Contributors to Psychology

Contributors to Psychology

1. René Descartes

a. Considered to be the father of modern philosophy, because his ideas departed widely from the current understanding in the early 17th century ← which was more feeling-based

b. “I think; therefore I am.” – Descartes

i. Thoughts cannot be separated from me; therefore, I exist

c. Employed a method called hyperbolical or metaphysical doubt/methodological skepticism: rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge

d. Brought the idea of using scientific experiment/method to find real truths

i. Start with observations → Ask questions (Why? How?) → Form hypothesis → Conduct an experiment

e. Was a structuralist

i. Asserts that aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves

2. Pierre Jean George Cabanis

a. Wrote On the Relations Between the Physical and Moral Aspects of Man (1802)

b. Psychology is directly linked to biology: sensibility is the highest grade of life and the lowest of intelligence

c. All intellectual processes are evolved from sensibility, and sensibility itself is a property of the nervous system

3. Charles Darwin

a. An English naturalist who gained great fame for the development of the evolutionary theory

Had an influence on William James’ psychological theory of functionalism (biological perspective → adaptability → human beings are animals)

4. Wilhelm Wundt

a. Created the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany

b. Regarded as the ‘founding father’ of psychology

c. Pioneered structuralism, the first approach to investing psychology

i. Thought the object of psychological investigation should be the conscious mind

ii. Should be studied by introspection (looking inwards at one’s own mental experience) in order to break it down into its component parts (e.g. images, sensations, and feelings)

5. William James

a. The Principles of Psychology (1890), which took 12 years to write, was a major landmark in psychology’s literature

b. Began teaching a course on the relationship

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