THE CONQUERORS OF PSYCHOLOGY
I. HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. THE DAWN OF PSYCHOLOGY
The term psychology would therefore be understood simply by the rigorous decomposition of
its components.
Like characterology, graphology, and methodology, it is first of all logy, or logos, that is to
say, science. But it is a science of something particular and which never meets in nature, at
the level of things or even at the level of plants.
Psychology is the science of the soul, that is to say of what I don’t know what, which is far
from being an almost nothing but which is found as a subtle essence and escapes to any
extent, inside man, and for some, to lesser degrees, inside the animal.
At least this is the first definition of psychology, even if, and we will have the opportunity to
see it broadly, psychology today is defined quite differently, either in the light of behavior or
action, or as the science of reactions, or in the study of activities, of all the activities of the
human being.
2. ARISTOTLE: THE FATHER OF PSYCHOLOGY
Apart from a strictly religious or poetic description, psychology, as a science of the soul, is
defined in the history of Western thought from the work of Aristotle.
This Greek philosopher, in the fourth century B.C., devoted a three-book treatise on the soul
that relates the psychological problem to a general conception of the world. For him, the
reality is the result of a movement of matter towards form, it is the act, that is, the being
aiming at its full completion, reaching the perfect realization as opposed to the power that is,
is only a possibility of being to reach the actual reality.
For Aristotle, the soul would be the form of a natural body that possesses life in power. It is
heady, that is, the active principle of a natural organic body. For the Greek thinker, there are
degrees of the soul, of the different functions: the vegetative function, which animates the
plants, the sensitive function which is moreover found in the animals, and finally, the
intellectual function which is added in man to the other two.
1
, Without going into the details of Aristotle’s work, It is easy to notice that such an approach to
the soul still refers more to metaphysics based on the problem of the union of the soul and the
body than on a concrete and objective analysis of human behaviors and their causes.
However, such a metaphysical vision will continue until the dawn of the 19th century.
3. DESCARTES AND PASSION ANALYSIS
his vision of a fundamental dualism based on the distinction of the high and the low, the good
and the evil, the spiritual and the diabolic, the soul and the body continues to mark Descartes'
reflection. Of course, from this author, it is customary to retain essentially with the discourse
of the method, written in the first half of the seventeenth century, the formula of the cogito: «I
think so I am, but what am I, I am a thing that thinks». But Descartes is not only a philosopher
concerned with metaphysical reflection. Certainly, he writes metaphysical meditations, where
he tries to agree to rationalist reasoning and revelation of faith. But he is also a man of action,
mathematician ,and biologist. Hence, a pronounced taste for observation if not
experimentation. Also Descartes in his treatise on passions, published in 1649 for Princess
Elisabeth, daughter of Elector Palatine Frederick V, with whom he maintained an active
correspondence, approaches the problem of psychology by reflecting on the nature and
existence of passions. Here again, this philosophical writing is understood only about with
concerning a metaphysical, moreover, perfectly explicit, based on the distinction of the soul
and the body and trying to solve the problem of the relationship between the soul and the
body. The passions that Descartes endeavors to classify according to six primitive passions
are considered as a psychophysical mechanism. They are perceptions, feelings of emotions
brought back to the soul thanks to this pineal gland lodged in the brain and which serves in
some way as a bridge between the soul and the body.
As we can see, Descartes' psychological work could not resist time, in that his work, however,
advanced for his time, remains a prisoner of a religious ideology. But here and there in his
work and in the same way that he bases his reflections on an experience, we find formulations
that will later be considered brilliant premonitions. Such is the remark made in a letter of
March 18, 1630 to Father Mersenne: «If a dog had been well flogged five or six times on the
violin as soon as he heard this music another time, he would start screaming and running
away». which, without exaggeration, announces with two centuries in advance, the notion of
conditional reflex. It will be the merit of Pavlov and his school to inventory scientifically,
with the means which Descartes himself could not get an idea of, the modalities of our
relationship with the world.
4. THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND SENSATIONS: CONDILLAC
Gradually, and especially under the influence of England, long gone with its fleet to conquer
the world, Western thought will open up to the world. The traditional dualism of soul and
body will be replaced by the couple man and nature. The key to man’s explanation no longer
lies in him, but outside him. It is the outside world that shapes us and reveals us to ourselves.
Therefore, it is not surprising to see the French 18th century attempt a more systematic if a
not more concrete approach to the origin of our feelings and ideas. This movement is mainly
due to Abbé Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, a theologian, a man of science and philosophy. It
was his work, both the Essai on the origin of human knowledge (1746) and his treatise on
sensations (1754), which systematically founded philosophical empiricism for France.
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I. HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. THE DAWN OF PSYCHOLOGY
The term psychology would therefore be understood simply by the rigorous decomposition of
its components.
Like characterology, graphology, and methodology, it is first of all logy, or logos, that is to
say, science. But it is a science of something particular and which never meets in nature, at
the level of things or even at the level of plants.
Psychology is the science of the soul, that is to say of what I don’t know what, which is far
from being an almost nothing but which is found as a subtle essence and escapes to any
extent, inside man, and for some, to lesser degrees, inside the animal.
At least this is the first definition of psychology, even if, and we will have the opportunity to
see it broadly, psychology today is defined quite differently, either in the light of behavior or
action, or as the science of reactions, or in the study of activities, of all the activities of the
human being.
2. ARISTOTLE: THE FATHER OF PSYCHOLOGY
Apart from a strictly religious or poetic description, psychology, as a science of the soul, is
defined in the history of Western thought from the work of Aristotle.
This Greek philosopher, in the fourth century B.C., devoted a three-book treatise on the soul
that relates the psychological problem to a general conception of the world. For him, the
reality is the result of a movement of matter towards form, it is the act, that is, the being
aiming at its full completion, reaching the perfect realization as opposed to the power that is,
is only a possibility of being to reach the actual reality.
For Aristotle, the soul would be the form of a natural body that possesses life in power. It is
heady, that is, the active principle of a natural organic body. For the Greek thinker, there are
degrees of the soul, of the different functions: the vegetative function, which animates the
plants, the sensitive function which is moreover found in the animals, and finally, the
intellectual function which is added in man to the other two.
1
, Without going into the details of Aristotle’s work, It is easy to notice that such an approach to
the soul still refers more to metaphysics based on the problem of the union of the soul and the
body than on a concrete and objective analysis of human behaviors and their causes.
However, such a metaphysical vision will continue until the dawn of the 19th century.
3. DESCARTES AND PASSION ANALYSIS
his vision of a fundamental dualism based on the distinction of the high and the low, the good
and the evil, the spiritual and the diabolic, the soul and the body continues to mark Descartes'
reflection. Of course, from this author, it is customary to retain essentially with the discourse
of the method, written in the first half of the seventeenth century, the formula of the cogito: «I
think so I am, but what am I, I am a thing that thinks». But Descartes is not only a philosopher
concerned with metaphysical reflection. Certainly, he writes metaphysical meditations, where
he tries to agree to rationalist reasoning and revelation of faith. But he is also a man of action,
mathematician ,and biologist. Hence, a pronounced taste for observation if not
experimentation. Also Descartes in his treatise on passions, published in 1649 for Princess
Elisabeth, daughter of Elector Palatine Frederick V, with whom he maintained an active
correspondence, approaches the problem of psychology by reflecting on the nature and
existence of passions. Here again, this philosophical writing is understood only about with
concerning a metaphysical, moreover, perfectly explicit, based on the distinction of the soul
and the body and trying to solve the problem of the relationship between the soul and the
body. The passions that Descartes endeavors to classify according to six primitive passions
are considered as a psychophysical mechanism. They are perceptions, feelings of emotions
brought back to the soul thanks to this pineal gland lodged in the brain and which serves in
some way as a bridge between the soul and the body.
As we can see, Descartes' psychological work could not resist time, in that his work, however,
advanced for his time, remains a prisoner of a religious ideology. But here and there in his
work and in the same way that he bases his reflections on an experience, we find formulations
that will later be considered brilliant premonitions. Such is the remark made in a letter of
March 18, 1630 to Father Mersenne: «If a dog had been well flogged five or six times on the
violin as soon as he heard this music another time, he would start screaming and running
away». which, without exaggeration, announces with two centuries in advance, the notion of
conditional reflex. It will be the merit of Pavlov and his school to inventory scientifically,
with the means which Descartes himself could not get an idea of, the modalities of our
relationship with the world.
4. THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND SENSATIONS: CONDILLAC
Gradually, and especially under the influence of England, long gone with its fleet to conquer
the world, Western thought will open up to the world. The traditional dualism of soul and
body will be replaced by the couple man and nature. The key to man’s explanation no longer
lies in him, but outside him. It is the outside world that shapes us and reveals us to ourselves.
Therefore, it is not surprising to see the French 18th century attempt a more systematic if a
not more concrete approach to the origin of our feelings and ideas. This movement is mainly
due to Abbé Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, a theologian, a man of science and philosophy. It
was his work, both the Essai on the origin of human knowledge (1746) and his treatise on
sensations (1754), which systematically founded philosophical empiricism for France.
2
