The Influence of Science and Philosophy on Understanding the Human Mind
Foundations of Human Behaviour Essay 2019
The human mind can be better understood through an awareness of the influences of philosophy and science in the relatively young discipline of psychology. Overtime, psychology has come to be defined as the scientific study of the human mind and its influence on human behaviour. However, the subject was born out of philosophical dialogue, later accompanied by scientific testing methods, to eventually develop into the discipline recognisable today. It’s a philosopher, and physiologist, by the name of Wilhelm Wundt who has been credited as the founder of psychology. Philosophy asked questions about how we understand, how we know what we know, and whether we can truly know anything at all. Is knowledge innate or accumulated? Philosophy also asked more specific questions about how we should understand science and the mind. The philosophy of mind inquired after the relationship between mind and body, and the philosophy of science questioned the objectivity of scientific discovery. Then we asked whether these questions could be answered through the scientific method, in both natural and social sciences. From that stemmed numerous new ways of understanding and theorising about the human mind. Philosophy and science therefore make key contributions to understanding the human mind.
Philosophy is concerned with truth and the use of reason in understanding knowledge, existence, reality and how to live. Before asking how to best understand the human mind, philosophy asks how to best understand. This particular question falls under epistemology – the study of knowledge. We see debates over similar questions as far back as around 400BCE, when Plato and Aristotle began to develop and refine the concepts of rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believe that our most reliable knowledge is derived from reason (knowledge as a priori) – we are born with some intuitive stock of knowledge (rationalism is often regarded as synonymous to nativism). Empiricists take an a posteriori position, believing that knowledge comes through observation and sensory experience. John Locke, a 17th Century philosopher, drew on the concept of the mind as tubula rasa (ie. “clean slate”) in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, portraying the unexperienced mind as essentially empty of content. Aside from the innate ability to reflect on what was perceived, “all materials of reflection and knowledge” were derived from experience (Locke was an associationist). Observational knowledge concerns a physical chain of cause and effect – central to understanding nature. A priori knowledge would have to originate from outside this chain, however nothing comes from nothing. Later empiricist David Hume had similar ideas. René Descartes was an early Enlightenment philosopher and mathematician who defended rationalism and the ability to gain knowledge through reason. Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau held the nativist disposition that we are “pre-programmed” to learn in a natural way, even with minimal aid from an adult. Our ability to recognise “necessary truths,” whilst unable to experience every possible world, implies that we have an innate sense. Discussions surrounding Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry also suggested that sometimes reason alone is enough – but there is both power and limit to intuition. It is generally accepted that knowledge is the predecessor for understanding. The more we know, the more opportunity we have for understanding. It is thus important to question knowledge when asking how to best go about understanding the human mind.
Science is easily misperceived by the general public. Science is not necessarily objective, and nor is it linear in its development. Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper are two notable philosophers that shed light on this issue. Popper argued that everyone holds preconceived notions that influence how we interpret data. He concluded that science disconfirms, and “pseudoscience” confirms. The more falsity we discover, the closer we get to the truth – but there are no “pure” facts available. A genuine test attempts to falsify, and an untestable theory is not scientific. We believe what’s most probable. It’s debateable what kind of truth science presents, though pragmatic truth seems to be least contestable. Science as pragmatically true means that something is scientifically true if it works for a purpose. Kuhn seemed to acknowledge this when he described his theory of paradigms in his work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. If science is ever objective, it is only objective relative to its paradigm – a world view, or set of assumptions, underlying scientific theory and method. Revolutionary periods cause a shift in the paradigm, and therefore in scientific understanding. Paradigms are “incommensurable of each other,” and they influence how data is interpreted. Success is found in achieving knowledge aligning with the paradigm. Science is both theory (mind) and experiment (physical), and is discussed relative to its paradigm. Understanding how science is practiced and progressed raises an awareness of assumption and bias within psychology. When observing the mind specifically, it’s important to distinguish between correlation and causation. That two events correlate does not immediately imply that one causes the other. Beyond science, philosophy also raises questions in regard to understanding the mind: what is the relationship between the mind and body? Today we still have no definitive answer, however it greatly influences how we understand and inquire of the mind. The debate can be viewed as a battle between dualism and monism/materialism. But if the mind and body are separate, how do they interact – if they interact at all? Many psychologists tend to be materialistic monists, viewing the mind as merely an epiphenomenon. Philosophy also asks questions regarding free will – are we free to choose, or is free will an illusory sensation? Are we instead part of a chain of cause and effect, determined by the first mover to behave as we do? Some psychologists, such as B F Skinner, assume mechanic determinism (behaviour determined by the laws of physics), however Albert Bandura argues that behaviour can only be understood when people are regarded as active agents. These questions have no definite answer, and can be particularly troubling and demotivating for psychologists. Philosophy has made great contributions to our understanding of human nature. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes viewed people as naturally selfish and destructive, whilst Rousseau believed people were basically good. Locke held that people could be made good or evil through their experiences. The way we think about human nature influences our understanding of the human mind.
Psychology stemmed from philosophy, which is made obvious when looking at the types of questions Aristotle tried to answer regarding learning, personality, perception and the like. It transformed into more of a science when Wilhelm Wundt sought to measure the “atoms of the mind” in 1879. Psychology is a natural science in the sense that it assumes natural selection and the laws of nature occur as they are generally and presently understood. The theory of natural selection has become a significant concept in modern psychology, as it explains animal behaviour, along with structure. According to the theory, traits that contribute to the survival and reproduction of an animal are likely to be inherited by future generations. This is particularly interesting when discussing the nature-nurture debate, alongside rationalism and empiricism. Innate knowledge may result from the genes passed down from previous generations, however this knowledge would have been derived from the experience of the ancestor. The modern perception is that “nurture works on what nature endows,” so both genetics and upbringing play a role in human behaviour and mind – as phrased by G D Myers, “biology is not destiny.” Psychology also utilises the scientific method alongside descriptive, correlational and experimental methods of testing theories. A scientific theory is meant to explain an observation, and a good theory is testable and can have hypothesise made about it. We are tempted to observe what we expect, which is a bias cautioned against through the use of specifying operational definitions that would allow others to replicate the same experiment. Mental processes can be analysed through what’s called the “biopsychosocial” approach, which shows that perspectives in psychology are complimentary. The biopsychosocial approach considers the interplay between biological, psychological and social-cultural factors in influencing the human mind. This approach establishes that psychology, while being a natural science, is also a social science. For example, it examines human learning, memory, thought and emotion in varying political, religious and cultural contexts. One can derive understanding about the human mind through common-sense psychology, however this is vastly more bias than scientific psychology. This is due to a tendency for hindsight bias and overconfidence when judging data. René Descartes has been attributed with saying that “doubt is the origin of wisdom.” The best science comes out of humility and scepticism. Because this attitude isn’t always practiced, we do better to refer to scientific psychology, that works to minimise bias regardless of our attitude, when trying to understand the human mind.
Psychology studies the human mind and the resulting behaviour. The better we understand, the better we understand science, and the better we understand practicing psychology, the better we’ll understand the mind. Therefore, both philosophy and science majorly influence how we understand the human mind. Philosophy is the foundation of all science, it previously having been called natural philosophy. Philosophy was originally regarded as “the academic study of anything.” Eventually, more empirical studies came to be known as science. Discussing the philosophical concepts of empiricism and rationalism is foundational for approaching psychology. Having a good understanding of science from a philosophical perspective is also central to understanding psychology from a scientific perspective, and from there, understanding the mind from the field of psychology.
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