History and Philosophy of Psychology

Chapter 2

Summery:

In this chapter the origins of politics, psychology and philosophy were discussed.
Inititally the chapter discusses the ancient Greeks from the bonze and dark ages.
Mentioned is the Polis, which is the ‘difinitive Greek political and financial order’ which
began in the Bronze Age of around 3000 – 1200 BCE.

The next section sets out how in Ancient Greek men were warriors, weakness was
despised as well as women and strength, particularly physical strength was admired.

This frame of mind was transferred into the Greek Polis, the Greeks political system,
there fore there Polis was focused on strength over weakness.

The greeks viewed the good life or virtue in a heroic sense, living by the warriors code
and fighting with great ability.

The greeks called virture Arete, it was an acheivement, and only attainable for a few
people. Fate is called Tyche.

Modern concepts of virture, that it can be posessed by any come from stoicism in the last
century BCE which was encorporated into christianity.

In the Bronze age the hunan soul or psuche is the last breath of life a person, it is also
more than a breath of life but less than the entire person. The psuche is not implicated in
motivating behavior.

Behavior is attributed to soul like entities resting in differing parts of the body.

The chapter proceeds to describe ancient Greece during the Archaic period.

The dark ages of Ancient Greece ended when the political organisation of the city state
called the Polis developed. The polis involved the people ruing the people. However to
become a ‘person’ or citizen was highly restricted to the elites.

The poleis ruled through the law and were not tryannies.

The chapter describes at this point the origins of the Polis and its influencing factors. Of
particualar note is the change in Greek warfare from single based combat involving the
aristocratic to a group exercise in the Phlanax warfare. The ethos of the Phalanax
stipulated that all were equal, and that alone one was weak but together strong.
The desire for equality brought about the concept of hominoia, where indiviuals thought
the same thoughts and served the interests of the Polis.

The chapter describes how above all else the Greeks valued the virtue of sophrosyne,
which essentially means self control and restraint, without complete abstaining.

The next section proceeds to describe Politics, law and nature where Philosophy and
Psychology begin.

This part of the chapter proceeds by describing how difficult criticism is to take if an
individual is part of a closed thought system, where an individual believes that they have
the true facts beyond any improvement.

However in Ancient Greek a ‘miricle occurred’ where criticism was invited to improve
peoples views.

This kind of organising stemmed from the Polis, where ideas were sought democratically.

The first Greek Philosphers were focused on the fundementals of existence. Thales for
instance viewed the world as made up of different forms of the element water. The greek
name for the singe element of all things was phusis.

The chapter explains how Thales contributed to science by stipulating that there are
naturalistic explanations intead of supernatural, therefore paving the way for active
investigation.

The chapter of most note describes the cult of Pythagoris.

Pythagoris was a great mathematician, whom developed the famous equation, the sum of
one side of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the square of the remaining two sides.

The cult of pythagoris cited pleasure as a sin, Plato was a follower.

The chapter proceeds by explaining the philosphies of Paramendies and Heraclitus.

These philosphies revolve arounnd the concept of being and becoming. Paremendies was
a being centered, his thesis was that the universe is underlied by an unchanging
substance, it is pure being. Change from this perspective is an illusion, Plato followed the
philosphy of being, advocating the existance of eternal laws and truths. Such as a form.

Heraclitus was becoming orientated, his philosphy denied that any truth or eternal being
exist, instead change is the only constant, things are alwasys changing into something
else, Heracitus coined the phrase you never step in the same river twice.

Nothinng in the universe is the same twice.

The debate according to the text is metaphysical, from this debate arose the first theory in
psychology, that change was an appearance and reality being, that is that the seeming
changes in reality where in fact an illusion where actually things always stayed the same.
From Paremendies philosphy that the senses could not be trusted arose the train of
thought that logic should be relied on, this became rationalism, from those opposing this
view came empiricism, that truth is only attainable through the senses not logic.

The chapter proceeds by describing the first “protopsychologists: Alcamaeon and

Empedocles.

These individuals were working on the border line between physician and psychologist.

Alcamaeon was a physican whom dissected humans. His work involved the dissection of
the eye, he reasoned that perception occurred in the brain.

Alcamaeon formed a theory of perception that was carried down to Empodecles and
developed into what is known as empiricisim.

Emodecles stipulates that appearances is where truth is found, whilst in reason only
fantasy. Emodecles formed a purely physical basis for mental activity.

The chapter proceeds with an introduction to Atomism, this is the theory that all objects
are composed of atoms, this theory led to the support for two ideas, determinism and
materialism.

The two philosphers concerned with the the nature of physical reality are Leucippus and
Democritus.

Democritus was called the Laughing philosopher because he strongly believed that
humans were helpless against their fate, because all action had be foreplanned.

Atomism deepend the difference between reality and appearance.

Democritus used a empedocles theory on cognition which puported that every object
gives of atoms called eidola which are copies.

Our brain is restricted to putting together or pulling apart these eidola copies.

Democritus supported hedonism.

The chapter proceeds to the Classical period, between 500 – 323 B. C. E.

The initial section starts out by describing the social context, empire and war.
Greece in this period was in a state of near chaos, citizens were continuously arguing, and
aristrocrates defecting to persia or sparta, it is in this time that plato tried to find the truth
behind chaos.

The next section starts out entitled ‘teaching the Polis’ humanism: the sophists.

Rhetoric is appartently the key to success in an Athenian Polis, therefore speaches were
vitally important. This led to speech writing and rhetoric becoming a profession and
expertise, these professionals were called sophists.

The sophists were concerned not so much with the cosmos but with how life should be
lived.

The Sophist main idea entails that everything is a perception of man, if man see’s
something than it exists, if they do not then they do not.

This was quoted from Protagoras.

This theory of the sophists is a type of humanism, a concern with human nature and
human living.

This view endorses a relativistic empircism, which entails that what man see’s exists.

Truth will be in appearance, and relative to each perceiver.

Sophists challenged the Greek thinking by putting forward cultural relativism.

The sophists sharpedned the divide between phusis, which is the natural way of life and
nomis.

Sophists assumed that human nature is flexible to different cultures.

The section continues by explaining Enlightenment and Eudaemonia in regards to

Socrates.

Socrates did not teach anything, he encouraged indiviudals to question what human
nature entailed. He was on a quest to find the true nature of true virtue and goodness.

Aporia was a state Socrates aimed for wherein individuals were disillusioned with their
preconceptions on virtue.

Socrates was in a sense the first psychotherapists, in that he proposed that within all there
is a truth that is possible to free.

Socrates believed that we should not name anything knowledge or truth if we can not be
concious of it and explain it.
The central problems in any philosophy is providing reasons why people should do right
and explaining why they do wrong.

The Greeks closely linked virtue and eudaemonia, which is happiness or living well, such
that they explained that people whom seek virtue would have Eudaemonia

Greek and Roman ethical philosophers focused not on explaining why people seek virtue
but on the question of why people make bad decisions.

Socretes maintained that people only make bad decisions if they are ignorant of the good.

Scorretes explanation of bad behavior was predicted on the assumption that people
intuitively know what virtue is but false belief from upbringing mask this knowledge and
may lead them to do wrong.

Later ethical philosphers including plato and christian disagreed with Socretes because
some people seem to enjoy wronh doing.

The chapter proceeds to detail the great classical philosophies starting with Plato and his
quest for perfect knowledge.

Plato filled Socretes aporia with his own philosophy. Plato dedicated his philosophy
above all to the persuit of justice both in the state and in the individual.

Plato was the first thinker to inquire into how knowledge is possible and justified.

According to the platonist truth has two characteristics, it is true at all times and
knowledge has to be rationally justifiable.

Plato accepted arguments that sense perception was not the path to knowledge.

Plato took the belief that the phusical world was always in a state of becoming.

Plato aggreed with the Sophists in saying that the world is different for each person and
culture. He therefore reasoned that truth is not found in perception of the ordinary world.

The chapter continues onto mathematics and Plato;s theory of the forms.

Plato agreed with democritus and parmendies that only through logic and reasoning can
one find truth.

Plato conceived based on his experience with geometry that forms belong to the realm of
being , existing eternally while their copies in the real world belong to the realm of
becoming.
Genuine knowledge then according to plato was the knowledge of the foms not of
themselves.

The next section details the metaphors plato offered to describe the forms.

The first is the simile of the sun, illumination by the good, this metaphor entails that the
form of the good is to the intelligible world of the Forms what the sum is to the physical
world of the objects, the copies.

This signfiies that without the form of good, it is impossible for reason to know them as
they require the illumination that it provides.

The next metaphor is of the line, the hierarchy of opinion and knowledge.

The metaphor of the line involves a line divided into four unequal sections. The relative
lengths of these lines signifiy the degree of truth.

The line is first divided into two large sections, the lower and shorter section stand for the
world of appearances and opinions, the beilefs that have no proof, based on perception.
The higher and longer sections stand for the world of the Forms and provable knowledge
about them. the world of appearances line is further divided into segments for the world
of imagining, which is the shortest, with belief the next.

According to the metaphor of the line apprehension of imahes is the most imperfect way
of knowing. As Imagining is the lowest level of cognition, as it deals with images of
concerete objects. Plato because of this was hostile towards representational art.

The next metaphor is the allegory of the cave. The prison of culture.

This metahpor entails the image of prisoners trapped in a cave in such a way that they can
only look at the walls, on the walls are images that are shadows cast by a fire in the
middle, these shadows appear to be real but are simply illusions.

Platio reasoned that one can break free of the bonds and look back at the cave to realise
the falseness of their beliefs, and then proceed out of the cave to behold the real images,
or the true Forms.

Plato also reasoned that it is understandable that if one tried to arose other prisoners that
they would be hostile, because they would not understand and think the other was
deluded or damaged.

The next metaphor is of the ladder of love, being drawn to the Good.

In this metaphor the love of beauty is described. Through a female figure plato describes
an ascent from profane physical love to sacred love of the form of beauty.
The first rung is sexual love, the next is love of inner beauty then if art nad music
including mathematics and philosophy.