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History Psychology:1 AristotleAristotle may well be deemed the founder of this as of so many other sciences, though by him it is not distinguished from general biology, which is itself part of physics, or the study of nature. His treatise peri psyches ("De Anima") was during two thousand years virtually the universal textbook of psychology, and it still well repays study. In the investigation of vital phenomena Aristotle employed to some extent all the methods of modern science: observation, internal and external; comparison; experiment; hypothesis; and induction; as well as deduction and speculative reasoning. He defines the soul as the "Entelechy or form of a natural body potentially possessing life". He distinguishes three kinds of souls, or grades of life, the vegetative, the sensitive, and the intellectual or rational. In man the higher virtually includes the lower. He investigates the several functions of nutrition, appetency, locomotion, sensuous perception, and intellect or reason. The last is confined to man. The working of the senses is discussed by him in detail; and diligent anatomical and physiological study, as well as careful introspective observation of our conscious processes, is manifested. Knowledge starts from sensation, but sense only apprehends the concrete and singular thing. It is the function of the intellect to abstract the universal essence. There is a radical distinction between thought and sentiency. The intellect or reason (nous) is separate from sense and immortal, though how precisely we are to conceive this nous and its "separateness" is one of the most puzzling problems in Aristotle's psychology. Indeed, the doctrines of free will and personal immortality are not easily reconciled with parts of Aristotle's teaching. |
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