Psychology Fundamentals

Study Notes

The object of psychology is a person's psyche, focusing on the basic laws of the generation and functioning of psychic reality.
The subject of psychology is mental phenomena in human life, understood as internal, subjective human experience.

Mental phenomena are fundamental properties that are directly represented in the subject.
They include internal experiences such as seeing, feeling, desiring, and thinking, as well as being aware of these experiences.

The origins of psychology date back to ancient Greece and Persia philosophers.
The word "psychology" comes from two Greek words: "psyche" (spirit or soul) and "logos" (discourse or study).
The initial definition of psychology was as a science of the soul, aiming to explain incomprehensible phenomena in a person's life by the presence of a soul.

Idealism is a philosophical framework that emphasizes the role of ideas, thoughts, and consciousness in constructing reality.
It posits that reality is fundamentally shaped by the mind and the interpretation of experiences.
Idealism challenges the notion of an objective reality existing independently of the mind.
A prominent idealist philosopher is Plato, who proposed that the highest form of reality lies in the realm of ideas or forms.

Materialism is a philosophical framework that posits that everything that exists is material, including minds.
According to materialism, minds are not "spiritual" in any sense and are simply kinds of conditions of bodies.
Mental abilities vary with physical condition, and sensations are dependent upon states of the body.
Ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Democritus presented materialistic ideas, proposing that the soul consists of smooth, round atoms and that perceptions consist of motions caused in the soul atoms by the atoms in the perceived thing.