Chapter 3: Psychological Foundations in Ancient Greece

Early Explanations of Psychological Activity

 Birth of science: Greeks shifting their thinking from God to nature or environment
 Early Greeks articulated their explanations to critical psychological issues along several
categories:
o Naturalistic
o Biological
o Mathematical
o Pragmatic
o Humanistic

 naturalistic and biological views relied on physical explanations,

 mathematical orientation (Pythagoreans): asserted a basic unity to life from relationships that
transcend physical expressions of life.
 Sophists denied the possibility of this transcendence, their operational spirit and skepticism
offered a methodological advance.
 Anaxagoras (humanistic orientation) who offered a great leap of intellectual progress placing the
humanity of people at the center of life.

Naturalistic Orientation: physical environment, external to people

 nature is its permanence and immobility, which bring unity and form the basis of life
 Viewed the environment as holding the key to the basis of life
 2 clear ideas:
o Observational trends: Specific substances operating in our environment as the
basis of life (Ionian Physicisrs + Democritus)
o Hypothetico-deductive trends: Character of change and its implications
(Heraclitus + Parmenides)
 Ionian Federation (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes): life and physical matter are
inseparable, so that people are intimately involved in the universe.
o Thus the answers to life had to found in the universe
 Empedocles: provided the link b/t naturalistic and biological orientations
o Thought the universe is composed of 4 basic elements of earth, water, air, and
fire
o Thought that change develops from the conflicting forces of love and strife b/t
attraction and repulsion + development and decay
o Evolutionary process differentiates human aspects
 Democritus: 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.
o argued that the quantity of matter is always constant, leading to proposals for both the
indestructibility 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.
o Democritus saw in the materialism, or physical properties, of the world’s atoms the basic
explanatory principle of life.
  Humans and animals consist of atoms that are the most sophisticated and mobile.
 Heraclitus proposed a view of human activity consistent with the naturalistic orientation
o Thought that fire (physical properties + symbolic value) was the unifying principle
that could explain the nature of change and permanence in the world
o Since fire cause noticeable changes in other physical objects. Fire thus the most
obvious fact to nature.
o Found a substance in nature that serves as a basis for life
 Parmenides of Elea: change in the world and all motion are superficial observations and
distortions of our senses
Biological Orientation
 Internal state and physiology of humans as holding the clue to life
o Separated the uniqueness of human activity from the rest of nature
 Alcmaeon of Croton (father of Greek medicine): recognized the importance of the brain
and distinguished b/t sensory perceiving and thinking
o Body seeks an equilibrium of its mechanisms
 Important moment in Greek Science was the separation of medicine from religion
o Hippocrates: developed code of ethics for medicine
 Emphasized the brain in psychological processes
 Theory of humors: based on Empedocles 4 elements (fire, air, water,
earth) the body contains 4 humors: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and
phlegm
 Perfect health is the result of the proportionate mixtures of these humors
 IF any humors are dominate this results in indisposition
 Bad humor: describes someone who is not feeling well
Mathematical Orientation
 Ordered of mathematical structures to assert the unity of the world (nonphysical, did
not rely on our senses)

 Pythagoras: we know the world through our sense impressions, but that this world is distorted and
artificial. A more permanent reality exists in underlying relationships, essentially mathematical in
nature, that are not available to the senses and must be discovered through intuitive reasoning.
o proposed the existence of an immortal entity as the life-giving principle or soul
 This life-giving element has functions of feeling, intuition, and reasoning, the
first residing in the heart and the latter two in the brain
 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 completion of a life of definite
goodness.
 Hippocrates wrote the first known book on geometry in 440 B C

Pragmatic (group called sophists)

 Sophists were learned people who went from place-to-place giving lectures and imparting
wisdom to eager audiences able to afford it (mobile university)
 Cynicism: preached a way of life that sought to reduce material belongings to minimal bare
necessities in order to be as free as possible
 o admitted the poor to his school and accepted no money from his pupils
 Pyrrho of Elis (all about Skepticism): emphasized three main points

1. Absolute certainty is unreachable

2. goal of the philosopher is to suspend judgment and seek not truth but tranquility
3. philosopher may as well accept, not resist, the prevailing myths of his time

o accepts life as it is found, without underlying assumptions

 our senses or reason will not lead to certain knowledge we need to accept life as
is and be satisfied with probabilities
 Protagoras: value of sensory information as a guide to the pursuit of knowledge
o 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.
o hypothesis has two far- reaching implications
 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
operational 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
 we must be constantly wary of assertions that generalize beyond what we
observe. That is, we must be skeptical and critically question our observations for
their authenticity.
 Gorgias: 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
o sense information is the only source of knowledge (senses was not a guide it was true)
 a person’s knowledge depends on that person’s background of experience, thus an objective truth.
By denying first principles generalized from reality, they proposed a limited goal for seeking
knowledge of life.
 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.

Humanistic Orientation

 seeking out explanations of life by distinguishing people from the rest of life
 places humanity on a higher plane than other life and emphasizes those characteristics that are
considered to make humans unique, such as reason, language, and self- reflection.
 Anaxagoras (c. 488–428 B C): speculated on the origin and development of the world
o argued that the world was initially unordered chaos, which is reminiscent of the starting
place of the universe
o a world-mind, or nous, brought order to the chaos and differentiated the world into four
basic elements – earth, water, air, and fire
 the world gradually evolved from these four elements
 rationality and intentionality
 nous permeates all life and forms a common basis that defines life itself.
 individual differences among people are due to biological based
variability.
  nature of all people is commonly determined by the nous.
o nous describes the very core of what it means to be human. The capacity for thought and
motivation defines our subjective sense of self, so that its study

The Crowning of Greek Philosophy

 golden age of ancient Greek culture was centered in Athens and has been defined as the period
between the birth of the statesman Pericles (c. 495–429 B C ) and the death of the philosopher
Aristotle (384–322 B C ).
o The end of the wars with Persia gave rise to the wealth of Athens and the flowering of
democratic institutions.
 Aspasia of Miletus (470–410 B C ): established a school to encourage the public role and
education of women, a radical proposal.
o Eventually men including Pericles, Socrates, and Anaxagoras came to her lectures
o lived openly with Pericles (would not marry)

Socrates (470–399 B C )  Humanistic Orientation

 it is the uniqueness of the individual that provides the key to understanding life
o without transcendent principles, morals would be debased and human progress would
cease.
o universality of knowledge allows a reasonable person to ascertain objective truth and
make moral judgments.
o acquisition of knowledge is the ultimate good. Emphasizing the role of the self and its
relationship to reality.
o The uniqueness of the individual was expressed in his insistence on the immortality of
the life-giving soul that defines a person’s humanity.
 Socratic method: define a critical issue at a general level, then ceaselessly question the adequacy
of the definition, and finally moved logically to a clearer statement of the question to approach
the resolution.
 For Socrates and his successors, the study of human activity must focus ultimately on ethics and
politics.
o logic is the only method to gain knowledge of ourselves.
o Knowledge itself is inherently good because it leads to happiness, and ignorance is evil.
Thus proper knowledge leads the individual to the proper action.

 Plato and Aristotle continued Socrates ideas: by attempting to create a comprehensive framework
of human knowledge designed to account for all of the following features found in human
personality:
o The intellectual abilities of unity, autonomy, consistency, and creativity
o The behavioral manifestations of variability, contingency, and stereotypy
o The purposeful or determined aspects of human activity

Plato (427–347 B C )

 Student of Socrates and carried on his work: formulated the first clearly defined concept of
immaterial existence.
 Plato’s theory of Ideas, held that the realm of immaterial, self-existent, and eternal entities
comprises the perfect prototypes for all earthly, imperfect objects. The earthly objects are
imperfect reflections of the perfect Ideas.
o mind–body dualism: human activity is composed of two entities the 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.

 Plato’s teachings on psychological issues:

o viewed the interaction between people and their environment as a critical factor in
understanding human activity
o humans deal with the environment through our senses, and this body-dependent type of
knowledge forms one aspect of his mind–body dualism.
o This bodily level of sensory knowledge is primitive, distorted, and unreliable
 he rejected the Sophist doctrine of the value of sense knowledge, arguing instead
that the influx of sensory 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 The Republic the cave story: prisoners are kept in darkness and their only
knowledge of the world is derived indirectly from the distorted images of
physical events reflected off the wall of the cave by the flickering light of a fire.
It is the philosopher’s goal to go beyond the dark world of sense information to
the clear brilliance of the sunlight of the outside world + to go back to the cave in
order to illuminate the minds of those imprisoned in the “darkness” of sensory
knowledge.
o Soul: a spiritual substance consisting of reason and appetite (stores ideas)
 has both rational and irrational parts
 motivational principle of the soul is desire, which Plato described as the first
condition of the soul.
 The activities of the soul: 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.
 soul existed before the body and that it brings knowledge with it from previous
incarnations, so that innate ideas of the mind are actually residual knowledge
from the previous lives of individuals.
 good life = appropriate mixture of reason and pleasure
 supreme good = pure knowledge of eternal forms of universal laws
 Psychology drawn from plato’s description of soul and body
 Connected bodily functions to the negative state of unreliability and base
functions. In this sense, the body is like a prison that interferes with the
higher, more truly human functions of the soul.
 soul as containing all activities that separate 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 intellectual level, there is the
formation of ideas that parallel, but go beyond, physical motion and
allow abstractions from nature. Ideas do not rely on the physical level,
and they become intellectually autonomous.

Aristotle(384–322 B C )

 student of Plato
 Added to Plato: a recognition of the diversity and the dynamics of nature. Aristotle tried to
understand the relationship between the abstract Idea and the world of matter.
 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.
 Looked at logic to analyze the thought process 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:
o White reflects light. Snow is white. Therefore, snow reflects light.
 The two processes in logic are deductions and inductions.
o Deductions begin with a general proposition and proceed to a particular truth;
o Inductions start with a particular observation and conclude with a general statement or
inference that would apply to all observations.

 Aristotle’s use of logic provided a systematic method of accumulating all knowledge, and has
provided an criterion for valid methodologies in science ever since
o The 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 population again involves deduction.
 Metaphysics: branch of philosophy that seeks the first principles of nature divided into..

1. Cosmology: the study of the origins and development of the world (causes of life by the
Ionian physicsts)
2. Ontology: the study of being
3. Epistemology: the study of knowing (epistemology).

 Aristotle’s Metaphysics used to investigated the nature of being to find explanations of reality

1. Material cause – that out of which something is made. For example, the material
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 efficient
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.

o Found all beings have two basic entities: primary matter and substantial form.
 Substantial form: basic material that composes all objects in the world; it is the
essence of all things.
in the world there are no accidents of creation, no mutations. The direction of
development is determined by the structure of each object governed by the urges
of causality.
 during gestation the embryo is directed toward growth in specific ways
determined by the form of the species.
 Book De Anima defined psychology until the renaissance study of science
o dualism of body and soul
 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
 hierarchical gradation of souls (life giving element): vegetative, animal, and
rational.
 vegetative soul is shared commonly with all forms of life and is nutritive
in the sense of providing for self-nourishment and growth;
 animal soul is shared by all animals and allows for sensation and simple
forms of intelligence, such as simple, trial-and-error learning;
 rational soul is shared among all people and is immortal.

 emotions of anger, courage, and desire, as well as the sensations, are functions of
the soul, but they can act only through the body (physiological psychology)
 ideas are formed through a mechanism of association

 sensations elicit motion in the soul, and this motion grows in strength
with increasing repetition establish internal patterns of events, and
memory is the recall of series of these patterns.
 10 innate categories that allow their classification, comparison, location,
and judgment (psychological process):

1. Substance is the universal category that essentially distinguishes an

object as 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 discrete 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: portrays the abilities or functions of a substance. Aristotle

discussed habit and disposition as qualities 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 substance also refers to the capacity to operate or function –
such as thinking, willing, or hearing – and may also describe an
incapacity – such as a developmental disorder, poor vision, or
indecision. In addition, Aristotle used the category of quality for
sense qualities to describe colors, flavors, odors, and sounds.
Finally, he referred to the qualities of figure or shape, which may
have degrees of completion or perfection.

4. Relation is the category that gives the reference of one thing to

another – motherhood, superiority, equality, or greatness, for
example.

5. Activity is the category of action coming from one agent or

substance to another – running, jumping, or fighting, for example.

6. Passivity is the category of receiving action from something else or

being acted on, such as being hit, being kicked, or receiving
warmth.

7. When is a category that places a substance in time – now, last week,

or in the twenty-second century.

8. Where is a reference to place – in school, in the room, here or there.

9. Position refers to the assumption of a specific posture, such as

sitting, sprawled out, or standing.

10. Dress is a uniquely human category because it refers to attire or

garb, such as wearing a suit, wearing makeup, or being armed.