Psychology
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C. Edwards
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Psychology derives from the Greek words Ψυχή (Psychê, the soul) and Λόγος (the talk of, but also the logical thought of, in ancient Greek). Despite the fact that Christian Wolff made the term accessible to the general public in the seventeenth century, Psychê as a subject of enquiry appears in the works of Homer, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Pythagoras, Plato, and, most importantly, in Aristotle’s De Anima. In contrast to Plato who believed Psychê to be “an ungenerated, self-renewing, self-acting, self-imparting principle of activity” (Demos, 1968, p. 143), meaning that Psychê is immaterial and can exist independently of the body (Plato’s Dualism), Aristotle supported the argument that Psychê gives form or Morphê to matter or Hulê (the body, animal or plant) and all its dispositions are “essences involving matter” (Aristotle cited in Hardie, 1964, p. 66). Aristotle’s hylomorphism unintentionally supported theories of Monism, Functionalism, and Materialism because of the ambiguities generated by De Anima, his beliefs on Dualism, and his uncertainty if the Psychê as “not a product of experience, not a mere outgrowth of sensations or a name for sensations and thoughts taken as a whole ... can exist before or after life” (Brett, 1921, p. 154). Centuries later, Wolff used the term Psychology to define the study of “Empirical” and “Rational Psychology,” by identifying the mind as the human Psychê and by describing two ways of possessing knowledge: experientially and intrinsically. From that point on, and with the intervention of a number of theorists including Kant who negated the possibility of Psychology becoming a science, Psychology’s epistemology started taking shape and followed certain paths (that will not be explored here) in order to be accepted by the scientific community as a scientific discipline.
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The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design vol 3
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3
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Built Environment and Design not elsewhere classified