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Before Wundt
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About the lecture
In this lecture, we think about Wilhelm Wundt as the founder of psychology as a science in 1879, focusing in particular on: (i) the prehistory to this, including the use of the term ‘psychology’ by David Hartley to describe a theory of the human mind in 1749, and the widespread discussion of psychology topics in ancient civilisations across the globe; (ii) a long-standing debate called the mind-body problem, which aims to conclude on whether the mind and the body are distinct; (iii) Descartes, introduced as an early thinker on the concept of consciousness, distinguishing animals from humans based on their perceived lack of consciousness; (iv) one of Descartes’s theories, centred around the human mind being immaterial, leaving the unanswered question of how it interacts with the body; (v) the philosophical concept of materialism as a contrasting theory, proposing that the mind and the body are the same, advocated by Thomas Hobbes; (vi) the idea of empiricism, proposed by John Locke as a method of collecting data and forming theories in scientific practice.
Glossary:
Mind-Body Dualism – In the philosophy of mind, mind-body dualism denotes either that mental processes are non-physical, or that the mind and body are distinct.
Materialism – A form of philosophical monism which considers matter to be the fundamental substance in nature. Therefore, all things, including mental states and consciousness, are the result of material interactions.
About the lecturer
Mr Ian Fairholm is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath. One of his research areas of interest is the history of psychology and the issues, debates and approaches that surround the subject. Some of Mr Fairholm’s recent publications include 'Looking back: Freud, the libido and oxytocin' (2014) and 'Issues, debates and approaches in psychology' (2012).
Hi there.
00:00:06I'm in for home and I'm a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath.
00:00:07My main research area and interests are in the history of psychology,
00:00:13which is relevant because this lecture series is about the history of psychology.
00:00:17As a science,
00:00:23I'm gonna be talking to you over a
00:00:25series of lectures about how psychology has developed.
00:00:27Uh,
00:00:31and today we're gonna mainly be focusing in
00:00:31this particular segment on the sort of philosophical
00:00:33and historical basis for psychology as a science.
00:00:38So although psychology was officially founded as
00:00:42a science by William Beaumont in 18 79
00:00:45as the science of mind and consciousness,
00:00:50there's obviously quite a lot of prehistory to that.
00:00:54Uh,
00:00:57so one of the key things to say about the
00:00:58history of psychology is that it wasn't that they'll have
00:01:01one day in 18 79 got out of bed and thought, I'm gonna make psychology of science.
00:01:04Uh, in fact, psychology does not exist within a vacuum.
00:01:09So although we know that the word psychology was
00:01:14used before the announcement created psychology as a science,
00:01:17it's difficult to pinpoint exactly when it was used.
00:01:22For the first time But we do know, for example,
00:01:25that in 17 49 the doctor and philosopher David Hartley used
00:01:28the word psychology to describe the theory of the human mind.
00:01:33But even then, most people were not using the word psychology in that way.
00:01:38it wasn't really until the 18 hundreds that people started to talk about
00:01:41psychology as being a study or a theory of the human mind.
00:01:45In fact, it's also worth saying that, of course,
00:01:51even though psychology didn't really begin until 18 79 that didn't mean that
00:01:54people weren't talking about or weren't interested
00:01:59in topics of psychology before then.
00:02:02So, for example, that we know by looking at historical records,
00:02:05that there's evidence of people
00:02:09discussing psychological topics and psychological
00:02:11issues and debating psychological issues going back to ancient times.
00:02:13So, for example,
00:02:18in ancient Greece and ancient Egypt and also in China and India and Persia,
00:02:19we have records of people discussing psychological topics.
00:02:25They were talking about things like free will and whether or not we have free will,
00:02:28whether or not we are who we are because of our choices or because
00:02:32of maybe our parents influence or environment or genetics and so on and so forth
00:02:37and also people in these cultures.
00:02:44We're talking about things like personality, uh,
00:02:46and intelligence and mental illness
00:02:49and leadership and relationships, uh, and love and so on and so forth,
00:02:51all the kind of psychological topics that we discuss now within the subject.
00:02:56So it's not to say that because psychology didn't
00:03:01really start as a science until the 19th century,
00:03:04the psychology topics weren't around.
00:03:06And in fact,
00:03:07we know that psychology topics are discussed by various people for many centuries.
00:03:08One topic that's particularly relevant to talk about now
00:03:14is a topic called the Mind Body Problem.
00:03:17Now the mind body problem is a kind of long running debate about
00:03:21whether or not the mind and the body or the same thing,
00:03:26or whether they are separate and distinct.
00:03:29So, for example,
00:03:32some people argue that the mind is a separate and distinct entity.
00:03:33That is something that exists outside of the body,
00:03:38and therefore it's possible for a mind to exist before a human being is born.
00:03:41And also it's possible for that mind to exist after a person dies.
00:03:45Other people argue that the body and the mind
00:03:49are the same thing that they are not distinct.
00:03:53Therefore, the mind is simply a product of the body.
00:03:56Throughout history,
00:04:01lots of different people have proposed different ideas about the role of the
00:04:02mind and body and also how they interact and relate to each other.
00:04:05One of the people we're going to talk about next is a
00:04:10French philosopher and scientist by the name of rainy day cart.
00:04:13Now, really, they can't was interested in the mind and the body,
00:04:18and he was addressing studying those two things.
00:04:22And one of the things he noted about human
00:04:25beings is that although human beings were obviously conscious,
00:04:28they showed intention and will, uh, and they could cause things to happen
00:04:30that some of the things that human beings did appear to be reflexive or reflexes.
00:04:35So, for example,
00:04:41the knee jerk response. You may be aware that if someone were to tap your knee
00:04:42that your knee would would involuntary flex, there'll be a reflex, Uh,
00:04:47and they can't notice that there are whole ranges of
00:04:52behaviours that human beings did that we're not conscious.
00:04:54They were not driven by will or an intention.
00:04:58But in fact they happened automatically
00:05:00Another thing that delicate noticed was that animals, on the other hand,
00:05:03didn't appear to be conscious as he saw it, they didn't have language.
00:05:07Now some of this is based on the
00:05:11historical and religious contextual factors of the time.
00:05:13But nevertheless, basically delicate believes
00:05:17that human beings and animals were different.
00:05:19Animals are basically they can't saw it. Biological machines.
00:05:22They simply react to things in their environment in a reflexive way.
00:05:26But they don't have consciousness.
00:05:29Human beings, on the other hand,
00:05:32are distinct and again this is partly based on a religious basis.
00:05:33But he believed that human beings were
00:05:37distinct because they had something separate.
00:05:39They had a soul or consciousness or mind.
00:05:41So they got basically believed that there is something that
00:05:46human beings have that is distinct from what animals have
00:05:49and that is the mind.
00:05:52And they can't believe that that was something that
00:05:54was separate and distinct from the physical body,
00:05:56therefore, that it was material
00:05:59it was separate from. It was not part of the human body
00:06:02and therefore also
00:06:05that it wasn't therefore subject to the normal laws of science
00:06:07so difficult was very influential in that he identified
00:06:12the psyche or the soul, the features that make human beings,
00:06:16human beings that give his will and intention and high level thinking and language,
00:06:20and so on and so forth.
00:06:24But he argued that the mind element was immaterial
00:06:26and therefore couldn't be studied in a scientific fashion.
00:06:32Now,
00:06:36although they can't talk about these two things being
00:06:37different and this is normally referred to as dualism,
00:06:40specifically in dark arts context,
00:06:43it's called Cartesian Dualism is named after him,
00:06:46in which he argues that the mind and the body are distinct and separate.
00:06:49They can't is also an interaction ist,
00:06:54and by that he was aware that the mind and the body interact.
00:06:56So, for example, if he wanted to move his arm,
00:07:01as I'm just doing now like that, he was doing that by will by intention.
00:07:05So he knew that the mind could interact with the body by causing the body to do things.
00:07:10But we also know that there was a two way interaction as well.
00:07:15So, for example, if he was feeling hungry, if he hadn't eaten for a while,
00:07:18his body would produce hunger pangs,
00:07:23and those hunger pans were caused a car to go off and raid the fridge, for example.
00:07:25So basically they can't knew that there was
00:07:31an interaction between the mind and the body.
00:07:33So basically he believed that they were separate and distinct,
00:07:35but nevertheless there was an interaction.
00:07:38Now, if the mind is in material but the body is physical,
00:07:41then that implies that somewhere there must be a
00:07:44route or sort of a linking point between the mind
00:07:46and the body.
00:07:51Now, Deke ARNDT was struggling to try and work out where the interaction took place.
00:07:52But he eventually thought that he identified it a
00:07:56point in the brain called the pineal gland.
00:07:59Pineal gland is a tiny organ at the top
00:08:02of the brain step and difficult thought because it
00:08:05was right in the middle of the brain that
00:08:07perhaps that was the linking point between the mind
00:08:09and the body.
00:08:12However,
00:08:14one of the big problems with DesCartes theory
00:08:15is that issue of the mind being immaterial.
00:08:18How can an immaterial mind
00:08:21interact with the physical body?
00:08:23To be honest, they didn't really know couldn't really explain that.
00:08:25And that is one of the big problems with his theory. He identifies an immaterial mind
00:08:29and physical body and even a connection point between the two,
00:08:33but doesn't indicate how it's possible for an
00:08:36immaterial mind to interact with the physical body.
00:08:39The other problem is
00:08:42with the carts theory.
00:08:44In terms of psychology,
00:08:45being a science is that he basically argues that the human mind
00:08:46is not something that can be studied using the methods of science.
00:08:50Because the mind is not material,
00:08:53it's not subject to the normal physical laws of the universe.
00:08:55That means that ultimately, although you can identify
00:08:58the psych part of psychology, you can't study it scientifically.
00:09:01And therefore, this is a problem if you want psychology to be science.
00:09:06Fortunately,
00:09:10there are different ways of thinking about the
00:09:11relationship between the mind and the body,
00:09:12and one of those
00:09:14is called materialism.
00:09:15Materialism is a different approach,
00:09:18which suggests that instead of the mind and the body being separate,
00:09:20materialism proposes that the mind and body, in fact the same.
00:09:24The idea would be that the mind is actually
00:09:27simply a byproduct of physical processes in the brain.
00:09:30And one of the key advocates for this approach in the 17th century and at the same
00:09:35time that a car was working was an English philosopher by the name of Thomas Hobbes.
00:09:40Now Thomas Hobbes specifically proposes that if you want to study the mind,
00:09:45you can do that because the mind is basically the
00:09:49byproducts of physical processes in the brain and the body.
00:09:52And therefore materialism is a step forward based on dualism,
00:09:56because it enables the scientific study of the
00:09:59mind by studying the brain and the body,
00:10:02now another leading figure around this time also working in the era of philosophy.
00:10:06It was a philosopher,
00:10:11John Locke, another English philosopher,
00:10:12and John Locke was also influential because he proposed the
00:10:14idea that the mind is not as they can't suggested,
00:10:18uh, unable to be studied or unable to be applied the rules of the physical universe.
00:10:23John Locke argued that the mind was part of the physical universe,
00:10:29just as everything else is.
00:10:33So, just as Hobbs had pointed out,
00:10:35that it's possible that the mind is the byproduct of the
00:10:37body and therefore can be studied in a material way.
00:10:39John Locke also argued against a carts point that basically you couldn't study
00:10:42the mind because it wasn't subject to the physical laws of the universe.
00:10:48John Locke proposed that it was
00:10:51another key difference between John Locke and a cart
00:10:54is how they went about collecting information and studying things
00:10:57so they can't focus on the idea that to study the world,
00:11:01you couldn't rely on your sensory data because he was quite right.
00:11:05In identifying the fact that our sensory systems can fall us,
00:11:09we can be fooled by illusions.
00:11:13We can make mistakes and so on and so forth so they
00:11:14can't argued that instead of using our sensors to collect data,
00:11:17what we should do is we should reason.
00:11:20We should think we should apply logic. We should think through things,
00:11:22and things would come to light that way.
00:11:26The problem with that is that although the decor is
00:11:29quite correct that we can be fooled by sensory data,
00:11:32we can also make mistakes in our mind.
00:11:35Our reasoning can be flawed. We can make erroneous judgments.
00:11:37Memories are quite fragile and quite easily distorted,
00:11:42and therefore, reasoning and thinking and rationalisation.
00:11:46That delicate talked about wasn't necessarily the best
00:11:49way to discover truths about the world.
00:11:52Now John Locke, by comparison,
00:11:54proposed that although there were issues
00:11:56with collecting data using sensory means.
00:11:58He proposed an idea called empiricism.
00:12:00Empiricism says that we can and should be striving to
00:12:02collect data from the real world using our senses.
00:12:06And yes, we can be fooled.
00:12:09But if we collect that data in a sensible way, in an appropriate way,
00:12:11in an objective way,
00:12:16and that means that other people can look at that same
00:12:17data and if we make an error or if we're full,
00:12:20then other people will be able to look at that data and verify it or maybe question it.
00:12:23So John Locke argues that we can basically collect data from the outside world.
00:12:28We can use that to create hypotheses about the world.
00:12:33We can then collect more data to test those hypotheses.
00:12:36We can then build theories and so on and so on and so forth.
00:12:39So by continually collecting data,
00:12:42we are able to form the basis for hypotheses to carry out experiments,
00:12:44build theories and then revise those theories as we collect more data.
00:12:49So what we can see is that during the 17th century, rainy day can't made
00:12:54psychology a thing by focusing on the mind,
00:12:59but unfortunately they cars approach is
00:13:02difficult to reconcile with science because
00:13:05it's difficult to study the mind using scientific principles if it's immaterial.
00:13:07By contrast,
00:13:13Thomas Hobbs suggested that, in fact, we can use materialistic approach.
00:13:14We can study the mind because the mind is simply the byproduct of the brain,
00:13:18and therefore we can study the mind.
00:13:22We can have a psychology by studying the mind by studying the brain and the body.
00:13:24In addition, John Locke argued that we can also, uh,
00:13:29to apply the laws of the physical universe to the mind,
00:13:34and also that we can use empiricism to collect data
00:13:37and form theories, which is a key basis for all of science,
00:13:40but also specifically psychology.
00:13:44Therefore,
00:13:48what I've shown in this lecture is how
00:13:48discussions amongst philosophers what we might call experimental philosophers
00:13:52dealt with debates about the mind and how
00:13:56the mind could be studied in a scientific way
00:13:59in the next lecture,
00:14:02what I'm gonna do is show how those kind of those kind
00:14:03of foundations then led to developments in the 19th century in science,
00:14:07uh, particularly in physiology and medicine,
00:14:14which led to Wilhelm vent creating psychology as a science in 18 79
00:14:17
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Fairholm, I. (2022, January 07). AP Psychology - Before Wundt [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/options/ap-psychology?auth=0&lesson=4357&option=15166&type=lesson
MLA style
Fairholm, I. "AP Psychology – Before Wundt." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 07 Jan 2022, https://massolit.io/options/ap-psychology?auth=0&lesson=4357&option=15166&type=lesson