system was to increase the efficiency and productivity of the factories by applying scientific methods. One of the changes that Taylor encouraged was applying standardized tasks through careful analysis of industrial work. The emphasis was on increasing production by an increase of efficiency, or in other words: let employees do more work in a shorter time, by providing them with fast, repetitive tasks that were easier to do. Munsterberg quite like the approach that Taylor had.
Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878-1972) and her husband Frank Bunker Gilbreth (1868-1924) together developed the complex motion studies to identify the most efficient way to get a task done. By using a camera, which registered the necessary movements made when performing of a task, the Gilbreths analysed different types of work and activities. As a result, they identified 18 basic hand movements, which they called "therbligs". They felt that efficiency could
.....read more What does clinical psychology mean? - Chapter 16Paul Meehl, wrote a book 'Clinical Versus Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence, in which he emphasizes the superiority of empirical data above clinical assessment when predicting behaviour described. He was a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. The 1950s are also called the Golden Century for psychoanalysis in the US. Since then, the clinical psychology began to take shape.
After World War II, there was a shortage of professionals who had mental health problems treatment, especially the trauma. Psychologists were increasingly asked for psychiatrists to fill in. Molly Harrower (1906-1999) was a psychologist with a private practice in New York. Until then, this kind of privilege had only been reserved for psychiatrists. She was probably the first psychologist with a private practice in New York. She studied the psychological effects of operations and worked with neurosurgeon Penfield. Harrower looked at reactions from patients. She was also interested in the Rorschach projective technique, also known as the ink stain test, discovered by Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922). Rorschach was interested in the effects of mental states on perception. His test consisted of a series of unstructured stimuli - symmetrical ink stains. The tester shows the ink blot and asks: what could this be? Patients may then each give an answer. Rorschach found not the content but the perceptual processes of the answers important, and how this related to mental states or neurological conditions. The tester also looks at which determinants (color, shape, texture or movement) patients used when replying. Rorschach wanted to use it for diagnostics, but criticism was that the test was not properly validated. Harrower combined her interest in the Rorschach test with her interest in the psychological effects of operations. She discovered that the answers to the test of patients with brain tumours differed from patients without tumours. Harrower made it clear that diagnosing mental disorders is only one small task of a psychologist. Psychologists must have one overall picture of someone. According to Harrower, this is the distinction between psychiatrists and psychologists.
There was therefore a need for more clinical psychologists, and because of this the National Mental Health Act passed in 1946. David Shakow was chosen to participate in the 'Committee on Training'. He was prominent in designing a standardized graduation program for clinical psychology. He was trained as a researcher, just like Harrower. He became a professor in psychiatry at the University of Illionois Medical School, and psychology professor in Chicago.
There was tension within the APA between 'pure'
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