Emergence of Psychology
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Both philosophy and psychology are intent on explaining aspects of our observable world, with psychology limited to explaining human behavior, while philosophy relates human behavior to a much broader interest in, literally, everything. At some level, of course, philosophy is also a science of the human mind, for like psychology it tries to explain the workings of the mind, the relationship between the mind and the external world, and how the mind can know anything at all about either itself or the outside world. Psychology itself, like science, is a form of philosophical inquiry that has served as a primary paradigm of human behavior in the modern age. A more recent philosophical paradigm, existentialism, developed in reaction to psychological insights and to the prevalence of the scientific method as the primary means to truth in this century. A number of new ideas emerged during the period after 1880, ideas that had their genesis in earlier philosophical movements and that now emerged under the scientific approach that changed the emphasis from isolated thought to experimentation. The basic shift was not from awareness to uncertainty but from reliance on tradition to reliance on science and psychology for explanations and guidelines. Yet, it is also true that this produced a great deal of uncertainty simply because the scientific approach always holds out the possibility of being wrong, something that tradition does not. The scientific methods yields knowledge t
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e we live in such a world it is important to develop one's self. . . One does this by being "conscious of yourself and others," by being discerning and sincere, by showing energy, by paying attention to others so that they will pay attention to you (Susman 218).
From its beginning, psychology has been challenged as a science by some who see it as unscientific. The myth-like structures proposed by Sigmund Freud contributed to such dissension. For Sigmund Freud, human nature is hidden in the mind and is produced by "the irremediable antagonism between the demands of instinct and the restrictions of civilization" (Freud 4). Human nature in the state of nature is thus one thing, while human nature in civilization has been reshaped and produces a different form of alienation in the Freudian conception. As the individual develops during the life cycle, the ego, or the sense of self, changes from encompassing everything to detaching itself from the external world and thus including only the inner world of the self. Freud developed an extensive system of mental interactions and mental components that affect human behavior. The ego is the residence of the self, and the super-ego is the policeman of the self. That is, it serves as
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Approximate Word count = 1811
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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