ANCIENT HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY (WESTERN)

❖ HIPPOCRATES
• One of the more important advances in Greek philosophy and science was the separation
of the practice of medicine from religion.
• Hippocrates was a physician, who not only raised the standard of medical investigation but
also developed the code of ethics for the physicians. He, like Alcamaeon, stressed upon the
significance of the brain in psychological processes, and he approached the problems of
medicine systematically.
• He postulated a theory of “humors” that account for the basic human activity. He believed
that the perfect health is the result of the proportionate mixture of these humors. To him,
there were four basic humors that were associated with different temperaments.
• He believed that four temperaments form personality:

Sanguine (Cheerful and Active), Melancholic (Sad), Choleric (Angry and Aggressive) &
Phlegmatic (Calm and Passive)

❖ SOCRATES
• Socrates is considered to be one of the most important ancient philosopher/psychologist.
He laid the foundation of ideas for many philosophers/psychologists to follow.
• Socrates was born in 469BC and he died in 399BC.
• In his opinion knowledge and truth reside in the mind and one has to look for and find it
there. It means that in order to gain knowledge and understand various phenomenon one
has to look inwards instead of looking at the outward things and trying to find an
explanation in them.
• He further said that knowledge and awareness create virtue, so in order to be virtuous one
has to look into the self. In other words, Socrates stressed on the study of soul i.e. looking
inwards, and he rejected external observation.
• Another of the Socratic contributions is that he defined the concept of happiness.
• To Socrates, stealing is not happiness but the satisfaction gained through acquiring by
honest means is happiness. He regarded the soul, called psyche in Greek, as superior to
body and said that the psyche or the soul helps us to distinguish between good and bad.
 Socrates asserted that all things have a definite purpose and nothing occurs without that
purpose.
• Another of the great contributions of Socrates is his method of teaching. It is called the
Socratic method of teaching. It is also the modern method of teaching and it consists of a
dialogue, rather than monologue and focuses on the logical correctness of the argument.
• The teacher and the student interact with each other and have an intelligent dialogue that
helps them to understand and comprehend better.
• The monologue is discouraged because it involves only one way flow of information,
further it does not clear up any misunderstanding that may arise in the mind of the students,
who are not able to express themselves.
• The Socratic method of teaching is in practice these days.

❖ PLATO
• Plato was a pupil of Socrates and another important Greek philosopher/psychologist. He
was born in 427BC and he died in 347BC.
Following the Socratic tradition, Plato was also of the view that knowledge is innate and
inside the mind. In order to extract knowledge one needs to look into the mind rather than
looking at external objects.
• This method was later called the introspective method in which outwardly observation is
discouraged and looking into the mind or the soul is encouraged.
• This method was later adopted by many philosophers/psychologists who agreed with
Platonian and Socratic methodology.
• Plato is also considered an idealist philosopher who believed in the supremacy of ideas.
He did not believe in acquiring knowledge by empiricism and observing facts. He thought
that ideas are the only source and the true source of knowledge.
• As an individual looks into his ideas he can extract the best possible solutions and
explanations to the problems that are encountered by him or her. Another of Plato‘s
contributions is that he described the parts of personality as Intellect, Will, Appetite.
• The intellect is the ability to understand, while the will is the drive to do something.
Appetite on the other hand is the part of the personality that deals with bodily needs.
• According to Plato, ideas are eternal, they are not born, and neither do they die while
worldly objects change and die. Therefore, true knowledge, as mentioned earlier, can be
gained from ideas rather than observation.
• Plato also regarded the soul or psyche to be permanent and the body as something that
could change. This further suggested that knowledge could be acquired through the soul or
the psyche but not by the use of bodily sensory organs.
• To Plato sensory organs were a hindrance to the acquisition of knowledge.
• Plato suggested that the soul has three parts:
Reason, located in the head
Passion, located in the chest
Appetite, located in the stomach
• The function of the reason is to control and direct the passion and appetite.
• Passion is the desire to perform a certain action.
• Appetite part of the soul refers to the natural needs of the body, such as hunger, thirst etc.
• According to Plato, some passions and appetites are satisfied in dreams. This concept given
by Plato is similar to what was later given by Freud as id, ego and super ego.
• Plato was the one who established the first ever university by the name of Academy.

❖ ARISTOTLE
• Aristotle was one of the greatest philosopher/thinker ever in the history of mankind. This
Greek philosopher/psychologist, Aristotle was born in 384BC and he died in 322BC.
• Aristotle was a student of Plato and his ideas not only show the influence of Plato‘s
thinking but also sometimes Aristotle has presented completely opposing views to his
teacher.
• Aristotle wrote a book by the name of De Anima which means ―the Soul.‖ Since soul
was considered to be the primary topic of interest for philosophers/psychologists at that
time, Aristotle is considered to the first psychologists ever.
• Aristotle rejected the idea of dualism of soul and the body and put forward the view that
these two are not separate but one entity.
• Aristotle was of the view that ideas in the human beings tend to become associated with
each other and there are three reasons for the association of ideas which he gave:
✓ Similarity
 ✓ Contiguity
✓ Contrast

1.Similarity

• Similarity means that the mind tends to see certain similar patterns between two things and
relates them together. This is the simplest explanation of the association of ideas where, for
example, two events which a person witnesses have certain common elements. These may
then be associated with each other due to the similarities present in them.

2. Contiguity

• Contiguity refers to two things or events happening close to each other so that the person
is able to relate them to each other. For example, if two events occur consecutively, one
after the other, they tend to get associated with each other. This is an example of contiguity
of ideas, where one even may remind of the other event which is contiguous to it.

3. Contrast

• Contrast means that two events or ideas are completely opposing to each other, which
results in the formation of a link between the two. Humans tend to associate the ideas
together. These may be two conflicting statements by someone. One statement would
remind a person about the other conflicting statement immediately.
• Therefore, in this way ideas tend to become associated with each other.
➢ According to Aristotle, man is a biological being whose functions include:
✓ Eating
✓ Perceiving
✓ Having children
✓ Thinking
✓ Doing things.
• All of these are characteristics of living organisms. It eats to fulfill the requirements for the
nourishment of its body and its growth.
• It perceives and responds to stimuli according to its perception.
• It has the ability to procreate and expand its species. Higher form of living beings such as
humans has the ability to use their mind to think and analyze objects and happenings around
them.
• Further, according to Aristotle, one of the functions of human beings is doing things, which
means that humans are involved in various activities which they perform throughout their
lives which may be anything such as reading this text.
• According to Aristotle‘s teacher Plato, ideas are eternal. They are neither born nor do they
die while worldly objects change. Therefore, according to him the true source of knowledge
is ideas themselves. Plato further asserted the soul or psyche to be permanent and the body
as something that could change.
• Therefore, according to Plato, knowledge could be acquired through the soul or the psyche
and sensory organs were a hindrance to the acquisition of knowledge. This was an
introspective and subjective method of learning, which means to look into the mind to find
solutions to problems.
• Aristotle on the other hand rejected his teacher‘s views on introspection and said that
true knowledge can only be gained through observation and empiricism. As human beings
observe the phenomenon going on around them and the world around them, they tend to
make judgments and decisions that are based on their objective perception rather than their
subjective biases.
• Therefore, instead of looking to the mind, one needs to look at the world around in order to
gain knowledge.
• This implies that in Aristotle‘s views, sensory organs are not a hindrance to learning, but
they are the source of gaining knowledge.
• Aristotle also described two types of human motives.

1) Primary motives are basic motives which are the desires of all human beings and are
mostly bodily desires such as such as hunger, sex, thirst, anger and need for rest.

2) Secondary motives are those motives which are learnt by organisms and these become
habits of the individuals.

❖ RENE DESCARTES
• His most important work was his attempt to resolve the mind- body problem, an issue
that had been controversial for centuries. He saw human body as a piece of machinery;
intricate and complicated.
• He believed that body is a machine whose operation can be adequately explained by
the mechanical laws of the movement of objects in space.
• He recognized no difference between the hydraulically operated figures and the body, and
he explained every aspect of physical functioning (digestion, circulation, sensation,
motion and so on) in mechanical terms Mind-Body “Interactive Dualism”: mind and
body are separate entities influencing each other.
• However, he argued that the mind can exert a greater influence on body than was previously
thought.
• Nerves are hollow tubes through which “Animal Spirits” conduct “Impulses”___ he
claimed that the heart was filled with a kind of innate heat.
• In his book “On Man” he went on describing how the pineal gland is moved and shaken
by incoming animal spirits.
• He also added that the animal spirits are carried down the nerves to muscles; as spirits
run into the muscles, they are inflated, thus causing contraction of the body region.
• According to him, messages are transferred to the brain via the animal spirits in the nerves,
where the pineal gland pushes them into those pores leading most directly to the nerves
controlling the movements of the organs

❖ FRANZ JOSEPH GALL

• Known for his work on phrenology
• He postulated the idea that particular psychic functions are represented by particular areas
of the brain.
• Intelligence, moral character and other personality characteristics can be discerned by the
shape of, and the number of bumps on, a person’s skull.
❖ JOHN LOCKE
• His major contribution to psychology was an essay concerning human understanding,
which appeared in 1690 and was the culmination of some 20 years of study and thought; it
was later considered as the formal beginning of English/British Empiricism.
• Locke, first denied the existence of innate ideas, arguing that humans are not equipped
at birth with any knowledge.
• He admitted that certain ideas may seem to adults to be innate (such as the idea of God)
because adults have been constantly taught the ideas since childhood and cannot remember
any time when they were unaware of them.
• So, he explained the innate ideas in terms of habit and learning.
• He gave the concept of “Tabula Rasa”; People are born in this world with empty minds
i.e.”Tabula Rasa” or a blank slate.
• The ideas and memories are imprinted on our minds as a result of experience