PSY 3360-001 Historical Perspectives on Psychology
trajectory of the lecture (which may include side-trips).
Dr. Jay Dowling TA: Lindsey Hopkins
GR 4.202 GR 4.808
972-883-2059
jdowling@utdallas.edu lindseyhopkins@hotmail.com
hours: TR 12:30-1:00pm hours: 12:30-1:30pm
turnitin.com course ID#: 1236328 password: histsp05
This course examines the historical and philosophical antecedents to our
present conceptual frameworks in psychology. Beginning a little before the
start of the 17th century, when the foundations of our contemporary
approaches were laid down, the course looks at the philosophical
discussion of issues central to our work as psychologists: What it is that
psychology studies? What counts as data? Is psychology ultimately
reducible to biology, chemistry, and physics? In what sense can humans
know one another, God, and nature? What are the implications of a
scientific psychology for religion and the place of human beings in the
universe? Are humans mere deterministic machines, and do they possess a
free will? Central issues in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of
mind that are pursued into the 20th century include the synthesis of
rationalism and empiricism, reductionism in science, the mind/body
problem, the problem of free-will, and the scientific status of mental
events. Twentieth century developments that we include are behaviorism,
logical positivism, gestalt psychology, Freud, human information
processing, and artificial intelligence.
IMPORTANT: We will use the Blackboard website to provide you with
course materials, etc., during the semester. This means you MUST have a
currently active UTD NetID (e-mail address). If you don’t have one, get
one immediately. Access Blackboard by typing the following URL in the
address line of your browser: http://blackboard.utdallas.edu/. The
Blackboard home page will give you instructions for signing on. Note: If
you don’t already have a password, click on ‘Forgot my password’ and
follow the sequence of instructions. You will be prompted to supply your e-
mail address. Once you have done this, the blackboard administrator will
send you a URL, directing you to a website where you can create a
password.
One thing I will try this semester is posting outlines of the lectures on
Blackboard. You might try downloading them and printing them out and
bringing them to class to provide a kind of road map for the main
Requirements:
Exams: There will be two midterms and a final exam. The exams will
consist of a mix of short-answer, medium-length essay, and longer essay
questions. Generally there will be a choice of questions to answer, and
study questions will be provided a couple weeks ahead of the exam. Each
exam counts a little more than ¼ of the grade, and the term paper a little
less than ¼. Factors such as class participation and improvement through
the semester come into play in determining the final grade when a student
is near a cut-off point between two grades.
Paper: Each student must write a term paper based on one of the four
“recommended” books listed below. This paper should relate some aspect
of the book to something outside the book: something in the course, or in
other courses, or in other books, or in your general experience. Choose one
of the books and read it early in the semester, and then write a 7-8 page
paper taking off from it. (Papers should be typed, double-spaced.) Begin to
think of what aspect of the book you might want to focus on in your paper.
I’ll be happy to discuss ideas with you when you begin to get into it. I’ll
also be happy to give you feedback (not for a grade) on e-mailed drafts
anytime before March 1. Submit your drafts as Word .doc (or as .txt)
attachments via e-mail (not as .wpd files). Finished papers should be
submitted to me as e-mail attachments (.doc or .txt), and also submitted to
the website www.turnitin.com by the due date. Any consistent formal style
for the papers is fine, and some approximation of APA style (as in
Fancher) is recommended. Note: the paper should not be a “book report.”
It should focus on a single aspect of the book and relate it to something
outside the book. It should not try to summarize the whole book.
Furthermore, it is not enough that your paper contain interesting
observations and thoughts—it also needs to be focused and well-organized.
And try to make a good impression on the reader with your correct spelling
and grammar. When you quote material from some other source, be sure to
indicate (by quotation marks or inset paragraphs) that the material is a
quotation, and provide a specific citation of the source.
Pick one of the following books as a jumping-off place for your paper.
(These are the only books that will be permitted as a basis for term papers
this semester.) :
Buchan, J. Crowded with genius. Harper-Collins. The story of the early Feb 1 Bacon, Hobbes, & empiricism RF4 Kant/Helmholtz
eighteenth-century enlightenment in Scotland featuring such 3 Hume, Kant, & the
luminaries as David Hume and Adam Smith.
James, H. The Bostonians. A novel depicting the social and intellectual 8 synthesis of rationalism & empiricism
climate of 1870s Boston—the world of C. S. Peirce and William 10 MIDTERM I
James—and the early days of the women’s-rights movement (by
William’s brother Henry). 15 19th century experimental RF5 Wundt
Damasio, A. Descartes’ Error. Grosset-Putnam. A survey of recent psychology
developments in neuroscience calling into question Descartes’ 17 Darwin & evolution RF6 Darwin
insistence on the separation of ‘mental’ rationality from ‘bodily’
emotion. 22 Peirce & pragmati(ci)sm
Jamison, K. Touched with fire. Free Press. An account of the impact of 24 Peirce & James – RF8 James
bipolar disorder in the lives of famous composers and authors, the psychology of the mind
including George Frederic Handel, Robert Schumann, and William
James. Mar 1 the crisis of introspectionism RF9 Behaviorism
3 the rise of behaviorism – Pavlov & Watson
Attendance: Because of a tight class schedule, with Psychology of Music
just ahead of this course, I won’t be able to take attendance this semester 7-12 SPRING BREAK
(which requires about 15 min before class, to avoid using up class time). I
do think that attendance is important, however. We are all part of an 15 Freud RF11 Freud
intellectual community, and asking that the whole class backtrack because 17 varieties of behaviorism term paper due
you missed the previous class session is rude to your fellow students. (If
you miss a class, arrange to get the notes from someone.) I will use the 22 the decline of behaviorism: internal & external influences
time before class to try to learn your names, which I think adds to our 24 MIDTERM II
shared sense of community.
29 Piaget & Chomsky RF12 Piaget
Research: This is a core course in Psychology, and so research experience 31 20th century philosophy of language, mind, & science –
(as described in the accompanying flyer) is required of all students.
Apr 5 Russell, Wittgenstein, Popper RF13 Minds & Machines
SYLLABUS 7
Text: Fancher, R. Pioneers of Psychology. Norton. (indicated RF below)
12 Minds, machines, & free will – Dennett
date topic readings 14
Jan 11 introduction RF 1 Descartes
13 Montaigne – mind, body, freedom, 19 representation and direct experience—“qualia”
21
18 & the social fabric RF2 Locke/Leibniz
20 Descartes – the rational mind & the body machine 26 FINAL EXAM

25 Spinoza – body/mind RF3 brain

27 & the point of view of eternity
ISSUES
Human Nature
good/bad
Is man (or woman) essentially good, safely to b e left to his/her own
devices? Or is he/she bad, needing to be carefully controlled?
nature/nurture
To what degree are a person's temperament, abilities, and character
essentially determined by heredity, and to what degree by the
environment?
human nature
Is there such a thing as human nature, apart from cultural context?
(related to nature/nurture)
mind/body
Are mind and body one or two? And if two, do they interact, or run
along in parallel, or tend toward integration in the ideal case (without
having necessarily achieved that yet)? And do animals have minds?
If not, are they mere machines?
free will/determinism
Are a person's choices essentially free, or are they determined by
heredity and/or environment? If everything that happens in the
universe follows the dictates of the causal chains described by
science, how is free will possible? And in what sense might free will
have adaptive value (in a noisy and temporally ordered universe)?
interpersonal relations
Is a person essentially social? Can an isolated individual be truly
human? Can persons understand one another (within or across
cultures)? (Can man know God? Is God separate from the world?) If
there were “aliens” in our midst, could we detect them?
procedural/declarative knowledge
Is what we can say we know about ourselves and the world what we
really know? Do we know about the world from internal thinking, or
from external experience? (see rationalism/empiricism, below)
Science and Human Knowing
reality
Is there one reality to be discovered--that is, exactly one correct
answer to each important question; or are there multiple answers?
Are there any constraints on the number of possible answers? (see
human nature, above)
rationalism/empiricism
Does knowledge of the world come from reason or from observation?
Is rationalism overrated? (cf. Montaigne and Kant) Is empiricism
overrated? (cf. Descartes and Hume)
Truth/truth
Is there human knowledge which is self-evident and/or incorrigible?
Or is all knowledge provisional and ultimately to be corrected? Is
there a higher Reality beyond the observable reality we experience?
(And if there is, in what sense can we know that Reality?)
process/content
Is the goal of science a body of knowledge? Or is science primarily a
process leading to new knowledge?
reductionism
Can science at one level of analysis be explained by science at
another (such as physics by chemistry, or arithmetic by logic)?
Psychology
inside/outside
Do we study the mind and brain by looking inside our own, or by
observing other people's behavior?
nomothetic/idiographic
Can we discover general laws of human behavior, or can we only
make sense of individual cases in a post hoc way? (related to human
nature, above)
time & consciousness
Does psychological time flow continuously, or is conscious
experience divided into discrete jumps?
consciousness & procedural/declarative
Is consciousness a story we tell ourselves (Dennett), or does it involve
aspects (such as ‘qualia’) that cannot be reduced to declarative
statements?
1500 1550 1600
Montaigne---1533-1592
Cervantes---------1547-1616
Bacon------------1561-1626
Shakespeare 1564-1616
Galileo--------------1564-1642
Monteverdi--------1567-1643
Hobbes---------------------1588-1679
Descartes 1596-1650
Spinoza 1632-1677
Locke----------1632-1704
Newton----------------1642-1727
1500 1550 1600
1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
Five people worth mentioning who were born before
1500:
Gutenberg ca. 1400-1468
Josquin Des Prés 1445-1521
Erasmus ca. 1466-1536
Machiavelli 1469-1527
Luther 1483-1546
Leibniz--------1646-1716
Vico----------1668-1744
Bach--------1685-1750
Berkeley-----1685-1753
Hume--------1711-1776
Rousseau—-1712-1778
Kant--------------1724-1804
Washington 1732-1799
Herder------1744-1803
Mozart 1756-1791
Beethoven--1770-1827
Darwin-—----1809-1882
Helmholtz----1821-1894
Tolstoy—-------1828-1910
Peirce---------1839-1914
James------1842-1910
Pavlov---------------1849-1936
Freud---------------1856-1939
Proust----1871-1922
Russell--------------------1872-1970
Watson-------------1878-1958
Joyce----—-1882-1941
Tolman----------1886-1959
Wittgenstein 1889-1951
Piaget—------------1896-1980
Skinner--------------1904-1990
Campbell----------1916-1997
Miller 1920-----------------
Chomsky 1928----------
Dennett 1942------
1650 1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000