Overview of
Pioneers of Psychology
Tilburg University
This document provides a clear and structured overview of all the pioneers of psychology
covered in the Introduction to Psychology & History of Psychology course at Tilburg
University.
I got a grade of 8.0, largely thanks to this summary.
Perfect for exam preparation or quick revision!
Formatting guide:
● Bold = most important pioneers and concepts
● Underlined = also important
● ♀ = female pioneers
,Pioneer Work
Ch. 1
Socrates - Founding father of greek psychology
- Didn’t write his teachings down
- Asked people questions to bring out inside knowledge
- Nativist & rationalist
Plato - Pupil from Socrates, wrote Socrates’ teachings down
- Nativism: People have knowledge inside their soul, the only way
to get to this knowledge is by expressing themselves
- Rationalism: The way we acquire knowledge is by reasoning and
thinking about the world
- Idealism: We experience the outside world through our senses,
but our sensory input is imperfect > The world around us is the
world of appearances
- Ideal form: True knowledge exists in your mind, not in the world
around us
- Psyche: Appetites > what you want to do and duty/reason > what
you should do want to go into different directions
Aristotle - Pupil from Plato
- Empiricism (observation + classification): Knowledge is derived
from things you see around you (from outside)
- Your mind filters observations through categories of
experience: Substance (what), quantity (how much), quality
(colour, shape), location (where), time (when), relation
(bigger/smaller), activity (what is it doing)
- Scale of nature: souls have different types of capacities and
filters to see the world
- Vegetative soul (plants): Abilities of nourishment and
reproduction
- Sensitive soul (animals): Additional abilities of sensation,
, locomotion, memory and imagination
- Rational soul (humans): Additional ability of logical
reasoning
Alhazen - Book on optics (light) and visual perception (how we perceive
light)
- Camera obscura: We receive information passively, knowledge
comes from the outside
Avicenna - Extension of Aristotle’s function of the soul > Aristotle: exterior
senses. We don’t only look outside, we also look inside:
- Interior senses (common sense, imagination, memory,
estimation[opportunities and threats], appetition[impulses to
approach and avoid])
- Self-awareness: floating man thought experiment: No information
is coming from the outside in (sensory input), would this person
still be aware of something? Yes, still aware of themself
Ch. 2
René Descartes - Method for true knowledge:
- doubt everything
- Knowledge formed by thinking (deduction, on the inside)
over sensory experience (induction, from the outside)
- Simple natures: things he was sure of, which he could not
doubt.
- The physical world has two properties that he could not doubt:
- Extension: Things have a certain space
- Motion: Things have a certain movement
- The universe is filled with particles, there is no empty space,
these particles have extension and motion
- Mechanistic Physiology: the body is a machine
- Nerves are hollow tubes in which animal spirits (cerebrospinal
fluid) flows > explain behaviour >
- Reflexes: stimulus (external world) + response (organism
behaviour)
- Automatic: e.g. when body comes in contact with fire
- Acquired: reflexes you learn
- Passions: anger fear and sadness: animal spirits are
moving around violently > anger
- Interactive dualism: Material body and immaterial mind are
independent, they interact
- There is a rational soul with innate ideas, I think therefore I am
- Where do the material body and immaterial soul interact: pineal
Pioneers of Psychology
Tilburg University
This document provides a clear and structured overview of all the pioneers of psychology
covered in the Introduction to Psychology & History of Psychology course at Tilburg
University.
I got a grade of 8.0, largely thanks to this summary.
Perfect for exam preparation or quick revision!
Formatting guide:
● Bold = most important pioneers and concepts
● Underlined = also important
● ♀ = female pioneers
,Pioneer Work
Ch. 1
Socrates - Founding father of greek psychology
- Didn’t write his teachings down
- Asked people questions to bring out inside knowledge
- Nativist & rationalist
Plato - Pupil from Socrates, wrote Socrates’ teachings down
- Nativism: People have knowledge inside their soul, the only way
to get to this knowledge is by expressing themselves
- Rationalism: The way we acquire knowledge is by reasoning and
thinking about the world
- Idealism: We experience the outside world through our senses,
but our sensory input is imperfect > The world around us is the
world of appearances
- Ideal form: True knowledge exists in your mind, not in the world
around us
- Psyche: Appetites > what you want to do and duty/reason > what
you should do want to go into different directions
Aristotle - Pupil from Plato
- Empiricism (observation + classification): Knowledge is derived
from things you see around you (from outside)
- Your mind filters observations through categories of
experience: Substance (what), quantity (how much), quality
(colour, shape), location (where), time (when), relation
(bigger/smaller), activity (what is it doing)
- Scale of nature: souls have different types of capacities and
filters to see the world
- Vegetative soul (plants): Abilities of nourishment and
reproduction
- Sensitive soul (animals): Additional abilities of sensation,
, locomotion, memory and imagination
- Rational soul (humans): Additional ability of logical
reasoning
Alhazen - Book on optics (light) and visual perception (how we perceive
light)
- Camera obscura: We receive information passively, knowledge
comes from the outside
Avicenna - Extension of Aristotle’s function of the soul > Aristotle: exterior
senses. We don’t only look outside, we also look inside:
- Interior senses (common sense, imagination, memory,
estimation[opportunities and threats], appetition[impulses to
approach and avoid])
- Self-awareness: floating man thought experiment: No information
is coming from the outside in (sensory input), would this person
still be aware of something? Yes, still aware of themself
Ch. 2
René Descartes - Method for true knowledge:
- doubt everything
- Knowledge formed by thinking (deduction, on the inside)
over sensory experience (induction, from the outside)
- Simple natures: things he was sure of, which he could not
doubt.
- The physical world has two properties that he could not doubt:
- Extension: Things have a certain space
- Motion: Things have a certain movement
- The universe is filled with particles, there is no empty space,
these particles have extension and motion
- Mechanistic Physiology: the body is a machine
- Nerves are hollow tubes in which animal spirits (cerebrospinal
fluid) flows > explain behaviour >
- Reflexes: stimulus (external world) + response (organism
behaviour)
- Automatic: e.g. when body comes in contact with fire
- Acquired: reflexes you learn
- Passions: anger fear and sadness: animal spirits are
moving around violently > anger
- Interactive dualism: Material body and immaterial mind are
independent, they interact
- There is a rational soul with innate ideas, I think therefore I am
- Where do the material body and immaterial soul interact: pineal
