HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
History of psychology is very complex and based upon diverse
propositions. There are many questions those are related with
emergence of mankind in the World. Many theories are available
in this context and their theories in certain cases resemble and
certain cases are opposite and contradictory.
There are various questions those are in context:
What is human being?
How human being is difficult from rest of the species?
What is the origin of mankind?
How many of verity of human kind is available on planet
earth?
What is its evolutionary development?
What are the human characteristics those distinguish human
as a race?
THEORIES
Generally speaking there are theoretical framework deposits the
possibility of human presence as a first entity on planet earth.
Source of these theories are as follows:
a) Big bang theory
b) Darwinian theory
c) Hindu mythology
d) Theory about the Man existence in scripture.
There are many scientific explanations about the emergence of
human kind but some of the point of views in that context is finally
agreed that “Neanderthal Man” was the first organized form of
human presence on planet Earth. The further divisions those are
emerged form from “Neanderthal Man”.
These include:
a. Caucasian
b. Mongoloid
c. Negoloides
THALES:
The first known person who talked about man as a man and tried
to explain the characteristics of man as a thinker was Greek who
belonged to Greek city state
He was the first known thinker who introduced the first view about
the human constitution. The days in when there were no modern
facilities.
The World was having no modern machinery to help evaluation
and assessment. There were forests, oceans, lakes so on and
forth.
There were no so-called means of knowledge there Thales
thought about human constitution. Gathering evidence from his
environment and observing the role of fluids like blood in human
beings or monitoring the role in botanical growths or seeing the
role of drinking water in our health or realizing the role of thirst in
our calm and disturb postures.
He hypothesized and agreed that the basic element was water
after Thales many of his disciples tried to explain the constitution
of human with different elements some said that air some said
earth and some said fire.
Therefore after comments by Thales a new beginning emerged
that was about thinking about human constitution and make this
thinking emerged in the days when everything was under the
influence of magic, spirits and superstitions. Naturalism.
In those days it was a fact that the health was considered as
outcome of the conflict between the God and Goddesses. It was a
general belief that those participated in the war of Trogon against
the god and goddesses of health and its due to the curse of those
god and goddesses of health like Apollo and Hygeia.
Therefore many kinds of thinking emerged in those days
explaining the human presence in the World and structure of
human kind.
For example: A thinking emerged that human being is not better
than human being is not better than dogs. This philosophy was
based on the observations that man due to various ills is worse
than dogs. Since cyne is the word used for dog , therefore this
philosophy is known as cynicism.
Another thinking emerged during those days was spactism
‘sufists’. This school of thought was introduced by Protagoras his
famous maxsum was MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS
AS THEY ARE AND THEY ARE NOT.
The people those belong to sufists school of thought use to get
money for knowledge they used to deliver to the people. They use
to gather people on the public places and use to amuse people
with their arguments. The basic proposition of their philosophy
was to create doubt.
Another proposition about the world and the person was
introduced by Pythagoras. He was the thinker who introduced the
concept that man is not reality, world is not reality rather numbers
are ultimate reality. His famous theorems are in use given in
today’s mathematics.
OTHER CONTRIBUTERS:
There are many other names that contribute towards the ancient
understanding of human beings but these thinkers are less known
towards the focused area.
Another contributor in the field of health and healing was Greek
physician named as “Hippocrates”. His name was is still known in
integrative medicines, Greek medicines, Ayurveda medicine,
homeopathic medicine, herbal medicine.
He was fist medical man who told and disclosed to people that
ailment and or illness is not due to magic or god and goddesses
of health. Rather it is due to unhygienic practices and those don’t
observe hygienic principals in their livings are more prone to
health related problems. He made certain principals related with
hygiene and these principal were so important that and still taught
to medical students and are know as Hippocrates oath.
He was the person who for the first time in history of mankind
introduce the idea about various temperaments of different person
but also described the detail about people those maintain these
temperaments.
SOCRETES THE FATHER OF PSYCHOLOGY
Socrates was a Greek philosopher as well as soldier. After he left
his troops he starts reasoning to describe the reality of life, while
his search for reality of life he came across the TRUTH that led
him to finalize that “truth is the ultimate reality” of life and the
human needs to peep in human minds. He therefore concluded
that soul is the origin where the truth poured in to human mind.
This was very difficult explanation of the human reality and the
truth descriptions therefore these views of Socrates influenced the
young and developing minds. Therefore, the youth of Athens
gathered around him to learn new ideas he used to walk under
the glove of trees along with his students and interact with them to
resolve their questions and quires he used to apply he technique
of questioning in response to the questions asked by his disciples
he continues his questioning till the time the person questioned
used to arrive on the right answer. Socrates believed that good
question is truth.
In that way Socrates in a kind of imported education beginning his
school as ‘peripatetic school’ the rulers of this time felt insecure
due to his popularity and made criminal case against him and
executed him with poisoning.
The charges against Socrates were following:
He is spoiling youth by promoting truth.
He is generally rebel against authority.
He talks against God and Goddesses
PLATO
He was disciple of Socrates. He was founder of deductive logic.
He introduced the first form of education system named as
‘Academy’ he introduced the importance of emotions and feeling.
he was the one who introduced idealism he argued that idea
analysis are more important than the material world.
ARISTOLTLE
He was disciple of Plato he belonged to a royal family, his well
know student was ‘ALEXANDER THE GREAT’ conquered the
world he introduced inductive knowledge. He was the one who
introduced Empiricism and the importance of feeling and
sensation. He was founder of scientific knowledge. He introduce
realism .he set that the external expression incorporate an imprint
on the mind and that at into our knowledge of the world .he said
that mind is like a slate on which the external expression marked
as print. He named his slate as Stabularasa.
Middle ages /Dark ages/ Medieval periods:
this period is consisted of the centuries those took place after the
golden Greek period (the period of Aristotle, Plato and
Socrates).These centuries were not less than ten or twelve
centuries. In those days no new philosophical or scientific view
were presented. Because the social order in those days were
under the complete control of clergy .nobody was permitted to
present idea or notion that was against the order or procedures
set by the dominating and ruling clergy or it is subsidiaries the
situation were such serious that public hanging of scientist and
philosophers were a common feature. Like when Galileo talked
about the orbit of son and earth Since that was a describe by the
then church authorities was contradictory to the Biblical
description, therefore the ruling authorities ordered his public
persecution till death. Later even today it is confirm that Galileo
was Right. Close to the 13th and 14th centuries a remarkable
change appeared in the mind of the people .this change accrued
due to various reasons but the major that played the role was
spread of Plague. This disease cause millions of deaths .The
affects of this mindset of the time the most. There are remarkable
change appear in the attitude and the thinking of the people of
those times. Frances beacon well known philosopher and logician
in his research method while describing the beaconian tree has
refer a situation that reflect the impact of plague influence the
human mind to that extent. That beacon has referred the plague
situation as an argument in case of beconian tree argued that the
tone of ringing of funeral bell in the funeral death could be the
cause of spread of Plague.
In 13th and 14th century the Europe reacted to the continuous
suppression by the clergy and people after the experience of
Plague reacted to that suppression.
Resultantly those time experience a big and visible change in
various aspects of life the prominent among these were art,
literature, culture, society, education, philosophy scientific
approach and many more.
Scientific progress:
After the change in human outlook, rapid scientific orientation and
growth was observed in the world. Thinkers like John Locke live
liablelize human and many more known as scholastic emphasize
the importance of human experiences.in the science of
Epistemology (science of knowledge) The view of Saint Martin
Luther change traditional religion orientation in Christianity that
was dominating the world of knowledge through church. New
Christianity named Protestant emerged, similarly in Arabia dawn
of Islam to place in fourteenth(14th)century introduced by
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) the last and Final
prophet(There is no prophet after prophet Muhammad S.A.W.W)
Rene Descartes:
He was the one who introduced pure scientific reasoning and
changed the existing philosophical norms. His famous maxim
was: I think therefore I am .He introduced Cistercian doubt. Due
to improved reasoning the scientific enquiry began and various
scientist started working on the scientific understanding of human
make. In that context while working on sensation Muller was one
who tried to measure the speed of nerve, Later the same work
could be seen in Trichromatic theory of colors introduced by
German scientist Hermann von Helm Holtz. This theory focuses
that how different nerve in the human eye discriminate between
various color experiences.
Beginning of psychological Era:
After the discovery of nerve speed and the nature of the function
of nerve various researches found in case of color sense and
other senses related with human body experiences. The scientist
tried to work out that what mental process play a role in the onset
of nerve impulses. The intensity that require on such onset in a
stimulus condition was discovered and introduced by Weber
Fechner as absolute threshold, he had introduced many other
laws as well.
Stimulus plus response is equal to behavior
Action plus reaction
Stimulus plus non response is equal to behavior.
Sometime there is less intensity in stimulus to evoke the
response so there is no response.
Intensity:
It was the basic proposition in weber law, the law after absolute
threshold that was introduced was about differential threshold.
This again was related with the intensity of the stimulus conditions
Difference threshold:
A difference threshold is the minimum required difference
between two stimuli for a person to notice change 50%of the time
the difference threshold is also called just noticeable difference.
Ebbing house- was the one who investigated that:
How do we remember?
What is retention?
How much we can retain?
For how long we could retain?
All these questions were generated and answered by Ebbing
house with experiments. Therefore he was the one who made the
foundation for cognitive researches. The experiment conducted
by Weber and Ebbing hose paved the way for developing the
understanding that the human being has certain properties those
could be measured objectively and unstandardized method. This
was an important milestone in the development in the history of
psychology. Therefore, because of the historical fact and
Development psychology as a modern science came into being in
almost two centuries ago. The psychology was introduced as
science by a German Philosopher who is considered as the father
of modern Psychology. This German professor was in Leipzig
University that was situated in German city of Leipzig.
Considering the properties of human being those we have
discussed earlier. THEREFORE THIS German professor finally
came to the conclusion human as a human being, human mind,
human feeling, human emotions and human experiences could be
measured in laboratory setting so he came to the conclusion that
since the human experiences could be measured in laboratory
setting in relationship of what happens to human being responses
in particular manners.
Therefore he labeled this study of human experiences that was
possible certain method as anew science and named it as
Psychology. For testing the human experiences in term of certain
actions and their reactions .This German psychologist conducted
few psychological experiments those were conducted in his lab
that was situated in Leipzig and known as 1st psychological
laboratory in the world. The founding father of science of
psychology was named as Wilhelm Wundt .this founding father
of psychology introduced certain experiments in the field of
psychology those which reflects the relationships of certain action
on certain emotions, feelings and thoughts.
This professor claimed the 1st psychologist of the world. He
created a foundation. He created a foundation for experimental
psychology. He invented various tools and instructions, few of
these are still in use today. He was the person who was produced
P.HD in psychology that perhaps awarded to a psychologist who
introduced his ideas as his 1st student in USA. He trained many
nouns in the field of psychology. He was the person who 1st
introduce the formal school of psychology and that was named as
Structuralism another term use for it is Elementism. He was the
one who introduced the 1st scientific method to study human
behavior as introspection; his influence was such that certain
journal about psychology and experimental psychology came into
being. Influence of his school of thought was such that later many
schools of thoughts came into being. Major works those he
conducted as experiment in his laboratory were related with
feelings, emotions, experiences and certain other behaviors.
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