Contribution of Great Thinkers in the Field of Psychology
AP Psychology
23 August 2013
Unit 1 Essay
Psychology has a long and vast history almost as old as mankind itself. People have always had a curiosity for how the brain processes information. Over time many great men and women, way ahead of their time, dedicated their lives to perfecting what we now know about the human mind. The information we can gain about our behavior and mental processes is limitless. Our understanding of this science will continue to change and evolve way beyond the year 2013. We will never completely grasp the full concept behind the human brain because of its complexity.
Looking back at history we can see psychologies origins developing with many early philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius, and numerous others. Psychology can trace its root all the way back through recorded history in ancient India, China, the Middle East, and Europe. Back in the day everyone had a different idea of how we learned and how our bodies connected to the mind, some thought we were born with our knowledge and others believed we gained it through previous events and our memories. All of the prescientific thinkers contributed to the development of the basic idea that our knowledge originates in experience, which is called empiricism.
The 1600’s began the relationship between human spirituality and modern science. This was an age when people began to realize the significant impact science has on our universe. We began to discover many new things and create many new ideas and theories such as the proposal of nerve paths flowing to the brain to control muscle movement. A Frenchmen named Rene Descartes proposed the basic idea of reflexes by dissecting animals and looking into their brain cavities. He is now known as the “Father of Modern Philosophy” but was equally successful in the world of mathematics.
One of the founders of modern science, Francis Bacon, was fascinated by the human mind and its failings. He was a British man
23 August 2013
Unit 1 Essay
Psychology has a long and vast history almost as old as mankind itself. People have always had a curiosity for how the brain processes information. Over time many great men and women, way ahead of their time, dedicated their lives to perfecting what we now know about the human mind. The information we can gain about our behavior and mental processes is limitless. Our understanding of this science will continue to change and evolve way beyond the year 2013. We will never completely grasp the full concept behind the human brain because of its complexity.
Looking back at history we can see psychologies origins developing with many early philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius, and numerous others. Psychology can trace its root all the way back through recorded history in ancient India, China, the Middle East, and Europe. Back in the day everyone had a different idea of how we learned and how our bodies connected to the mind, some thought we were born with our knowledge and others believed we gained it through previous events and our memories. All of the prescientific thinkers contributed to the development of the basic idea that our knowledge originates in experience, which is called empiricism.
The 1600’s began the relationship between human spirituality and modern science. This was an age when people began to realize the significant impact science has on our universe. We began to discover many new things and create many new ideas and theories such as the proposal of nerve paths flowing to the brain to control muscle movement. A Frenchmen named Rene Descartes proposed the basic idea of reflexes by dissecting animals and looking into their brain cavities. He is now known as the “Father of Modern Philosophy” but was equally successful in the world of mathematics.
One of the founders of modern science, Francis Bacon, was fascinated by the human mind and its failings. He was a British man