History and Systems of Psychology PDF

Pearson New International Edition History and Systems of Psychology James F. Brennan Sixth Edition Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearson...

Pearson New International Edition History and Systems of Psychology James F. Brennan Sixth Edition Pearson Education Limited Edinburgh Gate Harlow Essex CM20 2JE England and Associated Companies throughout the world Visit us on the World Wide Web at: www.pearsoned.co.uk © Pearson Education Limited 2014 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of any trademark in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark ownership rights in such trademarks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any affiliation with or endorsement of this book by such owners. ISBN 10: 1-292-04223-0 ISBN 10: 1-269-37450-8 ISBN 13: 978-1-292-04223-7 ISBN 13: 978-1-269-37450-7 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States of America  P E A R S O N C U S T O M L I B R A R Y Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Past for Present James F. Brennan 1 2. Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece James F. Brennan 15 3. From Rome Through the Middle Ages James F. Brennan 35 4. The Reawakening of Intellectual Life James F. Brennan 55 5. The Emergence of Modern Science James F. Brennan 77 6. Sensationalism and Positivism: The French Traditions James F. Brennan 95 7. Mental Passivity: The British Tradition James F. Brennan 109 8. Mental Activity: The German Tradition James F. Brennan 127 9. Nineteenth-Century Bases of Psychology James F. Brennan 143 10. The Founding of Modern Psychology James F. Brennan 163 11. American Functionalism James F. Brennan 183 12. The Gestalt Movement James F. Brennan 209 13. Psychoanalysis James F. Brennan 223 I  14. Behaviorism James F. Brennan 245 15. The Third Force Movement James F. Brennan 285 16. Contemporary Trends: Neofunctionalism James F. Brennan 307 Glossary 335 II Introduction: Past for Present Approaches to Historical Investigation Eastern Traditions in Psychology The Crossroads: Persia and the Middle East India Hindu Science and Philosophy Buddhism China Early Philosophies Confucius Later Philosophies A Note on Resources A cursory glance at contemporary psychology reveals startling diversity. Psychology seems to mean many things to many people. In everyday life the word psychology has a variety of meanings with mentalistic, behavioristic, or abnormal implications. The popular media seem to reinforce this perception. For example, we often hear the words psychological, psychiatric, and psychoanalytic equated and used interchange- ably. We often read or see research results on smoking or drug hazards conducted by psychologists but described as medical research. Or we see instances where a psy- chologist, using “armchair” methodology, responds with profound advice in a news- paper to a reader in distress. Nor does the college-level introductory course to psychology necessarily dispel the confusion. Those who have taken such courses may have dim, confused recollections of IQ tests, dogs salivating, hierarchies of anx- iety, the Oedipus complex, figure-ground reversals, rats running through a maze, heart rate control, peer group influence, and so on. Similarly, listing the range of po- sitions held by psychologists does not resolve the confusion. We find psychologists in hospitals and community mental health centers, in advertising and industry, in government and the military, and in universities. Whereas the diversity of modern psychology is a source of bewilderment, psy- chology’s range of study is justifiably broad. As a formal, independent discipline stud- ied and taught in universities, psychology has been in existence for only a century. From Chapter 1 of History and Systems of Psychology, Sixth Edition. James F. Brennan. Copyright © 2003 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 1  Introduction: Past for Present However, we should recognize that people have been “psychologizing” since they first began to wonder about themselves. The long history of theories and models of psy- chology slowly evolved, mostly within philosophy, until the nineteenth century, when the methodological spirit of science was applied to the study of psychology and the formal discipline of psychology appeared in Western intellectual institutions. The emergence of psychology as a formal discipline takes us to the problem of science. Generally, science is defined as the systematic acquisition of knowledge. However, from a more narrow perspective, the acquisition of knowledge is limited to observations validated by our senses. That is, we must see, hear, touch, taste, or smell events to confirm their existence as scientific data. This type of science is called empiricism, and its most controlled application is called the experimental method, in which variables are manipulated and measured. Over a century ago this more narrow, empirical definition of science linked up with a nineteenth-century model of what psychology should study to form the discipline of psychology. Yet neither at that time nor during the last hundred years did that form of psychology win universal acceptance. Some scholars argued for a different model of psychology, a broader definition of science, or both. Thus, psychology’s long past, coupled with more recent differences of opinion about the form that the discipline of psychology should take, resulted in the heterogeneous discipline we study today. Although the variety of opinions about psychology can be confusing, it can also be a source of excitement. Psychology is a young, unsettled, and often unwieldy discipline that has a highly stimulating subject matter to investigate—human activ- ity. The purpose of studying psychology’s history is to help remove the confusion caused by the diversity of psychology. By using this diversity as a resource rather than a hindrance, our understanding of psychology’s development makes contempo- rary psychology richer for us. There are other reasons to study the history of psy- chology. Knowledge of the past, per se, is certainly worthwhile and beneficial in providing perspectives. Furthermore, the study of psychology’s history may help il- luminate some of the questions that have concerned scholars through the ages. However, the most pressing reason to study the history of psychology may be to un- derstand the basis of its present diversity. APPROACHES TO HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION In their examination of the past, historians have proposed structures, or models, within which events may be categorized, correlated, and explained. For example, the preeminent historian of psychology E. G. Boring (1950) contrasted the great man and Zeitgeist models as they applied to the history of psychology. Expressed suc- cinctly, the great man view holds that historical progress occurs through the actions of great persons who are able to synthesize events and by their own efforts change the path of those events toward some innovation. The Zeitgeist, or “spirit of the times,” model argues that events by themselves have a momentum that permits the right person at the right time to express an innovation. Accordingly, Martin Luther 2  Introduction: Past for Present (1483–1545), in nailing his theses condemning corruption in the Church to the church door at Wittenberg in 1517, may be viewed either as a formidable figure start- ing the Reformation or as the agent of Reformation forces already at work. A variant of the Zeitgeist view for the history of science, proposed by Kuhn (1970), suggests that social and cultural forces develop paradigms, or models, of sci- ence at various stages and that scientific work is conducted within a given paradigm for a limited period until the paradigm is replaced. The change in paradigms is a by- product of both the cultural needs of the age and the inability of the old paradigm to accommodate new scientific findings. Accordingly, Kuhn presents scientific progress as a cyclic process. Within a given scientific paradigm that is accepted by a consen- sus of scientists, an anomaly arises that cannot be explained or accommodated by the paradigm. A crisis is generated, and new theories compete to replace the inadequate paradigm. Finally, a single view gains the commitment and allegiance of a group of scientists who implement a scientific revolution, and a new paradigm is accepted. When an anomaly again arises, the cycle is repeated. Thus, Kuhn proposed a relativ- ity in the understanding of theories, facts, and observations that is sensitive to the implicit assumptions of scientists. Watson (1971) has proposed another manner of structuring the historical progress of science. Watson offered prescriptions, or dimensions for classifying psy- chological issues, by examining and describing the relationship between scientific findings and the prevailing cultural forces of a given age. Essentially, Watson’s strat- egy evaluated a number of possible underlying assumptions and consequent implica- tions of theoretical positions. This approach is useful as an evaluative tool to compare the issues and implications for various theoretical positions within psychology. Interpretations and explanations of historical events certainly help us bring order to the history of psychology. As we examine psychology’s past and its contem- porary state, we shall refer to the various interpretations of scientific history to un- derstand the meaning of specific intellectual movements. However, this text may be best described as eclectic in orientation. As its author, I am not a historian, but rather a psychologist writing of the historical antecedents of my discipline in the clearest way I can, without any commitment or allegiance to a particular interpretation of historical events. EASTERN TRADITIONS IN PSYCHOLOGY As noted previously, psychology, as it emerged as a formal discipline of study in nineteenth-century Europe, was the product of an intellectual tradition that viewed human experience through a particular set of assumptions. The very conceptualiza- tion of psychology as we know it today was formed, nurtured, structured, and argued over during the 2,500 years of turbulent intellectual progress that have elapsed since the flowering of classical Greek thought. Psychology’s reliance on Western intellec- tual thought must be appreciated, and this relationship justifies limiting the focus of this text to Western traditions. 3  Introduction: Past for Present Whereas the long intellectual tie between contemporary empirical psychology and Western thought is apparent, it is also important to recognize that non-Western philosophies have given considerable attention to the nature of the person and the in- ternal world of individual reflection. So, before proceeding with our story, it is ap- propriate to pause briefly to review some of the alternative approaches to the subject matter of psychology, articulated through a variety of intellectual works in religion and especially in Eastern philosophies. These non-Western sources of psychology’s past often brought new achievements to Western intellectual progress or resulted in the rediscovery of ancient writings preserved by Eastern scholars. For example, al- gebra, usually attributed to ancient Indian philosophers, was first used in the West by ancient Greeks of the fourth century before Christ (B.C.), but was lost during the Middle Ages. Western Europe recovered it as a result of contacts with Islamic cul- ture during the Crusades. Arab scholars had preserved algebra, and through them its methodology and very name were reintroduced to the West (al-jbr means “to reunite separate or broken parts”). As we begin the study of psychology’s past, starting with ancient Greek thought, keep in mind the broader perspective—namely, that intellectual achieve- ments were occurring simultaneously in other cultures and traditions. For the most part, these events were parallel developments with little interaction, but in some cases these advances enriched Western traditions. The Crossroads: Persia and the Middle East The Crusades, which are described within their historical context, produced many benefits to Western intellectual progress, especially in providing contacts beyond the intellectual limits of western European thought of that period. Indeed, it was the scholarship of Muslim and Jewish teachers in Islamic territories that had preserved the essential body of ancient Greek writings and extended their interpreta- tions in philosophy, science, and medicine. Islamic scholars were able to extend ear- lier intellectual achievements because of their contacts with Eastern civilizations, so that Eastern thought was transmitted from its origins to centers of intellectual achievement in the Arab world, and consequently to western Europe. In much the same way as her Arab neighbors, Persia served as a conduit be- tween East and West. Occupying roughly the territory of present-day Iran and the immediately surrounding area, the ancient Persians were an Indo-European tribe that came into contact with India to the east, Russia and the Slavic tribes to the north, and Arabia and the Middle East to the west. Led by great kings such as Cyrus (reigned 550–529 B.C.) and Darius (reigned 521–486 B.C.), ancient Persia grew in territory and power. However, when Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) defeated Darius III (reigned 336–330 B.C.) at Arbela, resulting in the latter’s death, Persia became a province of Macedonia. Wheras Persia lost its empire, ancient Greece increased its contacts with the East—to the ultimate benefit of Greek intellectual life. The central religious philosophy of ancient Persia was named after the priest and prophet Zarathustra (reigned ca. 628–551 B.C.), also known by the Greek name Zoroaster. Legend has it that he was born of the spirit of the supreme god, Ahura- 4  Introduction: Past for Present Mazda, the Lord of Life. Zarathustra personified goodness, love, wisdom, and beauty, but was severely tempted by the devil to do evil. As a reward for his virtue, God gave him the Avesta, a book of knowledge and wisdom, which formed the basis of Zarathustran teaching. The Avesta, or what survives of it, is a collection of prayers, legends, poetry, and laws that describes the struggle between the god of good and the devil. Earthly existence is a transition in this conflict between good and evil, and it will last for 12,000 years. The virtues of purity and honesty will lead to everlasting life. Because they are targets of evil in life, the bodies of the dead must not be burned or buried, but rather left to birds of prey or thrown to the dogs and re- turned rapidly to nature. The supreme god, Ahura-Mazda, created and ruled the world and was assisted by lesser gods; Zarathustra taught that Ahura-Mazda had seven aspects for people to emulate or strive for: light, good mind or wisdom, right, dominion, well-being, piety, and immortality. As part of this earthly conflict, individuals were engaged in a struggle between good and evil, and had the free will to choose between them. This psychology led to a code of ethics and values that stressed honesty and piety. The major sin in this code was unbelief, which was dealt with swiftly. The moral code was enforced by the priests, called magi (from the Persian word for “sorcerer”) because of their reputa- tion for wisdom, who were also practitioners of Persian medicine. As in pre- Renaissance Europe, religion and medicine were mixed in their service to the masses by the priestly class. The legacy of Zarathustran philosophy and religion was far-reaching. The con- flict between good and evil found expression in the works of the ancient Greek philosophers. The emphasis on one god was paralleled in Judaism, and there may have been other Zarathustran influences on Hebrew thought. Even the Christmas visit of the Magi and the birth of the boy-god have precedents in Zarathustran tradi- tion. Occupying the bridge between the Hindu society of India and the Arabic and Greek societies of the Middle East, Persia had an influential and rich position and imposed an imprint on the mix of ideas. India As the birthplace of Buddha, the historical home of the Hindus and the meta- physical Upanishads, the target of repeated Muslim invasion, and the object of colo- nial exploitation by several European powers, India is a storehouse of deep intellectual variation. As a subcontinent filled with polyglot tribes, often clashing yet more often living in mutual tolerance, India’s material and human resources have at- tracted outsiders throughout history. Western interest in India goes back a consider- able time in recent history. Marco Polo visited India in the thirteenth century, and was followed 200 years later by a Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama. Columbus was seeking India when he discovered the Americas in 1492. In succession, the Dutch, French, and British established power bases and colonial economies in India. Hindu Science and Philosophy. Much of the knowledge of ancient India comes from the Vedas, the Book of Knowledge. The Vedas are a collection of lessons, hymns, 5  Introduction: Past for Present poetry, and prose that were compiled from oral recitations. The Rig-veda is perhaps most famous as a literary achievement, involving many hymns and poems praising various objects of worship, such as the sun, moon, wind, dawn, and fire. But the Upanishads are of interest to us because they represent the collected wisdom of Hindu scholars who thought about the person’s relation to the world. An early expres- sion of Hindu pantheistic philosophy, the Upanishads are a collection of over 1,000 discourses authored by various scholars. Written between 800 and 500 B.C., these teachings sought to describe individual relations to the universe. The Upanishads are important because several predominant themes in them reflect the unique character of Indian philosophy. Distrust of the intellect and sensory knowledge is a dominant theme, as is the search for self-control, unity, and universal knowledge. The process of attaining these goals involves shedding knowledge, participation, and even aware- ness of the particular and ephemeral. We are not body or mind or both; rather, we are an impersonal, neuter, and pervading reality. Within the lessons of the Upanishads are themes of special metaphysical knowledge that secure for us a release from the bonds of the particular and material. The Upanishads focus on methods of spiritual tran- scendence. Transmigration of a person’s essence is viewed as punishment for evil liv- ing, and eventual release from successive reincarnations is the way in which we transcend these bonds. By eliminating individual desires through ascetic living, we can escape from our individualism and be reabsorbed into a whole unity of Being. The goals expressed in the Upanishads lead to a psychology that is quite oppo- site to the basic philosophical tenets of Western psychology. Whereas the latter rec- ognizes the individual asserting himself or herself as a process of successful development and adaptation—indeed, much of Western psychology actually de- scribes and predicts ways to facilitate this individuation—the Upanishads propose the opposite. The mystical, impersonal, and unified themes of the Upanishads reveal a harmony that can be achieved by rejecting individual expression. These themes pervade Hindu and Buddhist thought and provide a striking contrast for understand- ing some of the basic differences between Indian and Western thought. The Hindu philosophies have important implications for psychology. First, the individual is characteristically a part of a greater and more desirable unity. Individual growth, then, is away from individuality and toward an emergence into the bliss of universal knowledge. Second, the assertion of individuality is seen not as meaningful in itself, but rather as an activity to be minimized and avoided. Sensory and mental events are unreliable. Indeed, truth lies in transcending sensory and mental activities and voiding consciousness. Finally, the emphasis on humanism and the centrality of the individual self, expressed in some Western views of psychology, is out of syn- chrony with the major themes of Indian philosophy. According to the basic Hindu conceptualization, the integrity of the individual person is questionable, because the individual occupies an insignificant place relative to the entire, harmonious com- plexity that is the cosmos. Buddhism. Although Buddhism spread to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, it originated with the Indian philosopher and teacher Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563–483 B.C.)—Buddha. Indeed, Buddhism served as a vehicle for exporting many 6  Introduction: Past for Present Indian products besides philosophy. Buddhist missionaries introduced the decimal system to China, and the mathematical bases of Chinese astronomy came to China with Buddhism. Like the Sophists of ancient Greece, Buddha traveled from town to town speaking to crowds of people who had heard of his reputation as “the enlightened one.” His doctrine was assembled as threads (sutras) to jog a person’s memory. Buddha taught a theology that bordered on the godless. He did not condemn the regular worship of the gods, but taught that some rituals were foolish. The pain and sorrow that pervade human experience overwhelmingly impressed Buddha. He found no order in the confusion of life, but rather some good and much evil, precluding any design by a knowing and personal deity. At best, Buddha taught a type of agnosticism, so that his religion became a prescription for virtuous living detailed by simple rules of deportment leading to a sense of subjective well-being. Within this philosophy of religion, Buddha taught in a somewhat contradictory manner about the individual. In contrast to the Hindu traditions, but consistent with some expressions of modern Western psychology, Buddha dismissed the notion of a soul or mind as being merely a human invention needed to accommodate some un- explained aspects of experience. Sensory input is our only source of knowledge. The perceived unity of personality, according to Buddha, is caused by a succession of habits and memories. As individuals, we are not free to will our fate, but rather we are governed by the determinism of habit, heredity, and environmental events. The individual personality does not survive death. Buddha’s psychology sounds almost behavioristic and materialistic, similar to some twentieth-century expressions of psychology. Yet Buddha also accepted reincar- nation and transmigration as unquestioned premises to his system. If there is no soul, what transmigrates? As far as we know, Buddha did not directly address this contra- diction, but some resolution is provided in his belief in the goal of subjective well- being and the heritage of Hindu thought. A possible answer is that if we strive, through ascetic self-discipline and careful training, to attain the happiness of annihi- lating individual consciousness, then we begin to participate in the experience of the Spirit, which lies at our very essence. The spirit is that aspect of us that moves beyond individuality. Our separate beings are simply passing manifestations of little worth, and the study of psychological individualism is rather absurd, according to this view. For psychology, as for other sciences, Indian achievement is not only signifi- cant, but also truly refreshing in the way that it conceptualizes human experience. The dominant theme of Hindu philosophy is to lose the individual, and this is the very an- tithesis of Western psychology. Even in Buddhism, where a psychological level is ad- mitted, psychology is relegated to second-class status. Thus, Indian philosophy leaves little room for psychology in the Western sense of a discipline of scientific inquiry. China The Chinese have considered their country the “Middle Kingdom” between heaven and the rest of the earthly barbarians. Indeed, the emperor who first unified the nation, Shih Huang-ti (reigned 221–210 B.C.), started the Great Wall to keep out 7  Introduction: Past for Present foreigners or barbarians. Within 10 years it extended 1,500 miles along China’s bor- ders. China’s feudal age ended some 300 years before the birth of Christ, and litera- ture, philosophy, and the arts flourished. Paper was manufactured as early as A.D. 100; books were commonly printed with block prints by the ninth century; A.D. 200 was the year of publication of the first Chinese encyclopedia. By 1041 the Chinese printer Pi Sheng made movable type of earthenware, and in 1611 the first known use of gunpowder in a war was recorded. When Marco Polo first arrived in China about 1270 to witness the absorption of yet another invading horde (this time those led by Kublai Khan), China’s social and political system had operated on a national scale for almost 1,500 years. This brief list of ancient China’s achievements provides a glimpse of the depth and wealth of Chinese civilization. Despite China’s historical efforts to hoard and protect its achievements, Chinese culture became the dominant force in the Far East, spreading its influence throughout Asia. The West is a new- comer to culture and civilization when compared to China. Early Philosophies. One of the earliest recorded works in Chinese literature is the metaphysical Book of Changes, the I-Ching. Written around 1120 B.C. and tradi- tionally ascribed to Wen Wang, the book contains mystical trigrams that identify the laws and elements of nature. Each trigram consists of three lines. Some lines are continuous and represent the male principle of yang, indicating positive direction, activity, and productivity, and providing heavenly symbols of light, heat, and life. Other lines are broken and represent the female principle of yin, indicating negative direction and passivity, and providing earthly symbols of darkness, cold, and death. Wen Wang complicated the puzzling trigrams by doubling the strokes and increasing the yang and yin line combinations. Each arrangement signified some corresponding law. All history, wisdom, and reality lay in the combinations. Confucius placed it above all other writings. He is said to have wished for an additional 50 years to study the I-Ching further. This book is important because of the imprint that it left on sub- sequent Chinese philosophy. The “good life” taught in the I-Ching is a utopia, which is obtained through the keys to reality contained in the puzzles of the I-Ching. It un- derscores the uncertainty of theology and the relativity of morals. Thus, Chinese phi- losophy de-emphasized the search for absolute truth and universal principles and tended toward the practical. Perhaps the greatest of the pre-Confucian philosophers was Lao-tze (604–531 B.C.), who wrote the Book of the Ways and of Virtue, Tao-Te-Ching, the most impor- tant work of Taoist philosophy. This system, literally meaning “the way” in the sense of a path to wise living, rejects intellectual enterprise in favor of a simple life that is close to nature. Lao-tze called for living in harmony with the laws and order of na- ture, and de-emphasized intellectual knowledge as a set of tricks or arguments de- signed to confuse people. The proper way of living is to find the laws of nature with which our lives must be harmonized. The person seeking Tao must begin the quest for wisdom with silence: “He who must speak about the way, does not know it.” While denying the certitude of the intellect and stressing the relativity of knowledge, the Taoists did not offer an alternative, realistic prescription for the problems of liv- ing in society. A return to nature, if universally followed, would lead to the massive 8  Introduction: Past for Present vulnerability of an entire people to forces that are part of nature—the aggression, poverty, and ignorance present in the “simple” life. Taoism and its idyllic versions throughout history have usually provoked a reaction, and in China the reaction came from one of the most influential philosophers in history—Confucius (551–479 B.C.). Confucius. Legend has clouded the circumstances of Confucius’ birth, sug- gesting that he was an illegitimate descendant of the legendary emperor Huang Ti (2697–2597 B.C.). At age 22, Confucius began his teaching, attracting groups of students, who lived with him. A lover of music, he taught his students only three subjects: poetry, history, and rules of propriety of deportment. His reputation for wisdom and honesty spread widely. He was made a government leader and held several posts. He became famous for reforms and the honesty of his admin- istration. However, jealous factions succeeded in getting Confucius dismissed when he disapproved of his royal superior’s licentious behavior and argued that a ruler must be a model of proper behavior for his subjects. For the next 13 years, Confucius and his students wandered the countryside as homeless pilgrims living off meager donations. Finally, following a change in leadership, Confucius was exonerated and given a pension to live out his last 5 years in peace, surrounded only by his students. Confucius’ major thoughts were collected in nine volumes. The first five books deal with the laws of propriety, a commentary on the I-Ching, a book of odes describing the principles of morality, a history of his own state, and a legendary history of China. These pedagogical works are interesting for their selection of lessons from history to demonstrate principles of virtue, wisdom, and perfection. The last four books, mainly assembled by his students after Confucius’ death, contain his philosophical treatises. Although he did not deny the existence of God, Confucius can probably be de- scribed as an agnostic. Confucius’ moral teachings are based upon the individual’s commitment to sincerity, honesty, and personal harmony. From the person’s desire for goodness, the family structure can be nurtured. For Confucius, the family is the critical social unit supporting the individual as well as the broader, more complex so- ciety. Thus, social constellations are formed by loyalties based upon respect from people who are, in turn, pledged to conform to rules of proper conduct. Confucianism is not a comprehensive philosophy. Rather, it consists of a series of practical teachings directed toward morals and politics. The ideal person is trust- worthy, loyal, sincere, and intellectually curious, but reserved and thoughtful. Confucianism is a rather conservative outlook intended to preserve the unity of life, which will easily slip into chaos without such cautions. The history of China has been marked by cycles of chaos and order, and Confucianism seems to respond to these cycles by providing rules for people to live together successfully. The teachings of Confucius defined the future course of Chinese political and intellectual life. As a practical philosophy applied to the everyday problems of indi- vidual morality and social interaction, Confucian philosophy led to a conservatism that has supported Chinese society through periods of severe havoc. The emphasis on the family, characterized by loyalty within prescribed relationships, provided the basic framework for political, educational, military, and economic institutions. As in 9  Introduction: Past for Present the moral codes coming from Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam, psychology was absorbed in the teachings of moral deportment, and deviations from the rules were considered abnormal. Later Philosophies. Following the death of Confucius, alternative philosoph- ical systems were proposed, but in the end Confucianism triumphed. Examples of the various reactions to Confucius include Mo Ti (ca. 450 B.C.), known as a philoso- pher of universal love, who rejected Confucianism as impractical. Alternatively, he tried to develop a logical proof for the existence of spirits and ghosts. As the solution to social evil, Mo Ti advocated universal love, which would bring about a utopia, and his teachings became the basis for Chinese pacifism. In contrast to Mo Ti, the philosopher Yang Chu (ca. 390 B.C.) developed a theory based upon the denial of God and afterlife, leaving people helplessly subjected to natural fates. According to Yang Chu, in life the good suffer as well as the wicked, and the latter seem to have more fun. Complaining of the extreme positions of both Mo Ti and Yang Chu, Mencius (370–283 B.C.) presented a more moderate view and achieved a fame that was second only to that of Confucius. Mencius was interested in establishing a social order that allowed people to pursue the good life. In the practical vein of Confucius, he taught about benevolent leadership and individual goodness. These goals were to become social norms. Finally, another thinker, Chuang-tze (ca. 350 B.C.), came full circle to Lao-tze and the Tao by advocating a return to nature and a society without need for government. These reactions only underscored the primacy of the teachings of Confucius, who struck the proper chord of the applied and functional approach when he detailed his prescriptions for living. Chinese history did not produce a scientific age like that of post-Renaissance Europe. Important scientific advances were made throughout Chinese civilization, yet science itself never became the dominant ideal for intellectual activity, as it did in nineteenth-century Europe. Rather, Chinese philosophy—especially Confucianism— seems to characterize better the major themes of Chinese thought and concerns. Issues of religion, morals, and politics were intermixed, and they influenced all intel- lectual concerns, including psychology. Superstition and skepticism, ancestor wor- ship, social tolerance, goodness, and pantheism all provided dominant themes of Chinese thought and literature. The place of psychology within this framework is certainly obscure. As a mat- ter of practical consequence, psychology is limited to the extent of conformity or nonconformity with the moral code accepted by society. Fulfilling the prescribed codes of moral conduct became an important form of socialization. The codes them- selves were imposed and accepted, with no further consideration given to individual expression or growth. On a more idealistic plane, psychological issues were inte- grated within the goals of such virtues as goodness and honesty. The themes of Chinese philosophy on the unity of the person as part of the family, society, the na- tion, and the cosmos all precluded the need for a psychology to study only one as- pect of what the West considered a unified experience. The remainder of the story is told from a predominantly Western perspective in terms of psychology’s emergence as an intellectual trend within the mosaic of Western 10  Introduction: Past for Present civilization. The purpose of this brief and selected survey of the historical traditions of Asian psychology is to underscore the rich heritage from other civilizations for psy- chology as well as for any intellectual exercise seeking to understand human experi- ence. Recognizing such recurring themes as unity, universal harmony, reflective knowledge, and virtuous living, we find psychology deeply embedded in the teachings of religion and moral philosophy. Thus, as we begin a more focused historical journey, we should be mindful of other rich traditions that readily accommodate the subject matter of psychology within alternative perspectives. A NOTE ON RESOURCES At the end of this chapter bibliographic materials are listed, usually under two cat- egories: primary sources and studies. The primary sources include the writings of scholars discussed in the chapter. Citation references and dates are given for avail- able publications. The studies list resource works or general commentaries on the period considered in the chapter. The research works cited reflect the exciting scholarly interest generated in the history of psychology in recent years. As a spe- cialization, the study of the history and systems of psychology is a relatively re- cent development. Probably because of psychology’s youth relative to other disciplines, the systematic study of its history was largely ignored before World War II. Several important and still interesting scholarly works, however, examined the history of psychology during the prewar period. The first was the erudite History of Psychology by G. S. Brett, published in three volumes between 1912 and 1921. Also in 1912, an anthology of excerpts of the psychological writings of scholars from Greek antiquity to the nineteenth century was published by B. Rand under the title The Classical Psychologists. In 1929, two Americans, W. B. Pillsbury and E. G. Boring, published books on the history of psychology. Of the two, Edwin Boring (1886–1968) became something of an institution and a spokesman for the history of psychology. His work A History of Experimental Psychology, published in 1929 and revised in 1950, became a classic reference for the study of the history of psychology. Since World War II, the history and systems of psychology have evolved into a recognized field of specialized study. In 1966, the Graduate School at Loyola University Chicago awarded a PhD to Antos Rancurello, late professor of psychol- ogy at the University of Dayton, for the first discursive dissertation in psychology on a historical topic—a study of Franz Brentano. Subsequently, doctoral specialization in the history of psychology was offered in comprehensive programs at the University of New Hampshire and Carleton University. In 1966, the American Psychological Association established a division of the History of Psychology (Division 26); this was followed in 1969 by the formation of Cheiron: International Society for the History of the Behavioral and Social Sciences. The Archives of the History of American Psychology were started at the University of Akron in 1965. Most importantly, the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences began publi- cation in 1965 and continues to publish scholarly research of an interdisciplinary 11  Introduction: Past for Present scope. All of these developments have stimulated research in the antecedents of modern psychology. The bibliographic listings after the chapter are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather to represent the range of scholarship available to the reader who wishes to pursue the subject matter further. In addition, the bibliographic material following this chapter presents some of the major classic and recent works in the history of psychology as general reference material. BIBLIOGRAPHY General Resources BERRY, J., POORTINGA, Y., SEGALL, M., & DASEN, P. (1992). Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. BORING, E. G. (1942). Sensation and perception in the history of experimental psychology. New York: Appleton-Century. BORING, E. G. (1950). A history of experimental psychology (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. BORING, E. G., LANGFELD, H. S., WERNER, H., & YERKES, R. (Eds.) (1952). A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 4). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. BORING, E. G., & LINDZEY, G. (Eds.) (1967). A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 5). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. COPLESTON, F. (1982). Religion and the one: Philosophies East and West. New York: Crossroad. DENNIS, W. (1948). Readings in the history of psychology. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts. DIAMOND, S. (1974). The roots of psychology. New York: Basic Books. DREVER, J. (1960). Sourcebook in psychology. New York: Philosophical Library. DURANT, W. (1954). Our Oriental heritage. New York: Simon & Schuster. GERGEN, K. J., GULERCE, A., LOCK, A., & MISRA, G. (1996). Psychological science in cul- tural context. American Psychologist, 51, 496–503. HAYASHI, T. (1994). Indian mathematics. In I. Gratton-Guiness (Ed.), Companion encyclope- dia of the history and philosophy of mathematical sciences (Vol. 1). London: Routledge, 118–130. HEARNSHAW, L. S. (1987). The shaping of modern psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. HEIDBREDER, E. (1963; orig. 1933). Seven psychologies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. HENLE, M., JAYNES, J., & SULLIVAN, J. (1973). Historical conceptions of psychology. New York: Springer. HERRNSTEIN, R. J., & BORING, E. G. (1965). A source book in the history of psychology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. LINDZEY, G. (Ed.) (1974). A history of psychology in autobiography (Vol. 6). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. 12  Introduction: Past for Present MADSEN, K. B. (1988). A history of psychology in metascientific perspective. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishing Co. MARX, M. H., & CRONAN-HILLIX, W. A. (1987). Systems and theories in psychology (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. MURCHISON, C. (Ed.) (1930–1936). A history of psychology in autobiography (Vols. 1, 2, 3). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press. NAKAYAMA, S., & SIVIN, N. (Eds.) (1973). Chinese science: Exploration of an ancient tradi- tion. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. NEEDHAM, J. (1970). Clerks and craftsmen in China and the West. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ORLEANS, L. A. (Ed.) (1980). Science in contemporary China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. PETERS, R. S. (Ed.) (1962). Brett’s history of psychology (Rev. ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ROBACK, A. A. (1964; orig. 1952). History of American psychology (Rev. ed.). New York: Collier. ROBINSON, D. N. (1981). An intellectual history of psychology (Rev. ed.). New York: Macmillan. SAHAKIAN, W. S. (1968). History of psychology: A source book in systematic psychology. Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock. SINGER, C. J. (1959). A short history of scientific ideas to 1900. Oxford: Clarendon Press. SPEARMAN, C. (1937). Psychology down the ages (2 vols.). New York: Macmillan. WERTHEIMER, M. (1979). A brief history of psychology (Rev. ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Approaches to the History of Psychology BORING, E. G. (1955). Dual role of the Zeitgeist in scientific creativity. Scientific Monthly, 80, 101–106. BROZEK, J. (1969). History of psychology: Diversity of approaches and uses. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 31, Serial II, 115–127. BURGER, T. (1978). Droysen and the idea of Verstehen. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 14, 6–19. BUSS, A. R. (1977). In defense of a critical-presentist historiography: The fact-theory rela- tionship and Marx’s epistemology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 13, 252–260. BUSS, A. R. (1978). The structure of psychological revolutions. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 14, 57–64. COAN, R. W. (1978). Toward a psychological interpretation of psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 9, 313–327. FLANAGAN, O. J. (1981). Psychology, progress, and the problem of reflexology: A study in the epistemological foundations of psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 17, 375–386. HELSON, H. (1972). What can we learn from the history of psychology? Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 8, 115–119. 13  Introduction: Past for Present HILGARD, E. R. (1982). Robert I. Watson and the founding of Division 26 of the American Psychological Association. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 18, 308–311. JAYNES, J. (1969). Edwin Garrigues Boring (1886–1968). Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 5, 99–112. KANTOR, J. R. (1963, 1969). The scientific evolution of psychology (Vols. 1 & 2). Chicago: Principia Press. KUHN, T. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MACKENZIE, B. D., & MACKENZIE, S. L. (1974). The case for a revised systematic approach to the history of psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 14, 324–347. MANICAS, P. T., & SECORD, P. F. (1983). Implications for psychology of the new philosophy of science. American Psychologist, 38, 399–413. MAYR, E. (1994). The advance of science and scientific revolutions. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 30, 328–334. ROSS, B. (1982). Robert I. Watson and the founding of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 18, 312–316. ROSS, D. (1969). The “Zeitgeist” and American psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 5, 256–262. SHAPERE, D. (1976). Critique of the paradigm concept. In M. H. Marx & F. E. Goodson (Eds.), Theories in contemporary psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. STOCKING, G. W. (1965). On the limits of “presentism” and “historicism” in the historiogra- phy of the behavioral sciences. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 1, 211–217. TURNER, M. (1967). Philosophy and the science of behavior. New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts. WATSON, R. I. (1971). Prescriptions as operative in the history of psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 7, 311–322. WATSON, R. I. (1974). Eminent contributors to psychology, Vol. I: A bibliography of primary references. New York: Springer. WATSON, R. I. (1976). Eminent contributors to psychology, Vol. II: A bibliography of sec- ondary references. New York: Springer. WETTERSEN, J. R. (1975). The historiography of scientific psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 11, 157–171. 14  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece From Chapter 2 of History and Systems of Psychology, Sixth Edition. James F. Brennan. Copyright © 2003 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. 15  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece Early Explanations of Psychological Activity Naturalistic Orientation Biological Orientation Mathematical Orientation Eclectic Orientation Humanistic Orientation The Crowning of Greek Philosophy Plato Aristotle Chapter Summary The common cliché holds that “history repeats itself.” However, we may be closer to the truth if we assert that historical events are like snowflakes: Supposedly, no two snowflakes are exactly the same, although they may be similar. As we begin our so- journ through psychology’s long past with the contribution of Greek thinkers, it may be appropriate to apply the analogy of snowflakes to historical events. We may be amazed at the similarities in the questions that human beings have asked about themselves—and at the similarities of their answers. However, we should also recog- nize that civilization has made some progress in the last 25 centuries; we will not have to close the book on psychology after simply reviewing Greek thought. Although both the formulations and the solutions of critical psychological issues in ancient and modern times are often strikingly similar, they are not identical. Since the advent of human intelligence and understanding, people have thought about themselves with wonder. Why do we behave as we do? Why are we able to generate reasonable explanations of some actions but not of others? Why do we have moods? Why do we seem to know that we know? In the course of human ex- perience, people have come up with answers for such questions, and usually their ex- planations have suggested some cause. For example, we run away because we are afraid. Or we cry because we are sad. The nature of these causal explanations has changed over time. The nineteenth-century French philosopher Auguste Comte char- acterized these causal explanations as a progression of intellectual stages. The most primitive level was labeled “theological,” because people suggested that a god was 16  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece the causal agent responsible for changes in themselves and in nature. Indeed, many ancient societies invented gods with tremendous power. The ancient Egyptians had a whole catalogue of gods ranging from the sun to house cats. Such spirits were used to explain human behavior, and people who wished to change themselves were best advised to pray or offer sacrifice to the relevant god. Moreover, changes in nature, such as volcanic eruptions or storms, were said to be a reflection of the displeasure of gods over some human activity. The theological stage confined people’s explana- tions of themselves and their world to spiritual causes. We should note here that Comte viewed the Greek thinkers as a transition be- tween a theological stage and a later stage that focused on nature, or the environment, and the generalization of principles from natural laws. Prior to the flowering of Greek thought, the relationship between human beings and the environment was governed by a view that may be described as primitive animism; that is, early conceptualizations of life held that a spirit or ghostlike entity inhabits the body and makes the body alive and conscious. During sleep the ghost leaves temporarily, to return upon awakening, and at death the ghost permanently leaves the body. All psychological activities, including sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, are propelled by the ghost. A similar explanation was proposed for other aspects of nature that seemed to live or have move- ment, such as plants, animals, lightning, and rivers, so that the distinction between the animate and inanimate in nature was often blurred and ambiguous. Accordingly, a clear separation between the individual and the environment was not evident in the early study of human psychology. EARLY EXPLANATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL ACTIVITY Many historians regard the birth of science in Western civilization as occurring when the Greeks became the first thinkers to shift the focus of causal explanations from god to nature, or to the environment. The early Greeks articulated their explanations of critical psychological issues along several categories, as diagrammed in Figure 1. Essentially, all five categories, or orientations, attempted to discover causal explana- tions of human activity by means of natural first principles, or at least analogies drawn from nature. The orientations differed in the emphasis they gave to various as- pects of the environment, both internal and external to humans. Each orientation is presented in the following sections in rough chronology. FIGURE 1 The major categories, or orientations, of early Greek explanations of human activity. Orientations of Early Greek Explanations Naturalistic Biological Mathematical Eclectic Humanistic 17  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece Naturalistic Orientation All expressions of this interpretation looked to the physical environment, ex- ternal to people, for causes of life-giving principles. The earliest, and perhaps clear- est, expression of the naturalistic orientation is found in a group called the Ionian physicists, who lived in the sixth century B.C. The Ionian Federation of ancient Greece provided the setting for early advances in philosophy and science, which began predominantly in the city of Miletus. These philosophers taught that life and physical matter are inseparable, so that people are intimately involved in the universe. Therefore, the determining physical principle from which all life flows had to be found in the universe. Thales (ca. 640–546 B.C.) is widely recognized as an early sage of ancient Greece because of his introduction of mathematics and astronomy to Greek study. This pushed ancient Greek culture toward a commitment to science. According to Thales, water is the first element because it is intrinsic to all life. In reducing all of nature to water, Thales was stressing the unity of nature. Matter and life are insepa- rable because water is the origin of all nature as well as its final form. Thales ex- pressed a monism that found the life-giving element water sufficient to explain all forms of nature, regardless of particular manifestations in time and place. Another Ionian physicist, Anaximander (ca. 610–546 B.C.), advanced his teacher Thales’s views of the universe by suggesting that the earth is a cylinder sus- pended in the center of the universe with the sun, moon, and stars revolving around it. Anaximander argued that it is the “boundless” space of the universe that contains the basic elements of nature. This boundless mass develops by its own amorphous forces the varied manifestations of nature. A student of Anaximander, Anaximenes (sixth century B.C.), speculated that the air around us, which he called pneuma, is this life-giving cause of nature. All three Ionian physicists represented a naturalistic orientation insofar as they searched for a first causal principle of life and found it in the physical world. Such a strategy was a radical departure from seeking explana- tions among the gods. Another expression of the naturalistic orientation is derived from Democritus (ca. 460–362 B.C.), who traveled widely through the known world, supported by his father’s generosity. For Democritus, our knowledge relies on our senses, which in turn receive “atoms” from objects in the world. Thus, the critical explanations of life are found in the atoms composing matter. Moreover, Democritus argued that the quantity of matter is always constant, leading to proposals for both the indestructibil- ity of matter and its conservation. Atoms differ in size, weight, and configuration, but the relationships among atoms are completely governed by natural laws and not left to chance or spontaneity. Humans and animals consist of atoms that are the most sophisticated and mobile. Accordingly, Democritus saw in the materialism, or physi- cal properties, of the world’s atoms the basic explanatory principle of life. Perhaps the most famous city of the Ionian Federation of ancient Greece was Ephesus, which developed into a rich center of trade and high culture. There Heraclitus (ca. 530–? B.C.) proposed a view of human activity consistent with the naturalistic orientation. Specifically, he searched for a single unifying principle or 18  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece substance that could explain the nature of change and permanence in the world. His solution was fire, for both its physical properties and its symbolic value. Heraclitus felt that change is the most obvious fact of nature, and the physical properties of fire cause noticeable changes in other physical objects. Moreover, fire symbolizes the flux in nature. Thus in fire Heraclitus found a unifying substance in nature that serves as a basis for life. The final representative of the naturalistic orientation, Parmenides of Elea (sixth century B.C.), attacked the problem of change using a rather different tactic than Heraclitus. Parmenides argued that changes in the world and all motion are su- perficial observations and distortions of our senses. Rather, the basic fact of nature is its permanence and immobility, which bring unity and form the basis of life. Accordingly, although Parmenides also based his solution to the question of the fun- damental principle of life on matter, it was the unchanging character of matter that comprised the critical element. Thus the naturalistic orientation viewed the environment as holding the key to the basis of life. Within this orientation, two clear trends are evident. First, there is an observational trend, represented by the Ionian physicists and Democritus, which pro- posed specific substances operating in our environment as the basis of life. Second, there is the view of Heraclitus and Parmenides, who hypothesized about the charac- ter of change and then deduced (to opposite conclusions) some implications about matter based on their hypotheses. Although the observational and the hypothetical deductive trends differ in their manner of dealing with the environment, both offered solutions to the character of life by examining the laws of nature and generalizing those laws to the causes of human activity. Biological Orientation As philosophers within the naturalistic orientation looked to the external envi- ronment in their search for the basis of life, philosophers with a biological orienta- tion emphasized the internal state and physiology of humans as holding the clue to life. Alcmaeon (fifth century B.C.) has been called the father of Greek medicine and is recorded as the first to use animal dissection and to discuss the optic nerve as well as the eustachian tubes. More germane to our purposes, he recognized the im- portance of the brain and clearly distinguished between sensory perceiving and thinking. He wrote that the causal determinants of human activity lie within the mechanisms of the body. The body seeks an equilibrium of its mechanisms, and this process explains the dynamics of human activity. One of the more important advances in Greek philosophy and science was the separation of the practice of medicine from religion. This separation was personified in Hippocrates the physician (ca. 460–377 B.C.), who not only raised the level of medical investigation but also developed a code of ethics contained in the Hippocratic oath, followed by physicians to this day. Hippocrates, like Alcmaeon, emphasized the brain in psychological processes, and he approached the problems of medicine systematically, with what could be called a precursor of the scientific 19  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece method. Relative to our concerns about psychological issues, Hippocrates con- tributed a theory of “humors” to account for the basis of human activity. He taught that the body contains four humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Borrowing the concept of equilibrium from his predecessors, Hippocrates argued that perfect health is a result of the proportionate mixture of these humors. The dom- inance of any of the humors results in characteristic indisposition. Interestingly, this theory outlasted Greek antiquity, even up to the nineteenth century, and our language still contains the phrase “bad humor” to describe someone who is not feeling well. Nevertheless, Hippocrates should be remembered for his positive efforts to free medicine from the superstitions that have historically plagued it. The final representative of the biological orientation to consider is Empedocles (ca. 500–430 B.C.), a brilliant, eccentric, and eclectic physician whose interests and skills gained him fame as an orator, engineer, and poet. His psychology held that sensations are the product of particles from stimuli falling upon the “pores” of the sense organs. Thus, sensations have a time course, and their quality and intensity can be measured. He postulated that change develops from the conflicting forces of love and strife—that is, between attraction and repulsion. Moreover, human activity is in- timately bound up in nature by means of an evolutionary process wherein change serves to differentiate aspects of the universe, followed by an amalgamation back to an indistinguishable mass. Thus, love and strife result in processes of development and decay. For human activity the focus of life is in the heart, which produces the dynamics of change. The biological orientation tended to elevate the position of humans above the rest of nature by emphasizing the formulation of basic principles needed to account for human activity. In this sense, the biological orientation separated the uniqueness of human activity from the rest of natural relationships, in contrast to the naturalistic orientation, which emphasized human activity as a manifestation of the natural order. These early philosophers confined their explanations to primarily physiologi- cal means, and we will see how later developments made this solution inadequate. Mathematical Orientation Both the naturalistic and the biological approaches based their formulations of first principles firmly on the material of either the environment or the body. In con- trast, the mathematical orientation attempted to extrapolate from the material level to a general principle for all life. By proposing a generalization not actually represented in the physical world but nevertheless used to explain physical reality, this orienta- tion used the ordered beauty of mathematical structures to assert the unity of the world. Perhaps the most famous mathematician of ancient Greece was Pythagoras (ca. 582–500 B.C.), who left a rich legacy to the modern world. After developing his mathematical system, familiar to us through Pythagorean theorems of geometry, Pythagoras examined the basis of life. He taught that we know the world through our sense impressions, but that this world is distorted and artificial. However, a second, more permanent reality exists in underlying relationships, essentially mathematical 20  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece in nature, that are not available to the senses and must be discovered through intu- itive reasoning. This second world of defined relationships explains all of reality by providing the essential unity of nature. Pythagoras further proposed the existence of an immortal entity as the life-giving principle. This life-giving element has functions of feeling, intuition, and reasoning, the first residing in the heart and the latter two in the brain. Both human and animal souls have feeling and intuition, but only humans have reasoning. Perhaps as the result of his exposure to Near Eastern mysticism in his wide travels, Pythagoras taught that at death the soul goes to Hades for cleansing and then returns to this life in a series of transmigrations that ends only at the com- pletion of a life of definite goodness. Pythagoras founded a society of believers who continued adherence to his teaching for three centuries after his death. His influence as a mathematician and philosopher remains important to this day. Although Pythagoras himself was by far the outstanding figure of this orienta- tion, another person worth mentioning is Hippocrates the mathematician (ca. 500–450 B.C.). He wrote the first known book on geometry in 440 B.C., and Euclid was his most famous student. He is remembered as a systematist who reinforced the Pythagorean faith in the unity of numbers as the basis of life. The mathematical orientation is interesting because it represents an approach to the problem of life’s first principles that goes beyond the physical level. Although both the naturalistic and the biological orientations lent themselves to generaliza- tions, they were firmly based in the physical world. The mathematical orientation tended to downgrade that world, and our knowledge of it, as untrustworthy. In its place it offered a different realm of mathematical relations, one we cannot know through our senses. However, by using our ability to reason we can arrive at some knowledge of this real but elusive world. Variations on this theme, stressing the unre- liability of the senses and the need to extrapolate truth by our reasoning processes, will recur consistently throughout the history of psychology. Thus, the mathematical orientation gave us a de-emphasis on matter, or the material of the physical world, and an emphasis on a supposed overreaching form or structure of relationships. Eclectic Orientation Whereas the Pythagoreans built a system for explaining life based upon the ul- timate nonphysical unity of mathematical relationships, a type of reaction occurred that was opposed even to the goal of trying to find any first principles. A group called the Sophists championed this approach, which we are calling eclectic because of its modest and practical directions. The Sophists of ancient Greece were learned men who went from place to place giving lectures and imparting wisdom to eager audi- ences able to afford it. In this sense, they constituted a mobile university of sorts by reaching larger groups than could be accommodated by the more traditional one-to- one arrangement of master and student. However, some Sophists became greedy and commercial in this enterprise, overcharging their constituents and causing the great philosopher Plato to ridicule them as pseudointellectuals. Plato’s criticism has left the Sophists with a rather negative image that has masked some of the positive inher- itance from this movement. 21  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece The best known of these wandering scholars, Protagoras (ca. 481–411 B.C.), admitted the value of sensory information as a guide to the pursuit of knowledge. However, he denied the value of making generalizations or extrapolating beyond the physical. The first principles of absolute generalization—that is, truth, goodness, and beauty—do not exist in themselves, and we only know of such concepts to the extent that they are embodied in people. This hypothesis has two far-reaching implications. First, the denial of first principles suggests that a search for the basis of life must be confined to the investigation of life as it operates in living beings. Such an opera- tional attitude dictates that the study of living creatures is an end or goal in itself, and not simply a means to the end product of trying to find generalized, transcendent first principles. The second implication is that we must be constantly wary of assertions that generalize beyond what we observe. That is, we must be skeptical. Another Sophist, Gorgias (ca. 485–380 B.C.), carried Protagoras’s teaching further. His book On Nature stated the extreme position that nothing exists except what the senses perceive and that even if something did exist we could not know it or describe it to another person. Thus, Gorgias took Protagoras’s assertion concerning the use of sense information from a guide to knowledge to the declaration that sense information is the only source of knowledge. Indeed, sense information and knowl- edge are synonymous descriptions of all we can know of life. This view was pursued further by Antiphon of Athens (ca. 480–411 B.C.), who elaborated on the value of sensory data and the limitations of knowledge. The eclectic orientation was opposed to the pursuits of the naturalistic, biolog- ical, and mathematical strategies. According to the Sophists, a person’s knowledge depends on that person’s background of experience, thus precluding the possibility of objective truth. By denying first principles generalized from reality, they proposed a limited goal for seeking knowledge of life. Further, their reliance on sensory infor- mation stressed the importance of working on an operational level: If one wants to know about life, one should study life as it is presented to us by people living in the world. Coupled with the reinforcement of skepticism, this operational spirit resulted in a type of scientific method that cautioned against speculation beyond observable reality. Humanistic Orientation The choice of the description “humanistic” to label this orientation is meant to convey its goal of seeking out explanations of life by distinguishing people from the rest of life. In this sense, a humanistic approach places humanity on a higher plane than other life and emphasizes those characteristics that are considered to make hu- mans unique, such as reason, language, and self-reflection. The first person who explicitly held this orientation is Anaxagoras (488?–428 B.C.), who speculated on the origin and development of the world. He argued that the world was initially unordered chaos. Then a world-mind, or nous, brought order to the chaos and differentiated the world into four basic elements—fire, water, air, and earth. Like his Ionian predecessors, Anaxagoras taught that the world gradually 22  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece evolved from these four elements. However, the addition of the knowing nous pro- vides a new dimension. In postulating a mind to oversee the world’s development, Anaxagoras attributed rationality and intentionality to this systematic agent of progress. Moreover, this nous permeates all life and forms a common basis that defines life itself. Anaxagoras attributed individual differences among people to bio- logically based variability. The essential nature of all people is commonly deter- mined by the nous. The great philosopher Socrates (470–399 B.C.) represents the full expression of the humanistic orientation and began a clear tradition that was developed further by Plato and Aristotle. Socrates derived inspiration from conflicting views of life. He held the conviction that a general conception of life is necessary. Moreover, it is the essential uniqueness of the individual that provides the key to understanding life. In opposition to the Sophists, he taught that without transcendent principles, morals would be debased and human progress would cease. Using what we now call the Socratic method, he first defined a critical issue at a general level, then ceaselessly questioned the adequacy of the definition, and finally moved logically to a clearer statement of the question to approach the resolution. Thus, he argued that the univer- sality of knowledge allows a reasonable person to ascertain objective truth and make moral judgments. The philosophical substance of the teachings of Socrates is diffi- cult to specify because he was not dogmatic and taught that his only certainty was his own ignorance. As a youth, Socrates studied the physical sciences, but he became increasingly skeptical, believing that resolving the facts and relations of the observ- able environment led only to new puzzles. He turned toward the individual, focusing at first on the psychological processes of sensation and perception. This led him to the conclusion that the acquisition of knowledge is the ultimate good. His turning from the physical level resulted in an emphasis on the role of the self and its rela- tionship to reality. The uniqueness of the individual was expressed in his insistence on the immortality of the life-giving soul that defines a person’s humanity. Socrates’ teachings on politics and morals offended many Athenians, resulting in his forced suicide. However, he succeeded in establishing a clear direction for the pursuit of life’s explanation. From Socrates we have a focus on people and their place in nature, a view that was articulated by his students and successors. For Socrates and his successors, the study of human activity, whether through psychology or philosophy, must focus ultimately on ethics and politics. Moreover, logic must provide the method by which we gain knowledge of ourselves. Knowledge itself is inherently good because it leads to happiness, and ignorance is evil. Thus proper knowledge leads the individual to the proper action. The outline of the five orientations provides us with a rich variety of strategies in the search for the basis of life. The naturalistic and biological views relied on physical explanations, whereas the Pythagoreans of the mathematical orientation as- serted a basic unity to life from relationships that transcend physical expressions of life. Although the Sophists denied the possibility of this transcendence, their opera- tional spirit and skepticism offered a methodological advance. However, it is 23  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece Socrates who culminated this development with a novel view, placing the humanity of people at the center of a system that holds general and absolute truth as a goal. This humanistic interpretation of life has profound implications for the study of peo- ple, and it is to the psychological views of Plato and Aristotle that we now turn to ex- amine the elaboration of the concept of soul. THE CROWNING OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY Plato and Aristotle continued in the framework articulated by Socrates. Essentially, they tried to achieve a comprehensive framework of human knowledge designed to account for all of the following features found in human personality: 1. The intellectual abilities of unity, autonomy, consistency, and creativity 2. The behavioral manifestations of variability, contingency, and stereotypy 3. The purposeful or determined aspects of human activity The teachings of Plato and Aristotle attained far-reaching influence throughout the ancient world. Through the military conquests of Alexander the Great, which are shown in Map 1, Greek philosophy and culture became part of many civilizations and formed an intellectual basis for subsequent philosophical developments. Plato Plato (427–347 B.C.) carried on the concept of his teacher, Socrates, by formu- lating the first clearly defined concept of immaterial existence. Plato’s theory of Ideas, or Forms, held that the realm of immaterial, self-existent, and eternal entities comprises the perfect prototypes for all earthly, imperfect objects. The earthly ob- jects are imperfect reflections of the perfect ideas or forms. Translating this theory to human activity, Plato asserted a psychophysical, mind–body dualism. In other words, human activity is composed of two entities: mind and body. Only the rational soul, or mind, can contemplate true knowledge, whereas the lesser part of the body is limited to the imperfect contributions of sensations. Born into an old and established Athenian family and named Aristocles, Plato received his nickname from the Greek word platon, or “broad,” which described his rugged athletic build. As a child and young man he excelled in mathematics, music, rhetoric, and poetry, and he fought in three battles, earning recognition for bravery. Around the age of 20 he came under the influence of Socrates, which led to a pro- found change in his life. Upon the death of his mentor, Plato traveled widely, study- ing mathematics and history at various centers of the ancient world. After his adventures he settled in Athens and opened his academy, which became the intellec- tual center of Greece. The study of mathematics was central to Plato’s teachings. Indeed, the portal of his academy contained the admonition, “Let no one without geometry enter here.” Plato valued mathematics as the tool to develop logical thinking, and he worked on the systematization of mathematical knowledge. Moreover, he applied mathematics to the study of astronomy, leaving us a valuable methodological contribution. 24  MAP 1. THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND HIS ROUTE OF CONQUEST. The shaded area shows the farthest extent of Alexander’s con- quests, from Macedonia to India. The major regions of ancient Greece—Thrace, Macedonia, Greece proper, and Ionia—are indicated, as are the important Greek cities. In addition, the Greek colonial settlements in Italy, Byzantium, and Egyptian Alexandria are shown, along with the ancient cultural centers of Babylon, Tyre, and Jerusalem. 25  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece Plato’s teachings on psychological issues were far-reaching and elaborate. First, he viewed the interaction between people and their environment as a critical factor in understanding human activity. According to Plato, we deal with the envi- ronment through our senses, and this body-dependent type of knowledge forms one aspect of his mind–body dualism. However, this bodily level of sensory knowledge is primitive, distorted, and unreliable. Thus he rejected the Sophists’ doctrine of the value of sense knowledge, arguing instead that the influx of sen- sory data gives us a percept, which he defined as a unit of information about the environment and subject to much flux. Percepts are inadequate in themselves for reliable and complete knowledge, but they give rise to “ideas.” Ideas are stable generalizations based on percepts but not reliant on them. In Book VII of The Republic, Plato has his philosopher–hero Socrates tell the famous story of the cave in which prisoners are kept in darkness. Their only knowledge of the world is de- rived indirectly from the distorted images of physical events reflected off the wall of the cave by the flickering light of a fire. According to Plato, it is the philoso- pher’s goal to go beyond the dark world of sense information to the clear brilliance of the sunlight of the outside world. Moreover, it is the philosopher’s duty to go back to the cave in order to illuminate the minds of those imprisoned in the “dark- ness” of sensory knowledge. The agent that forms and stores ideas is the soul. Plato described the soul as a spiritual substance consisting of reason and appetite. The soul has both rational and irrational parts, the former centered in the head and the latter in the body. The moti- vational principle of the soul is desire, which Plato described as the first condition of the soul. The activities of the soul are twofold: Pure intellect is the higher activity and provides intuitive knowledge and understanding; opinion is formed through bodily interactions with the environment, which give rise to belief and conjecture. The study and content of science and philosophy consist of ideas, not specific concrete things or objects, according to Plato. Ideas are the sole reality, and all else that we experience through our senses are faint representations of ideas. The soul, or mind, is the mobilizing force in people, as it is part of the mobilizing force of all things, having the properties of vitality, immortality, and spirituality. Plato believed that the soul existed before the body and that it brings knowledge with it from previ- ous incarnations, so that innate ideas of the mind are actually residual knowledge from the previous lives of individuals. The good life, according to Plato, is the ap- propriate mixture of reason and pleasure, and the supreme good is derived from pure knowledge of eternal forms of universal laws. Plato’s contrast between sensory knowledge and rational knowledge reconciled the opposing conclusions of the natu- ralists Heraclitus and Parmenides regarding change in the world. Plato’s view of sense knowledge accommodates Heraclitus’ position on flux, whereas Parmenides’ assertion about changeless unity also found support in Plato’s notion of rational knowledge. Several important implications for psychology may be drawn from Plato’s de- scription of soul and body. First, he relegated bodily functions to the negative state of unreliability and base functions. In this sense, the body is like a prison that interferes 26  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece with the higher, more truly human functions of the soul. Second, Plato continued the tradition of Socrates with his view of the soul as containing all activities that sepa- rate humans from the rest of nature. Plato distinguished among a hierarchy of types of souls: nutritive, sensitive, and rational. At its highest level the processes of the human soul permit the formation of ideas in the intellect, leading to rational thought. Thus, the soul provides the order, symmetry, and beauty of human existence. Plato’s conception of human beings presents a clear statement of mind–body dualism. At a physical level, there is motion in the world, eliciting sensations. Then, at an intellec- tual level, there is the formation of ideas that parallel, but go beyond, physical mo- tion and allow abstractions from nature. Ideas do not rely on the physical level, and they become intellectually autonomous. Plato applied his theory of the soul to politics and morals. Of interest to us is that these applications were marked by his basic distrust of human nature. Perhaps if people were pure souls, his predictions about government and society would have been more positive. However, he viewed the body as essentially evil, and believed that social structures must be built to protect people from themselves. Aristotle As a student of Plato for over 20 years, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) fully appreci- ated Plato’s mind–body dualism and his emphasis on the pure knowledge of the soul. Moreover, Aristotle brought to the study of Plato’s teachings a recognition of the di- versity and the dynamics of nature. Aristotle tried to understand the relationship be- tween the abstract Idea, or Form, and the world of matter. His vast knowledge, especially of biology, facilitated his study, and the end product of Aristotle’s search for knowledge was perhaps the most comprehensive and complete philosophy ever devised. Basic to Aristotle’s view of life and the world was his belief that the world is ordered for some purpose or grand design and that all expressions of life are likewise propelled to develop according to some purpose. Aristotle was born in Stagira, a small coastal settlement along the Aegean Sea in the region called Chalcidice bordering both Thrace and Macedonia. He journeyed to Athens, where he quickly established himself as a brilliant student of Plato. After Plato died, Aristotle went to Asia Minor and eventually served as the tutor of young Alexander the Great for 4 years. Probably with support from Alexander, Aristotle opened a school in Athens for the study of philosophy and rhetoric. Although he ac- cepted the essential structure of Plato’s system, Aristotle had vast knowledge of the physical world and attempted to incorporate that knowledge into the Platonic sys- tem. The end product of Aristotle’s work was the categorization and systematization of all nature. In the process he dropped most of the pessimism of Plato’s views on human nature. Unfortunately, most of Aristotle’s writings have come down to us in rather fragmentary form. He wrote approximately 27 dialogues, or books, but the origi- nal editions were destroyed in the repeated barbarian attacks and sacking of Rome, so that we have only dim reflections and notes on the original works and must rely 27  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece on Arabic translations. The scope of Aristotle’s treatises may be appreciated by categorizing his books under six general headings. The actual names of the books are those commonly titled in collected works or anthologies of Aristotle’s writings: 1. Logic: Categories, Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophist Reasonings 2. Science a. Natural Science: Physics, Mechanics, Meteorology, On the Heavens b. Biology: History of Animals, Parts of Animals, Locomotion of Animals, Reproduction of Animals c. Psychology: De Anima (On the Soul), Little Essays on Nature 3. Metaphysics 4. Esthetics: Rhetoric, Poetics 5. Ethics: Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics 6. Politics: Politics, The Constitution of Athens For our purposes in the history of psychology, it is appropriate to consider Aristotle’s comprehensive system in terms of his views on logic and his books Physics, Metaphysics, and De Anima. The core of Aristotle’s methodological approach is found in his discourses on logic, which attempted to analyze the thought inherent in language. Aristotle’s use of logic consisted of defining an object, constructing a proposition about the object, and then testing the proposition by an act of reasoning called a syllogism. This process may be seen in the following syllogism: White reflects light. Snow is white. Therefore, snow reflects light. The two processes in logic are deductions and inductions. Deductions begin with a general proposition and proceed to a particular truth; inductions start with a particu- lar and conclude with a general statement. Aristotle’s use of logic provided a system- atic, common structure to his goal of accumulating all knowledge, and logic has provided an essential criterion for valid methodologies in science ever since. Specifically, the essential procedure in empirical science involves both deductive and inductive elements. The process of sampling a particular group or individual that is representative of a population involves a deduction from general characteristics of the population to specific expressions of those characteristics in individual or group samples. After describing samples, the process of inferring the descriptions back to the population from which the samples were drawn constitutes an inductive process. Finally, generalizing the conclusions about populations to all members of the popu- lation again involves deduction. Aristotle’s specification of the rules of deduction and induction remains the guideline for strategies of empirical science. Probably as the result of what he learned from his physician father, as well as from his own extensive travels, Aristotle had a wide-ranging appreciation of the natural world. His Physics defined the science of nature, and he provided an 28  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece intricate system for cataloguing and categorizing the physical world. In so doing, he established general principles that govern and characterize the animate and inanimate parts of our environment. The structure of botanical and zoological classifications into genus and species have essentially been retained in the form taught by Aristotle. His views on the physical world evolved only after meticulous observation, and because of the clarity of his methodology, many scholars have attributed the foundation of science to Aristotle. Indeed, it is difficult to overem- phasize the legacy of Aristotle’s organization of scientific knowledge. He set the stage for all further developments in scientific inquiry by specifying the premises and assumptions that defined disciplinary study, and his legacy has remained largely functional up to the present. Although his specific observations on the physical sciences and biology contained many errors, Aristotle consistently tried to find the purpose or the design of nature. He examined the behavioral functions of animal biology in terms of such activities as movement, sensation, reproduc- tion, and defense to determine how these behaviors fit into the survival and prop- agation of the individual and the species. Metaphysics, meaning literally “after the physics,” is the branch of philosophy that seeks the first principles of nature. Metaphysics may be divided into the study of the origins and development of the world (cosmology), the study of being (ontol- ogy), and the study of knowing (epistemology). Aristotle gave metaphysics its fullest expression and devoted considerable energy to this enterprise, which began with the search for the first principles and causes of life by the Ionian physicists. In his metaphysics, Aristotle distinguished among four types of causality: 1. Material cause—that out of which something is made. For example, the mate- rial cause of a table might be wood or plastic. 2. Formal cause—that which distinguishes a thing from all other things. The formal cause of a table is that it usually has four legs and a top positioned in a certain relationship. 3. Efficient cause—that by whose action something is done or made. The effi- cient cause of a table is the carpenter who constructed it. 4. Final cause—that on account of which something is done or made. The final cause of the table is the desire of someone to have a piece of furniture on which to place objects. Using the four types of causality, Aristotle investigated the nature of being to find ex- planations of reality. He taught that all beings have two basic entities: primary matter and substantial form. The former is the basic material that composes all objects in the world; it is the essence of all things. The latter gives primary matter its existence. Thus, in the world there are no accidents of creation, no mutations. The direction of development is determined by the form or structure of each object governed by the urges of causality. For example, during gestation the embryo is propelled toward growth in specific ways determined by the form of the species. In Aristotle, then, we have the culmination of the Greek search for the first principles, because Aristotle’s metaphysical principles explain the physical world around us. 29  Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece In addition to explaining the physical world, Aristotle’s metaphysical teachings construct a picture of the nonphysical, spiritual part of the universe—the soul. Aristotle’s treatise on the soul, De Anima, contains the major pronouncements of his psychology, which defined the subject matter of psychology until the Renaissance study of science. Like Plato, Aristotle postulated a dualism of body and soul. The body receives information at a primitive sensory level through touch, taste, smell, hearing, and vision. The body gives existence to the essence of each person—the soul. However, because the soul is the life-giving element of all living existence, Aristotle proposed a hierarchical gradation of souls—vegetative, animal, and ratio- nal. The vegetative soul is shared commonly with all forms of life and is nutritive in the sense of providing for self-nourishment and growth; the animal soul is shared by all animals and allows for sensation and simple forms of intelligence; the rational soul is shared among all people and is immortal. All intellectual powers are con- tained in the rational soul, and in addition, the rational soul has a will, or volition. All movement originates in the soul, producing imagination, reason, and creativity. Moreover, self-reflection and the will result in purposive activity for humans, deter- mining the specific direction of individual human activity. Aristotle’s detailed views on psychology focused on the relationship between body and soul. He stated that the emotions of anger, courage, and desire, as well as the sensations, are functions of the soul, but they can act only through the body. By asserting the critical importance of the biological foundations of life to a true under- standing of psychology, Aristotle justified a physiological psychology. Moreover, he viewed ideas as formed through a mechanism of association. Specifically, sensations elicit motion in the soul, and motion grows in strength with increasing repetition. Accordingly, reliable repetitions of sensations establish internal patterns of events, and memory is the recall of series of these patterns. Aristotle distinguished between memory and recollection in a manner that parallels the contemporary distinction be- tween short- and long-term memory. He also related the properties of physical events to the structure of human knowing by postulating 10 categories that allow their classi- fication, comparison, location, and judgment. Aristotle’s 10 categories are basically derived from the rational powers of the soul to classify our knowledge of ourselves and the environment. The categories may be summarized briefly as follows: 1. Substance is the universal category that essentially distinguishes an object to be what it is—for example, a man, woman, cat, flower, chemical, mineral. 2. Quantity is the category of order of the parts of a substance and may be dis- crete or continuous. Discrete quantities are numerical, such as 5, 20, or 40; continuous quantities may be parts of a surface or a solid, such as line, square, or circle. 3. Quality is an important psychological category because it portrays the abilities or functions of a substance. Aristotle discussed habit and disposition as quali- ties of the mind. A habit is a firmly established mental disposition that may be positive—such as justice, virtue, or scientific knowledge—or negative—such as erroneous knowledge or the vice of dishonesty. Quality in the human sub- stance also refers to the capacity to operate or function—such as thinking, 30  Psychological Foundations in