ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1, we take a high-level historical survey of the entire field of psychology, beginning with the philosophers of ancient Greece and the intellectual battles between such figures as Aristotle and Plato as they argued over the nature of the human spirit and existence. From antiquity, we move to the birth of the modern age, in the mid-1800s, when thinkers began to incorporate ideas from chemistry, physiology, and the theories of Charles Darwin into their conceptions of the human mind. From the beginnings of the modern period down to today, there has continued to be a rift between the concepts of spirit and material substance (the same argument begun by Plato and Aristotle), evolving into multiple schools of thought about consciousness and its relationship to physical reality, from reductionistic behaviorism and Freud’s deterministic psychoanalysis to the humanistic psychology of Abraham Maslow. Our survey concludes by examining postmodern perspectives that include the “cognitive turn,” which attempts to link inner experience with physiological brain processes, and postmodern specialties such as feminist and diversity approaches.
