psychology
@sunithayogish (262)
India
January 8, 2007 6:27am CST
In 1890 William James, the American philosopher and physician and
one of the founders of modern psychology, defined psychology as
'the science of mental life' and this definition provides a good starting
point for our understanding even today. We all have a mental life and
therefore have some idea about what this means, even though it can be
studied in rats or monkeys as well as in people and the concept remains
an elusive one.
Like most psychologists, William James was particularly interested in
human psychology, which he thought consisted of certain basic
elements: thoughts and feelings, a physical world which exists in time and
space, and a way of knowing about these things. For each of us, this
knowledge is primarily personal and private. It comes from our own
thoughts, feelings, and experience of the world, and may or may not be
influenced by scientific facts about these things. For this reason, it is easy
for us to make judgements about psychological matters using our own
experience as a touchstone. We behave as amateur psychologists when
we offer opinions on complex psychological phenomena, such as whether
brain-washing works, or when we espouse as facts our opinions about
why other people behave in the ways that they do: think they are being
insulted, feel unhappy, or suddenly give up their jobs. However, problems
arise when two people understand these things differently. Formal
psychology attempts to provide methods for deciding which explanations
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