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History
and Systems of Psychology
PSY502
VU
Lesson
09
GERMAN
CONTRIBUTION
Wilhelm
Liebniz
The
first German philosopher/psychologist in the
present context was Wilhelm
Leibniz. He was
born
in 1646AD and he died in 1716
AD.
One
of the most important contributions of
Wilhelm Liebniz is that the
universe including
human
beings
is made up of atoms. His
theory was based on the preexisting
belief of atoms forming the
matter.
Liebniz
called these particles or
atom as Monads.
Liebniz
further proposed that Monads
are spiritual in nature and
they are permanent
and
indestructible.
They have their own stages
of growth and development. Liebniz
said that objects are
made
up
of lowest monads, animals of higher
monads than objects and
man is made of the highest
monads of
them
all. We are born with these,
and they develop with the passage of
time.
Another
contribution of Wilhelm Liebniz is
that he proposed that the
soul and the body exist
and
operate
parallel to each other. This means
that the body and the soul
operate in the humans at the
same
time
and complement each other in
their functions. This view of
parallelism of soul and body
is termed as
psycho-physical
parallelism.
Immanuel
Kant
Another
great German philosopher/psychologist was
Immanuel Kant who was
born in 1724 AD
and
died in 1804 AD.
Kant
was against introspection
and believed that observation and
empiricism can lead
to
knowledge.
The important contribution of
Kant in this regard is that he
proposed that the human mind
is
active
and it rearranges and
catalogues information gathered by
observation. This means that whenever
an
individual
observes something, he stores the
information in his mind. The
mind performs the function of
the
storage house and also
arranges the information for the
individual. This may result
in easy retrieval of
the
information and the information being
associated with other pieces
of information that are in the
same
category.
Therefore, this combination of information
results in formulation of ideas
etc.
Kant
proposed that the mind has an innate
capacity to see unity in what is
observed. This means
that
mind relates every observation
and information to some
other information and this is what
was termed
as
unity. It finds different
observations as similar because of the
previously stored information.
Further,
Kant proposed that mind
has the capacity to give meaning to
sensations and observation.
The
sensations received by the body
are conveyed to the mind.
Then the mind is responsible
for
interpreting
these sensations and deciding
how the person and the body
have to react. Similarly
for
observation,
the mind acquires all the
information and tries to
draw conclusions out of it.
Therefore, the
mind
performs the function of an
interpreter.
Kant's
ideas are a mixture of Liebnisian
and Lockean views. Liebniz proposed
that in the sense
both
mind and body operate at the
same time. Liebniz had
proposed the concept of
psycho-physical
parallelism.
On the other hand Kant's views
were similar to Locke in terms
that according to Kant
there
was
not material existence of the
mind and its operations.
Kant further proposed that
psychology could not
become
a science, since science
deals in matter and mind is
not material.
Friedrich
Hegel
Another
name belonging to the German epoch
was that of Friedrich Hegel
who was born in
1770AD
and died in 1831AD.
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History
and Systems of Psychology
PSY502
VU
Hegel
taught that there is no conflict
between mind or wisdom and
nature or matter. He further
proclaimed
that there is a logical flow in
nature, which can be
discovered by logic and wisdom.
This means
that
all the phenomenon of nature can be
described in logical terms. It may
have a cause and
effect
relationship
or may otherwise be explained using
simple methods of observational
reasoning.
He
postulated the view of Absolute
idea. Absolute
idea is the
absolute truth and it is
non-material.
Hegel
put forward the idea that
objects and events can
not be studied separately. This
idea had the
implication
in his theory that if we want to
study a person we must look
into his family life,
his political and
religious
ideas, his economic
conditions etc. It is one of the
most important features of
Hegel's viewpoint.
Hegel
correctly and implicitly stated
that the behavior of a person,
his attitude and his
actions are influenced
by
his environment. The kind of
environment from which a
person belongs to has to
determine his own
behavior.
For example an individual
living in a joint family
system would have different
attitude from one
living
in a separate family. He also
purported that economic,
political and social
environment also influence
the
person, which can be understood by
looking at the French revolution.
The French peasants felt
that
they
were being oppressed by the clergy
men and the rulers. This
made them revolt against
both the church
and
the monarch.
Hegel
proposed that objects and
events affect each other and
in turn get affected. Similarly
human
thought
affects objects, and objects
affect human thoughts. This means that
humans tend to use
their
thoughts
for the improvement or to make
best use of the objects. On the
other hand natural phenomenon
related
to the objects influence human minds
and make humans develop new
ideas and thoughts. In
other
words
this conflict between objects
and human thought leads to
change, growth and
development.
Hegel
also proposed a theory of development of
man's thought which states
that development
takes
place in three stages. This
theory is also based on the
idea of the conflict between
objects and
thoughts.
The three stages of development of
thought are:
The
first stage is when man
discovers some phenomenon. He tries to
explain the phenomenon
·
according
to his own information. In
other words, man discovers,
generates an idea and calls
it a
thesis.
This thesis is the basis of the
thought or idea.
Later
when the idea has been proposed in the
form of a thesis, further observation
and
·
interpretation
results in the formation of its opposite
or contradictory idea. This opposite
or
contradictory
idea is called the
anti-thesis
Finally
the two conflicting or contradictory
ideas are merged together to
from a new idea which
is
·
known
as synthesis. This generates the explanation of the
phenomenon.
In
other words, there is first
an explanation of the phenomenon. This explanation is
then negated
by
another explanation. When both these
explanations are combined it results in a
final explanation which
is
called
a synthesis.
As
a whole these three steps by
the development of a synthesis lead to
growth and development.
The
synthesis ultimately also
becomes a thesis and is then
negated in the same manner as the
original thesis.
This
process of negation of the synthesis as a
thesis is called the negation
of negation. It
continues
forever.
Therefore, according to Hegel
contradiction is basic mover of the entire
universe, including
man
and
ideas.
Old
ideas generate new ideas,
those are negated and
new ideas are formed.
This means that
there
are
no permanent ideas in this world.
Hegel also taught that we should
look at the universe and see
the
logical
connections between objects
and ideas. These logical
connections would explain
various
phenomenons.
This process is called the dialectical
process. The
dialectical process means
that by looking
at
two things, i.e. the object and the
ideas we can draw
conclusions about them. These
were the
contribution
of Friedrich Hegel.
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