Most folks who work in some side of philosophy have had the expertise of making an attempt to elucidate to someone that philosophy isn't psychology. To those members of the philosophical set, the excellence might seem obvious, however any attempt to spell it out requires some careful thought and reflection, which is what I attempt to do in this exercise.
Is Psychology a sibling of Philosophy? Surely in the past they were close siblings, members of the same family, philosophy. Nowadays the connection between the 2 is a lot of problematic. Will work in philosophy have any relation to the student's psychological state? The answer additionally isn't a clear-cut one. Philosophy can facilitate an individual psychologically, but this is often not central to the perform of philosophy.
Some History:
Traditionally in Western Philosophy, Psychology was part of philosophy till the 19th century when it became a separate science. In the 17th and eighteenth centuries, many Western philosophers did pioneering work in areas that later came to be referred to as "psychology." Eventually psychological inquiry and research became separate sciences a number of which could be characterized because the study and analysis into the mind. Briefly, psychology became identified because the science of mind insofar as its perform is to analyze and explain mental processes: our thoughts, experiences, sensations, feelings, perceptions, imaginations, creativity, dreams and therefore on. It's principally an empirical and experimental science; though the field of psychology will embrace the a lot of theoretical Freudian psychology and the additional speculative Jungian psychology.
When we study Western Philosophy, we have a tendency to notice a concentrated effort to keep up a distinction between philosophical and psychological considerations. But these have not always been kept separate. Even today some areas of philosophy stay intermixed with psychological considerations. It might be that some kinds of philosophy will never separate from completely from psychological issues.
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Traditionally, philosophers within the Western tradition did not invariably observe a wall of separation between philosophy and psychology. For example, Baruch Spinoza's nice work, Ethics, includes several observations and insights concerning our reasoning processes and emotions. The early works in Epistemology (theory of knowledge) by such thinkers as Rene Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant embrace a great deal of observations and statements concerning mental processes connected with knowing and belief. In other words, these writings tend to mix psychological statements (process of knowing) with conceptual philosophy.
However there are differences between psychology and philosophy that are vital and should be observed in careful writing in either area. In our critiques of those 17th and eighteenth works in epistemology, we tend to attempt to separate the philosophical theme (logic, conceptual and propositional analysis) from the psychological aspect (causes of belief, mental process underlying perception). Scientific work that seeks to perceive and explain the workings of the brain and the neurological processes that underlie thought and expertise (viz., psychology) is completely different from philosophical inquiry into mind, consciousness, knowledge and experiences. Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, takes nice pains to keep his philosophy become independent from empirical psychology. But it is not clear that his analysis (or other analyses) of the phenomenology of various experiences remains one thing clearly distinct from psychology.
However in giant half the matter remains, especially in such areas of philosophy of mind, of keeping philosophical work freed from psychology altogether. Moreover, we ought to not assume that in all cases these must be kept separate, as some work in philosophy surely needs thought of the psychological sciences.
Even nowadays the scholar will probably be shocked by the quantity of psychological insights that Spinoza offers during this nice work, Ethics, back within the 17th century and similar psychological observations by Friedrich Nietzsche within the nineteenth century. William James, the good American pragmatist, includes a lot of psychology in his philosophy. He has abundant to say regarding the stream of consciousness and special experiences, like religious experiences.
Current Issues:
Philosophy of mind: There is a sense in which the mind could be a psychological construct; there's another sense in which it is not. "My mind is such and such" will be restated as "my thinking is such and such." Sometimes it is the psychology behind my thinking that's the issue; but alternative times we tend to're curious about what might be called the conceptual-propositional issues; and still other times we might be additional interested in the literary-creative expression of concepts, values, and perspectives. (During this latter affiliation, see Walter Kaufmann's book, Discovering The Mind.)
Philosophy and also the psychological well-being of the individual:
Another manner of considering the interaction of psychology and philosophy is at the non-public level. Do someone's meditation on philosophical queries bring about (or bring closer) a point of psychic harmony? To the extent that philosophical work and thought contribute to someone's sense of well-being and fulfillment , one could argue that philosophy may be a form of therapy. Is there a way in that philosophy can be therapeutic?
Closing Thoughts:
The student of philosophy usually isn't a psychologist, but nothing says that the scholar cannot proceed as a psychologist of sorts. I imagine things in we try to induce clear about our thoughts and values; and attempt to be honest regarding our motivations for all that we do. Folks used to mention back within the Sixties era: I am just attempting to get my "head straight."
Suppose that a psychologist will tell me about the causes, the mental processes, and hidden motives that underlie my thinking and behavior. He might say that so as to really perceive what I'm about I should have some understanding of those "psychological" things; i.e., I should acknowledge and expose them. If I were to just accept his advice and attempt to try to to those things, would I be acting in accordance with the Socratic maxim to "understand thyself"?
Author Resource:
Riley Jones has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Philosophy, you can also check out his latest website about:
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