The contributions made by Socrates, Essays (university) of Psychology

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THE CONTRIBUTIONS

MADE BY SOCRATES,

PLATO AND ARISTOTLE TO

THE FIELD OF

PSYCHOLOGY.

The contributions made by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to the field of Psychology.  Socrates Socrates is arguably the most influential philosopher of all time. His idea not only changed the course of history but laid the groundwork for what is today considered the western philosophy. -Who was Socrates? Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher, one of the three greatest figures (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) of the ancient period of Western philosophy. Socrates was born in 469 BC and spent nearly all of his life in Athens, Greece. He was a soldier and then a stone cutter before devoting his entire life to being a philosopher. Little else is known about Socrates upbringing and his life because he didn’t actually write anything down. Whatever we know about Socrates is due to the writing of his concurrent disciple, Plato. Plato publishes a series of dialogues of the Socrates. He was fascinated by what he learnt as a young admirer of philosophy from Protagoras, Zeno of Elea and many more.

 Plato Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher bon in 427 BCE and died in the 347 BC. He was Socrates's student and Aristotle's tutor. Plato became a pupil of Socrates after listening to him speaking at a public place. Plato studied with Socrates for eight years and Socrates viewed Plato to be his best student. He was the founder of a university called the Academy, the first ever in Athens. Plato founded a physical school called the Academy to train Athenians in how to think like Socrates. Plato wrote down dialogues between Socrates and other thinkers. Plato’s contributions In studying the human psyche, Plato has developed many methods and forms of thoughts that have greatly influenced the many established psychological principles known today. -All human knowledge and virtue were innate. As far back as Ancient Greece, Plato argued that all human knowledge and virtue was innate– that is, we are what we are born to be. According to Plato, knowledge is inborn in us rather than build up from learnt experience. Plato put forward the method of introspection that is studying the contents of one’s conscious awareness. Plato also proposed that ideas are true sources of knowledge and since these ‘knowledge’ resides in the person’s mind and soul, it can only be acquired through empiricism and analyzing facts and this could help an individual to find answers and explanations to the issues around him. Plato -A dualistic view According to Plato, ideas are eternal, that is they are not born nor do they die. He believed in two distinct force when it came to body and soul and the soul is immortal and the body is mortal. In Plato’s view, “The presence of soul therefore distinguishes a living human body from a corpse” One cannot acquire true knowledge from things that are earthly that can change and die; they come from our soul. He also viewed the sensory organs of the human body as being distractors for the soul.

Plato was a rationalist. A rationalist believes that the route to knowledge is through thinking and logical analysis. That is, a rationalist does not need any experiments to develop new knowledge. A rationalist who is interested in cognitive processes would appeal to reason as a source of knowledge or justification.  ARISTOTLE  Aristotle lived between 384-322 BC and was the student of Plato, studying under his for 20 years. Eventually he opened his own school (The Lyceum) and the taught Plato’s works he was an amazing thinker and contributed a great amount to the world we live in today. He was one of the world’s first real scientist and spent much of his time examining plants and animals and organising then into groups and sub-groups. His work also included suggestions on the nature of the universe and physical existence.  Aristotle disagreed with Plato’s view of forms and saw the existence of two worlds unnecessary for explaining our reality. The physical world is the real world and there is no need for a world of forms to help us understand things. Aristotle postulates that the body and the mind exist as facets of the same being, with the mind being simply one of the body's functions. He suggests that intellect consists of two parts: something similar to matter (passive intellect) and something similar to form (active intellect). Aristotle says that intellect "'is separable, impassable, unmixed, since it is in its essential nature activity.... When intellect is set free from its present conditions, it appears as just what it is and nothing more: it alone is immortal and eternal... and without it nothing thinks (Britannica Online, "Physiological Psychology")." Aristotle viewed the human psyche as a medium to perceive information. Knowledge is obtained through the intellect capacity of the psyche and the 5 sensory organs of our body is also important to receive information. "As Aristotle describes the process, the sense receives 'the form of sensible objects without the matter, just as the wax receives the impression of the signet-ring without the iron or the gold.' (Britannica Online, "Physiological Psychology")." He believed that mental functions were predominantly biological and that the psyche was the “form” part of intellectual. According to Aristotle, the ideas in human beings tend to be associated with each other and there are three reasons of association of idea. Similarity -the mind tends to see certain similar patterns between two things and relate them together. Contiguity- refers to two things or events happening close to each other so that the person is able to relate them to each other Contrast -when two events or ideas are totally opposing to each other which results in the formation of a link between the two. Human tend to associate ideas together.

=http://www.theindependentbd.com/printversion/details/146241#:~:text=At%20the%20trial %2C%20Socrates%20says%2C%20%E2%80%9CThe%20only%20true,wrong%20lies%20in %20people%E2%80%99s%20reason%20not%20in%20society.%E2%80%9D Dialectic - Wikipedia Ancient Theories of Soul (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)