Philosophical Roots of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt gets credit for establishing the first laboratory dedicated to studying psychological issues. But he was one of several people caught up in the zeitgeist of the 1800s. Let’s highlight some of the thinking of the time and, if possible, trace its roots in philosophy.

Indirect Influences

There were five ancient thinkers who influenced all of modern thinking, by agreement and disagreement. Sometimes what we are against has more influence on us than what we are for. Aristippus is a good example.

Aristippus (434-356 BC). Although a student of Socrates in Athens, Aristippus was born in Cyrene, so his philosophy is called Cyrenaicism. The basic doctrine was pleasure is all that matters. For Aristippus and his followers, the pursuit of happiness required the immediate gratification of any and every desire. People should control their circumstances, and not allow circumstances to control them. This Cyrenaic approachy allowed no thought of the consequences because knowledge is unreliable, amoral and only exists in the sensations of the moment. Although Aristippus may have argued for restraint, for many Cyrenaicism was an excuse for sexual promiscuity and physical brutality

 

Pythagoras & Confucius

At about the same time, but on opposite sides of the world, Pythagoras and Confucius generated ideas and approaches to thinking that influenced generations of thinkers. Their followers helped revolutionize the cultural norms of the ancient world, and still influence our thinking today.

Pythagoras (582-500 BC) is best known for the Pythagorean theorem but he viewed mathematics as a religious-philosophical system. He believed in harmony of the universe, orderliness of thought, and transmigration of souls.

Nearly fifty years after Solon and Thales, Pythagoras was born on the island of Sámos, close to the coast of Turkey. The city, which is now called Pythagorion in his honor, was known for its man-made harbor in the shape of frying pan and a tunnel that brought in fresh mountain water. A strong, if not bitter, rival of Miletus, the island of Sámos was a major center for commerce, sculpture and philosophy.

Like Thales, much of what is known about Pythagoras is a combination of fact and fancy. There are apocryphal accounts of his travels to Egypt, the invention of musical scales, miraculous cures and secret writings. More reliable are the accounts that his mother was from Sámos, his father was a tradesman from Tyre, and that he was born sometime between 582-560 BC. In about 530 BC, Pythagoras moved to Crotona, Italy and founded his school of religious-philosophical thought.

Although the Pythagorean Theorem is named in his honor, it is difficult to separate individual accomplishment from its larger context. The Pythagoreans studied prime numbers, the squaring of numbers, and mathematics as part of a religious, political and philosophical approach to life. They believed in the harmony of the universe, the ultimate principle of proportion, and the orderliness of thought. According to this view, the best way to understand the mysteries of life is through obedience, self-examination, and simplicity of food and dress. They believed that planets, including the earth, were not flat but were spheres rotating around a common fire. The Pythagoreans also believed in the transmigration of souls, so it was not unusual that Pythagoras said he could remember all of his previous lives, including having been a warrior in the Trojan War.

Believing that the ultimate explanation of everything could be found in numbers, the Pythagoreans observed the world around them and looked for patterns. At first, numbers were symbols used to describe reality. Eventually, numbers took on a life of their own and this numerology was used to explain everything. Life was a combination of opposites: odd-even, left-right, good-bad, dark-light, masculine-feminine.

Each number had its own properties and power. One was a point, 2 a line, 3 a surface, and 4 a solid. Five was the number of planets, and 6 was a perfect number for it is equal to the sum of its aliquot parts (could be divided by 1, 2 and 3). Seven was a prime number and regulated life (baby until 7, child until 14, married at 21, dead at 70). Eight was harmony for there are eight tones in an octave and 8 objects in the sky (5 planets, sun, moon and earth). Nine was the square of 3 and 10 was the sum of life (the sum of 1, 2, 3 and 4).

Confucius (551-479 BC). At nearly the same time as Pythagoras, Confucius was teaching his practical approach to life. He emphasized ethics, morality, and the importance of the family. Confucius was born in the province of Lu (what is now Shantung, China). The exact day of his birth is unknown but Sept 28 (Teachers Day) is celebrated in his honor. Apparently poor but related to the royal family, Confucius was large, strong, and a hard worker. He was 3 when his father died; his mother raised and taught him. When he was 19, he found a job as the land manager for a rich nobleman, got married and began a family (a son and two daughters).

Confucius is the Latin version of K’ung-fu-tzu (Master K’ung). His family name was K’ung, and he was called Ch’iu K’ung or simply K’ung. He devoted his life to learning and teaching. To be well-learned in his day was to have mastered the six arts: arithmetic, music, calligraphy, archery, chariot handling and ritual. In addition to the six arts, Confucius studied justice and history, particularly the ways of Emperors Yao (2300 BC) and Shun (2200 BC). He was interested in rituals and how they met the needs of the community. He reasoned that traditions should not be discarded but revitalized.

Confucius was born during the Chau Dynasty (1100-221 BC) which had once been a powerful force. Chou Kung, the Duke of Chou (d. 1094 BC), had developed a cultural system similar to the original organization of the United States of America. The Chou dynasty encouraged strong states with agreement for interstate commerce and mutual defense. The cohesiveness of the system was maintained by a strong king who had both ethical and religious power. More often than not, the king ruled through moral persuasion. If one state was out of sync, the king would martial the power of the other states to bring it back into line.

The kings received their power from Heaven. The states were ruled by the king who in turn was ruled by the Lord-on-High of Heaven. If the kings misused their power, God would remove them and entrust someone else with power to rule. By the time of Confucius, the Chou Dynasty had degenerated into such corruption that it was in danger of being replaced by divine intervention. Confucius sought to revitalize society by emphasizing both personal and corporate virtue.

Confucius identified 5 essential virtues: kindness, decorum, wisdom, faithfulness and honesty. His focus was not on the supernatural but on reason and self-cultivation. Confucius believed that ordinary people can do great things. People can be taught and can shape their destiny by continuous self-improvement. Consequently, all men should be educated. Education should be a life-long process that improves the individual and ultimately leads to public service and the restoration of the nation. Confucianism is more of an inclusive humanism than an organized religion. It is a belief that inspires moral behavior and political action.

When he was 22, he began the first private school; a sort of an executive finishing school specializing in teaching personal conduct, government and justice. In 518 BC, when he was 33, Confucius moved to the imperial capital of Lu (Lo-yang) but fled to a neighboring feudal state with the prince of Lu when an uprising occurred. When the rebellion was put down, Confucius returned to Lu and studied music. In his early 50s, Confucius was in government service, including as prime minister of Lu. In his late 50’s and most of his 60s, Confucius continued teaching and learning, wandering through China and sharing his philosophy. He was in his late 60s when he returned to Lu. Confucius died at the age of 73.

 

Direct Influences

A stronger, more direct influence before the common era (BC or BCE, whichever you prefer) was Aristotle. His laws of association laid the groundwork for the study of cognition, his comparative anatomy set the stage for Darwin, and his emphasis on logic impacted both philosophy and science.

Aristotle (384-323 BC) was born in Macedonia (northern Greece). He learned medicine from his father and philosophy from Plato. He wrote the constitution of Athens, served as counselor to Hermias, tutored Alexander the Great, and is sometimes called the first psychologist..

Aristotle proposed a tri-level hierarchy of faculties: nutrition, perception and intellect. Nutrition applies to all living things, perception to all animals, and intellect to all people. Intellect is like a sixth sense, a “common sense,” that synthesizes input from the five perceptual senses. In his book On The Soul, he proposes that the general distinction of form and matter also describes what makes us human. The soul (psyche) and the body are aspects of the same entity; they are the form and matter (respectively) of human existence.

For Aristotle, form is active and life itself is active. The psyche is the active part of intellect; consequently, psychology is the study of the principle of life, how a person acts intellectually and morally. According to Aristotle, thinking and knowing are different. Thinking uses images but knowing is more like active intuition. So intellect is not a collection of facts but the capacity to find knowledge.

Language is distinctively human, the product of a rational animal. Man alone has language because man alone has the ability to reason. By man, Aristotle meant males from the upper class of society, not women or non-Greeks. By reasoning, he meant the ability to tell right from wrong. Right is not based on moral absolutes but by balancing opposite poles. By this reasoning, courage is not a separate virtue; it’s the midpoint between rashness and cowardice.

Although the Greek culture was polytheistic, Aristotle argued for the existence of a divine principle above all the rest. Since the world had always existed, God was not thought of as a creator but as the Prime Mover (first cause) of the chain of events we call history. For Aristotle, God was pure intellect; perfect unity and unchangeable but not personal or interested in our lives.

Aristotle didn’t coin the term “logic” but he defined it and founded it as a science. Indeed, into the 20th century, all logic was Aristotelian logic. His syllogisms were chains of reasoning that began with a proposition and ended with a conclusion. This proposition-proposition-conclusion format tests the logical consistency of ideas and the validity of logic. Building on Plato’s deductive method, Aristotle’s analytic approach was both inductive and deductive. Plato believed that the world we perceive is but an imperfect copy of the real world. Aristotle held that the world perceived is the real world and there is no need to assume perceptions are imperfect copies of a separate world of ideas. Consequently, careful observation of the world perceived can lead to principles which can be applied to specific circumstances.

Ironically, it is careful observations that showed the errors of Aristotle’s scientific conclusions. Like Hippocrates, Aristotle noted four basic elements, each with its own “specific gravity.” But in addition to earth, air, fire and water, Aristotle added a fifth: ether (to describe the content of the heavens). Similarly, his geocentric cosmology, his fixed species model of zoology and his assumptions about falling objects were all overturned by careful observations and the application of Aristotelian logic.

But consider how enduring his idea were. Aristotle’s belief that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones lasted until Galileo dropped weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa. With minor exceptions, Aristotle’s view that earth is the center of the universe went unchallenged until Capernicus. And is wasn’t until Charles Darwi’s careful observations that evolution replaced the belief in a fixed set of species. As for ether being a fundamental element of physics, it was completely discounted until Albert Einstien’s 1905 special theory of relativity. And in psychology, Aristotle’s 3 laws of association (i.e., similarity, contiguity, and opposites) are still thought to impact encoding processes.

As a Macedonian, not an Athenian, Aristotle had to deal with the stigma of being an outsider (from a different city-state). Perhaps this is why he was not selected to succeed Plato (the job went Plato’s nephew). In any case, he left Athens after the death of Plato. About the same time, Aristotle married (at age 38). He had a daughter by his first wife, remarried after her death and had a son by his second wife. He was 42 when he began tutoring 13 year old Alexander the Great. And 50 when he returned to Athens opened his school. Officially Aristotle’s school was named the Lyceum but informally it was called the “walking school.” His students learned by strolling around the grounds with their teacher and became known as peripatetics. After death of Alexander, anti-Macedonian sentiment again arose in Athens and Aristotle moved to his mother’s estate on the island of Euboea, where he died the following

 

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Before we get to the British empiricists Wundt fervently opposed, let’s consider some positive influences.

when the stoics were the latest craze, Galen (129-216) set an example for physicists and researchers alike. Born in Pergamum (Asia Minor) and educated in Alexandria, Galen became well known as a physician and writer. A Greek subject to the Roman Empire, he studied healing (medicine) in Smyna, traveled widely, and finally moved to Rome at the age of 32.

Although Galen believed that the liver was responsible for blood flow, his knowledge of anatomy and physiology was so authoritative that it actually discouraged others from questioning his findings for nearly 1400 years.

Using dissection and experimentation, Galen showed that the speech is controlled by the brain, and that arteries carry blood (in contrast to the previous view that arteries carried air). He distinguished between sensory and motor nerves, and held that the mind was located in the brain. Galen also believed that people are basically cheerful (full of blood) but they can get out of balance.

Augustine (354-430) Aurelius Augustinus. Raised in a philosophically-mixed family (his mother was a Christian, his father was not), Augustine converted to Christianity as an adult. He advocated introspective meditation, denunciation of the flesh, and the importance of self understanding. Since true knowledge comes from God, examining the world is of limited value. For Augustine, the soul is composed of memory, understanding and will. Sometimes called the first of the Christian philosophers, Augustine’s views dominated western Europe for nearly 1000 years. Augustine believed that truth comes directly from God through introspective self-examination. For Augustine, the soul is a self-contained entity with no physical dimension. It is a trinity of memory, understanding, and will.

Augustine’s will was a central element in Wundt’s theory of volition. It was much less spiritual but was still the causal agent of behavior. Also, in Wundt’s day, the idea that nerves are electrical and not tubes for the human soul or spirit to travel through was a new idea.

about 600 years before Wundt, we meet Aquinas,Thomas (1225-1274)   Thomas  Aquinas  was born near Naples, Italy. Although nicknamed as a child as “Dumb Ox” (for his large size and slow demeanor), Aquinas is the greatest theologian-philosopher of the Roman Catholic church and the patron saint of their parochial schools. He is best known for synthesizing Greek philosophy with Christian, Islamic and Jewish beliefs.

He was born in the family castle, Roccasecea, and later imprisoned there by his family for abandoning their career plans for him. His family wanted him to be abbot like his uncle but Aquinas (then 18) chose to enter the Dominican order and a lead a life of poverty. After a year or so of imprisonment, Aquinas complemented his education at the University of Naples by moving to Paris to become a student of Albertus Magnus. Completing his doctorate at 31, Aquinas taught for 3 years at the University of Paris before moving to Rome as a papal advisor. Nine years later, Thomas returned to Paris to teach and write. It was there he made his greatest contribution to philosophy.

Thomas Aquinas is the great synthesizer of faith and philosophy. He combined the best ideas of Aristotle, Augustine, Averroes and Maimonides. From the jumble of Gree, Christian, Islamic and Jewish thought, Aquinas sought to bring clarity. Aquinas sought a middle ground between Augustine’s dependence on revelation and Aristotle’s emphasis on empirical knowledge. He noted that sensory information is processed by the mind According to Aquinas the mind and body work together; man is both animal and spiritual (soul). Made in the image of God, man is capable of thinking and willing. Although nothing in the world is accidental, man has the psychological freedom to be the primary mover of his psychological universe. Man may be a highly specialized animal, but he possesses a soul.

 

1500s

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679). 

Although Hobbes was friends with Francis Bacon (and served as his secretary for a short time), he rejected Bacon’s inductive reasoning in favor of the deductive methods of his other friends (Galileo and Descartes). He builds his case as a chain of deductive proofs.

Thomas Hobbes is best known for his “trains of thought,” his Laws of Nature, and his emphasis on social contracts. According to Hobbes, ideas tend to follow each other, like cars of a train. These “trains of thought” are often unguided and rambling but they become orderly when two ideas are similar. One association leads to another, like train cars all coupled end to end, forming trains of thought. Although the metaphor was new, the concept of association dates back to ancient Athens. Hobbes reintroduced Plato’s and Aristotle’s explanation of learning by wrapping it in an undated package.

 

Berkeley, George (1685-1753). Irish theologian, researcher and philosopher, Berkeley is best known for his work on perception. He not only studied perception, his philosophy focused on it too. In psychology, he is best known for his work on vision, In philosophy, he founded idealism and challenged Newton’s concepts of time and space. Berkeley believed that complex perceptions are composed of simple mental elements.

Materialists reasoned that matter is all that exists so God cannot exist. Dualists maintained that this world is a bad copy of a separate world of ideas. Berkeley started with the premise that God exists and argued that without Him nothing would exist. Berkeley’s argument rested on 2 premises: (a) nothing can be perceived without a mind and (b) there are things the human mind can’t perceive. His conclusion was that there must be a mind that perceives everything seen and unseen: God. It is not so much that we perceive therefore we are (to paraphrase Descartes) but that we are, therefore someone is perceiving us. Although Berkeley’s philosophy was not widely accepted, his criticism of materialism and dualism founded a new approach called idealism.

 

Brown, Thomas (1778-1820)   Like Reid and Stewart, Brown’s rationalism  was a reaction against Hume’s empiricism. Brown re-proposed Artistotle’s three laws of suggestion: contiguity, resemeblans, and contrast.

 

1800s

Bain, Alexander  (1818-1903). The son of a weaver, Bain was born, raised and educated in Aberdeen, Scotland. Indeed, except for several years in London, he lived whole life in Aberdeen. In 1876, Bain wrote the first journal devoted exclusively to psychology (Mind). He also provided the first books on psychology as such. Until William James wrote Principles of Psychology (1890), Bain’s books (The Senses and Emotions) were widely used as textbooks of psychology. A friend of JS Mill (who he met during his London years), Bain was an empiricist and a utilitarianist. He emphasized the law of contiguity, but differentiated between voluntary and reflexive behavior, held that people are capable of spontaneous activity which becomes increasingly purposive as it is rewarded by pleasure, and was a mind-body parallelist. He held that every sensation has both a physiological and a mental reaction. Bain is sometimes called the first modern physiological psychologist because of his detailed descriptions of sense organs and how they worked. He is best known for his description of the reflex arc.

Brentano, Franz (1838-1917) .  Trained in the priesthood (he left the Church when the Vatican Council proclaimed infallibility of Pope), Franz Brentano emphasized empirical observation but not experimentation. His “act psychology” focused on what the mind does. In contrast to Wundt, Brentano was not interested in the mind’s content or component parts but in the active process of thinking. He held that the mind was responsible for idea-ing (having ideas), judging (affirming the presence or state of an object), and feeling (generating attitudes).

 

All of these philosophers lead us to more philosophers.

Old Philosophers, New Ideas

Want to jump ahead?

• Philosophical Roots of Psychology 
• Waves & Schools of Psychology
• Old Philosophers, New Ideas
• Hobbes, Galileo & Descartes
• Experimental Physiology
• American Psychology
• Japanese Psychology
• German Psychology
• Russian Psychology
• Five Paths To Truth
• Birth of Psychology
• British Empiricism
• British Psychology
• French Psychology
• Wundt

 

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