conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know a description for a book titled A History of Psychology about John, Department, Psychology with the genre: Health, Fitness & Dieting, Psychology & Counseling?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: John the author is in the Department of Psychology, Brock University.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for the book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A History of Psychology
  Berkeley's own theory depends on the assumption that extension and magnitude are primarily objects of the sense of touch. Hence distance and visible magnitude have a constant relation to touch; for the child begins by handling objects as it looks at them, and so learns by imperceptible degrees what the visual image means in terms either of touch (movement over the surface) or motion (movement from far to near). This is an empirical derivation of the perception of size and distance, due allowance being made for development. It implies a theory of space and of things as occupants of space which seems to be unhesitatingly adopted; no analysis is made of space apart from the questions of more or less extension and the "outness" of objects.
  This epistemological development had the effect of sharpening Locke's distinctions and giving them the appearance of depending on metaphysical assumptions, primarily that of the difference between soul and body. The result is seen in Hume.
  Pleasure and pain are the two fundamental facts from which we must begin. Certain states of the organism (heat, cold) are felt as comfortable or uncomfortable, and are in consequence called good or bad. There are also tendencies of the mind which give rise to feelings of pleasure and pain according as they are assisted or obstructed by objects and circumstances; e.g. the distress of an enemy (the term implying previous hatred) is pleasant, as satisfying the tendency toward revenge. Thus the affections can be classed as direct or indirect.
  The direct affections include desire and aversion, joy and grief, hope and fear. The states are classed in pairs because the basis is dual, namely good and evil. The distinction between the three pairs is dependent upon additional factors: desire is concerned with good as present; joy, with good as assured in the future; hope, with good as probable though remote. Hope and fear differ somewhat from the other states of feeling through their tendency to mingle. Plato and Aristotle noted this tendency to a mixed state. Descartes restated this and explained it as due to oscillations of the mind in the estimation of probabilities (Passions, 165, 6). Spinoza followed the same line (iii, 12), making hope an "inconstant joy." Hume does not differ essentially from this position, though he states the mental condition as a mixture of joy and sorrow, rather than hope and fear. Hume also goes further than his predecessors in thinking that similar feelings always have a tendency to produce their opposites: for the feelings correspond with ideas in the mind, and the ideas move by association; as, for example, the idea of impending evil leads to the idea of escape which (so long as it is entertained) arouses the feeling of hope in place of the original fear. This theory of connexion is more fully worked out in the discussion of indirect affections.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The last forty years of the eighteenth century were a period of great literary activity in Germany. The so-called "pre-critical" period of Kant's development begins from 1755; as the century closes and many tentative movements begin to assume their correct proportions in the historical perspective, Kant's philosophy is seen towering above all other attempts at a reform of the current conceptions. Before considering Kant's relation to psychological theories we shall attempt to indicate the principal features of the earlier movements, some of them being important in their bearing upon Kant and some no less important because they belong to lines of thought which survive through the Kantian period to later days.
  The combined advance of Lockian empiricism and physiological speculations produced among the philosophers a gradual alienation from the older pneumatology. A distinction was made between pneumatology and psychology. Metzger called his subject "Medizinisch-philosophische Anthropologie," and that array of terms shows significantly the points of view which at this time were coming to be regarded as the particular contents of psychology. The medical and the social interests acquired increasing force. The consequent tendency toward materialism was checked by the consciousness of ethical problems which were not likely to be solved by the unaided efforts of anatomists. The victories which physiology might win over theology were more than compensated by the losses which it suffered in each collision with romance and sentiment.
  In place of that relation between ideas which was usually the theme of Associationists, Herz dwells upon the relation between activities. Every activity has a certain duration which is equivalent to the time required for a presentation to become clear, and this duration varies with the degree to which the soul has acquired the appropriate disposition and the amount of difference between the presentations. While the so-called "laws of association" (similarity and contiguity) explain the character of some mental processes, they are not really fundamental, for they are only descriptions of the ways in which a disposition operates. To say that one idea is like another which it recalls is really to say that the mind has acquired a disposition such that one operation is more easily performed than another. A succession of ideas can only be grasped if time is allowed for each one to attain clearness; if the intervals are too long the connexion is lost, if they are too short the ideas are not adequately clear. In thought, as in sense, there is a rhythm which is regulated partly by the nature of the presentations, partly by the physical factors: as the soul is the same in all, individual differences must be due to the constitution of the brain.
  The number and variety of the conflicting views which emerged during this period make the task of the historian difficult. The contributions of individual writers are isolated and minute, often noticeable only as reassertions of adopted views and often valuable only as indistinct anticipations. On the whole the dominant and persistent tendency is the recognition of activity which begins from Leibniz, and after being almost submerged by the wave of empiricism reappears as an assertion of the rights of form as against matter, and of the total life of the mind as against particular contents. In the last phase, of which examples have just been given, there has emerged a clear tendency toward asserting the following points: that associationism is only one aspect of a process which is ultimately the reconstruction of a total state of mind from a given part, the process called redintegration: that form is distinct from content and is seen in the variety of arrangement which different minds give to the same ideas; and, lastly, that a science of the mind must unite with the doctrine of its powers a consideration of the body as the condition of all their manifestations Though slow and painful, the process which led to a vision, however indistinct, of these necessary elements must be regarded as highly important. The eighteenth century was the real end of the mediæval period in the history of the sciences and of philosophy. As such it is the true foundation of the nineteenth century. Before new ventures were undertaken there was an interval for surveying and criticizing the achievements of the earlier part of the century, and that interval was occupied by Tetens and Kant. The essays of Tetens may be regarded as the most important single contribution to the German literature of psychology after 1770, and the work which most deserves to be regarded as its final exposition.
  The study of the brain has advanced since the days of Tetens, but his main contention is still sound; feelings and thoughts are not really explained by calling them "movements of fibres"; we should in most cases never discover the function of these "fibres" if we had not begun from a given experience to find its possible physical correlate. While the help of physiology was neither rejected nor underrated by Tetens, it was regarded by him as limited and usually overestimated.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last four paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: To return to the question of instinct. The fundamental point against Condillac is that the psychology of the statue excludes all co-operation in the organism, all sympathetic relations within the organism, all that unity of operation which Cabanis says that Hippocrates so rightly insisted upon. Cabanis means to say that a sense studied in isolation is not a sense at all: the operation of explaining the mind by adding sense to sense can only be correctly carried out if we begin with the senses as they appear in the actual organisms of human beings. If the theorist retorts that he is dealing with sensation in general, he is met with the reply that that is his particular besetting sin. There is no such thing as sensation in general: a statue might attain such pure sensations, but in the actual living being the sensation is a particular activity which must be regarded as a function dependent on the whole structure and nature of the organism in question.
  At this point we reach the line that divides Cabanis from Condillac. Formally expressed, it amounts to a difference on the question of activity. But it is necessary to avoid carefully the error of rushing into voluntarism without further discrimination. One way of criticizing Condillac was to assert that he overlooked the spontaneity of the spirit. This is exactly what Cabanis did not do. He says nothing of the spirit or of will in that sense, regarding them as abstractions no better than Condillac's sensation. He remains true to the method of Condillac, the ideal of analysis, but instead of taking as his basis the understanding he begins with the individual as a living totality of organs and functions. Any given mental event is then a function of this organism and not merely an activity of mind. Cabanis then goes right back to the beginning. Before the first sight or sound reaches the nervous mechanism there is a long period of embryonic development which, though we cannot say much about it, must certainly have some cumulative effects, and these enter as qualifying conditions into the first sensibility of the outer world. Sensation in Condillac's way of using it, is therefore very far from being the real basis of life. The fact is, as Cabanis points out, that we pay far too much attention to the outer sensations. The most important thing for the adult is the acquisition of knowledge, and this fact gives a spurious importance to the avenues by which that knowledge enters. But the science of the mind must not be distorted by that kind of consideration: it must think of the person in the way in which the person rarely thinks of himself. The ordinary individual overlooks just those points which science has to investigate, whether by objective study or by introspection. The persistent background of all isolated activities is the object of Cabanis's researches. Beginning from the embryonic stage of life, he proceeds to indicate the significance of each decisive crisis in the development of the organism. The earlier stages are marked by a lack of stability in mental actions. This stage terminates at puberty, when new developments of the organism produce the most decisive changes of mood and mental outlook. "The adolescent, haunted by a vague restlessness, ceaselessly plunged in objectless reveries, moved even to tears by the slightest impressions, begins to find pictures in his imagination and inclinations in his heart that surpass his knowledge. While the hearth of the passions is kindled in his breast, his soul, allying itself to all that surrounds it, rushes on to unknown ends—the stature, the features, the manner, the looks, the sound of the voice, all take on a new character." Similar parallels can be drawn at every new stage of development, and Cabanis rightly suggests that for the full understanding of the human being it is necessary to study all these phases of life—childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age: and in addition to these normal states the effects of accidents, of mutilations, of intoxication and all the forms of disease should be studied. He included also crime, significantly defined as another species of mental derangement.
  Cabanis does not give many details or examples of the cases he had observed: he was more concerned with the reform of method than with the actual carrying out of researches. The few quoted by him show a keen power of observation, and have in some cases become classic instances. For the later development of the science of man, Cabanis is the most important writer of this period. The proof of this is contained in the mere statement of the subjects to which he gave a new impetus. By his insistence on the axiom that the study of the mind must be closely united with the study of the organism, he gives the psycho-physiological point of view a practical basis. His own way of stating this was by saying that there is an inner man as well as the outer man, and this inner man is not a nebulous spirit but the brain and the nervous system. In addition to the outer senses there are also inner senses, not such as reflection and memory, but the senses which represent in our total consciousness the conditions of the inner organs, the viscera, muscles and membranes. Into every definite act of the mind these enter, not necessarily in such a way as to make us conscious of the part they play, but so as to determine the total state of mind. The question which Condillac has not answered is the preliminary question, What is sensation? The answer which Cabanis proposes is that sensation is a relation between the organism and the object resulting in a conscious condition which arises mainly from the whole trend of the individual's life. It was easy to support this notion of sensation by referring to hallucinations in which the subjective tendency overpowers the normal force of the objective stimulus, and so shows more clearly the degree to which normal perceptions are not passive states of reception but activities. In justice to Cabanis it must be added that he was clear in his mind on the distinction between irritability, sensibility and perception. He maintains firmly that it is possible to have sensations without sensibility, i.e. without conscious presentation. He thinks that sensation and presentation have been wrongly identified, for nature has provided by means of lower nerve-centres for operations distinct from mere irritability that do not amount to consciously recognized sensations. To the axiom that all knowledge comes by way of sensation Cabanis added the statement that all sensation is not necessarily (clear) knowledge. This rejection of the narrower standpoint of the Enlightenment created a new epoch. From Cabanis arose the various departmental studies by which the concept of psychology was to be continuously enlarged, including the study of abnormal psychology, of national or ethnological psychology, of genetic psychology, and of social psychology. The last was in Cabanis no more than an indirect deduction from the idea of a true education, which Cabanis described (after Rousseau) as the correct development of the natural powers, and then proceeded to treat as a process involving primarily the relations of individuals in society. He saw indefinitely that here was a store of influences distinct from the objects about which children were instructed in schools and involving in their operation all the physiological and emotional life which men agree to consign to the heart rather than the head.
  P. 171. Huarte: English translation made by R. Carew, 1594, from an Italian version by Camillo Camilli: the original written 1557. Huarte's work was translated by Lessing (1752, 1785).
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first three paragraphs for the book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A History of Psychology
  To recall a previous idea we must use a movement which is connected with the required movement either by being (1) the same, or (2) having occurred in the same time, i.e. that with the required movement, or (3) being part of a whole (so that if we have A, B, C out of A, B, C, D, D can be excited through A, B, C).
  On instinct v. Siebeck, ii. 212 and note 60, p. 498. The nature of animals was a subject of particular interest to Seneca, e.g. De Ira, i. 3, muta animalia humanis affectibus carent; they lack human virtues, "sed etiam vitiis prohibita sunt." This immunity of beasts follows from the two premises, vice is due to reason and animals lack reason. Galen (De Placit. iii.) seems to have overlooked this point (v. Lauret, 21).
  See Cicero Tuse. iv. 6. The good states are called constantiæ as opposed to perturbationes. The goodness consists in remaining under the control of reason.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: As movements these are respectively de corpore; per corpus; circa corpus; ad seipsam (sc. animae motus); in seipsam; ad Deum; apud Deum (mansio). (De Quant. An. 4.)
  Activity, mental: progressively recognised in Plato, ; Aristotle, ; Strato, ; Stoics, , (v. Assent); Epicureans, ; Plutarch, ; Clement, ; Galen, ; Plotinus, ; Nemesius, ; Augustine, ,
  Desire: ; Socrates on, ; in Plato, , , ; in Aristotle, ; Posidonius on, ; in Clement, ; in Plotinus, ; (v. Passions)
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last four paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Sight: Alcmæon, ; Empedocles, ; Anaxagoras, ; Plato, ; Aristotle, ; Stoic, ; Epicurean, ; Philo, ; Galen, ; Plotinus,
  Soul, definition and description of its nature, place, etc.: early views, ; is air, , ; cosmic Fire, ; dependent on body, ; atomic, , ; independent self-moving (Platonic view), , ; in Xenocrates, ; functional view (Aristotelian), , , ; in Strato equals Pneuma, ; Stoic view, ; Hebrew doctrine, ; created by God and divine, , , , , , , ; scientific (naturalistic) view, , ; spiritual principle in Pagan sense, , , ; in Christian sense, , (v. Man, nature of)
  Soul, parts of: how stated by Plato, , , ; in Aristotle, , ; dualism of Aristotle, ; dualism denied by naturalistic school in Strato, ; by Stoics, ; by atomists, ; Spiritualistic monism, Indian, ; Christian, ; Spiritualistic dualism, ; ethical dualism in later Stoics, ; in Philo, ; in Plutarch, ; in Paul, ; in Christian Fathers, , , ,
  Will: identified with Reason, ; Aristotle's view, ; Origen's, ; Galen on, ; Augustine, , ; freedom of, , , , , ; diseases of, ,
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for the book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A History of Psychology
  In Scandinavia interest is turned chiefly toward the practical use of psychology. In Norway Anathon Aall and K. B. Aars, both of Christiania, have done experimental work. In Sweden, Efraim Liljeqvist and Larsson (Lund) have contributed to the subject of sensation. From Upsala come works on the senses and the emotions by Sidney Alrutz.
  In Belgium at the beginning of this century the activity in psychological work was considerable. At Louvain both experimental and critical work was being carried on; among individual writers J. J. van Biervliet (Gand) wrote on Memory (1893), and on Quantitative Psychology (1907); others co-operated in furthering the progress of social and educational psychology.
  In the East a subject so modern as experimental psychology is found only where Western influences have penetrated.g. Haven) had been introduced, and the Japanese mind was being nourished with that diluted form of Scotch common sense. At a later date Spencer was in the ascendant. Finally, Wundt and the German writers occupied the field. Some good work has been done by Japanese students, but in such close dependence on Western institutions that it cannot yet be regarded as a distinctive achievement. This is equally true of China, India, and for similar reasons South America, where the Latin influences are producing work of local importance.
  The great systems of psychology, which make up the history of the subject before the nineteenth century, are for the most part concerned with general psychology; memory, attention, association and other similar topics are given the place of honour. With the advent of experimental methods the focus of interest was shifted: the senses were most closely studied. But it is not correct to speak of "experimental psychology" as a separate department: distinctions of method must not be confused with distinctions of subject-matter or sphere. Experimental psychology has been designated "theoretical psychology of the laboratory" (Titchener), and this phrase serves to emphasize the limits within which we may apply the word "experimental." Distinguishing in this way method and scope, we shall now indicate the progress of method and then summarize the work which falls under the specific departments.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Japan, American.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A History of Psychology
  In Scandinavia interest is turned chiefly toward the practical use of psychology. In Norway Anathon Aall and K. B. Aars, both of Christiania, have done experimental work. In Sweden, Efraim Liljeqvist and Larsson (Lund) have contributed to the subject of sensation. From Upsala come works on the senses and the emotions by Sidney Alrutz. 
  In Belgium at the beginning of this century the activity in psychological work was considerable. At Louvain both experimental and critical work was being carried on; among individual writers J. J. van Biervliet (Gand) wrote on Memory (1893), and on Quantitative Psychology (1907); others co-operated in furthering the progress of social and educational psychology. 
  In the East a subject so modern as experimental psychology is found only where Western influences have penetrated. In Japan as far back as 1874 some American writers (e. g. Haven) had been introduced, and the Japanese mind was being nourished with that diluted form of Scotch common sense. At a later date Spencer was in the ascendant. Finally, Wundt and the German writers occupied the field. Some good work has been done by Japanese students, but in such close dependence on Western institutions that it cannot yet be regarded as a distinctive achievement. This is equally true of China, India, and for similar reasons South America, where the Latin influences are producing work of local importance. 
  The great systems of psychology, which make up the history of the subject before the nineteenth century, are for the most part concerned with general psychology; memory, attention, association and other similar topics are given the place of honour. With the advent of experimental methods the focus of interest was shifted: the senses were most closely studied. But it is not correct to speak of "experimental psychology" as a separate department: distinctions of method must not be confused with distinctions of subject-matter or sphere. Experimental psychology has been designated "theoretical psychology of the laboratory" (Titchener), and this phrase serves to emphasize the limits within which we may apply the word "experimental. " Distinguishing in this way method and scope, we shall now indicate the progress of method and then summarize the work which falls under the specific departments.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know three more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Broadly speaking social psychology is the development of one aspect of several older sciences, and each phase of it springs from one of those sciences. Thus the study of language is philology. If psychological analysis is applied to the sphere of philology, there arises such a work as that of Steinthal, for whom speech is a kind of reflex-movement, expressing the emotions and ideas which stimulate the creature to utter sounds; emotions, ideas, forms of apperception and all other mental processes find their counterpart in the evolution of language. Grammar is thus made a science of linguistic expression, supported by the analogous study of gesture and intonation.
  Lastly we come to what is neither psychic philology nor psychic anthropology, but social psychology in its most distinctive form. This consists in the study of mental processes as conditioned by social grouping. It is an analytic study which deals with primary psychological data, not with arts, sciences, or languages which are secondary data. Further, its chief concern is with the variations of conduct which seem due to social environment, so that it may be regarded as a psychic biology in some sense. The connection with biology is in some cases consciously realized, and the subject is then defined in terms of functions; we are introduced to the organic life of a community whose integral cells are the individual minds. In general this may be regarded as the typical attitude of psychologists: the mind of the individual is the starting-point, and the social mind is deducible from the individual interests and emotions. But the opposite view is also maintained: psychology being made dependent on sociology, we are to regard the individual type as a product of the collective; and, in general, sociology must be regarded as the basic science from which alone it is possible to approach the mental characteristics of individuals. The French school, represented by Durkheim, Lévy-Bruhl and others, is mainly responsible for this view, which continues to excite controversy. In certain directions, e.g. the genesis of conscience or the development of religious beliefs, the sociological way seems at least easy: in others, e.g. the questions of time, space, sensation or memory, there seems to be an obvious objection to attempting any deduction of these functions from the basis of community. In fact there seems to be some confusion between content and function throughout this subject, and perhaps a proper distinction would assist any future attempts to define social psychology. This may be said without forgetting that even the thought of time (percept or concept?) may be inextricably complicated with tribal customs and common interests of rainfall and harvest.
  All manifestations of psychic activity are brought by Tarde under the heads of Belief and Desire: pleasure and pain are sensations united with desires: images and desires make up what is usually called desire; images and belief constitute memory; desires and judgments make volitions. Every object is primarily an object of judgment; objects are therefore infinitely variable; only the principles of judgment (belief, desire) are permanent. Sensations therefore cannot be fixed units for psychology; what we believe and what we desire constitute the real basis of life, not abstract sensations. The higher stage, that of reflexion, is simply the more complicated form of these activities. For the desirable in general is that which we believe to be desired, the "true" is that which we believe to be believed by others. The Good and the True are thus irreducible categories; belief and desire are the chief classes; under the former come intellect, language, philosophy and science; under the latter laws, customs, arts, institutions and industries.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last two paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The general difference between the teachings of Janet and Freud may be described by calling Janet's conception static, while that of Freud is dynamic. Janet considered that hysteria involved a limitation of the field of consciousness and a loss of psychic tension. Freud observed that an increase of tension in some respect was usually present, the apparent reduction being due to a conflict, of which the patient is not directly conscious and by which psychic energy is absorbed. From this dynamic standpoint such a phenomenon as loss of memory is to be explained by the presence in the total psychic state of an active repression, so that the elements said to be forgotten are really being actively kept out of consciousness. This operation is dependent on affective states which control the intellectual operations without otherwise manifesting themselves. A common phenomenon due to such affective promptings is that which has been named by Ernest Jones "rationalization," i.e. the tendency to account for actions by reasons which assist in concealing motives that are being repressed.
  This is not the place to explain at large the technical methods of the school, but reference may be made to those principles which affect the conception of psychology. Of those the most comprehensive is the acceptance of the idea of causality; Freud's position involves the principle that no effect lacks its cause, and this can only be regarded as a truly scientific standpoint. A method which can claim to eliminate chance from its categories must command the highest respect, and Freud has undertaken to explain by "the psychology of everyday life "just those points which the average person is content to regard as "slips" or "accidents." The other point of supreme importance is the belief which this school cherishes that it is able to find universal principles underlying all thought-processes. Its experimental work will, if that is the case, serve as a basis for explaining human actions throughout history. In the belief that this is possible the school has produced analytical studies of the artistic and literary movements of the past as well as the present, dealing particularly with myths, symbolic art, philosophical systems and political ambitions.