NAME OF PHILOSOPHERS PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS/ BELIEFS
The Birth of Psychology in Ancient Greece
Pre-Socratic Philosophers
 Thales Thales believed that the first cause is water, that water is
the original substance from which all other things
originated.
 Anaximander Anaximander believed in an eternal creative force that
brings things into existence. He believed that no element
could be the first cause because all elements must have
originated from an earlier source.
 Pythagoras Pythagoras believed that the world is made up of numbers.
He believed that all things, despite appearances, are made
up of numbers.
 Parmenides Parmenides believed that only one unchanging thing exists,
and it is an indivisible-spherical thing called “the One”. He
believed that no other objects exist, and the entirety of the
cosmos consists of “the One”.
 Democritus Democritus believed that the things in the physical world
are made up of an infinite number of “atoms” that are
constantly in motion.
Socratic Philosophers
 Socrates Socrates believed that a human being has a “psyche” that is
motivated by the desire for happiness. He believed that the
more a person knows, the greater his or her ability to
reason and make choices that will bring true happiness.
 Plato Plato believed that the body and the mind are separate
entities. He believed that ideas constitute forms, and
contents are made up of matter.
 Aristotle Aristotle believed that the body and mind exist as facets of
the same being, with the mind being one of the body’s
functions. He believed that the mind is the primary reason
for the existence and functioning of the body.
CONTRIBUTION OR INFLUENCE ON PSYCHOLOGY
Thales is known as he used the method of observation which
is considered one of the methods of gathering data in
psychology.
Anaximander is known as he was the first one to explain
something that is non-perceptible or abstract. Some concepts
in modern psychology are considered abstracts or have non-
sensory explanations.
Pythagoras contributed with his ideas on numbers which can
be used in psychology to count, measure, and label. His ideas
can be seen in quantitative psychology.
Parmenides is considered as one of the founders of using
abstract concepts in explaining reality. His ideas on abstract or
non-sensory concepts can be used in explaining human
psychology. He is also known to use deductive reasoning
which is one approach in explaining concepts and principles in
modern psychology.
Democritus is known as he was the one to give some detailed
explanation on sensation which is one of the topics in
biological and cognitive psychology.
Socrates is known as he was the one to introduce “dialectics”
which is seeking knowledge by question and answer. This can
be seen in modern psychology in which people used the
method to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent
of their knowledge.
Plato is known for his theory of ideas which can be related to
models or patterns. This contributed as modern psychology
uses several various models such as mathematical, verbal, etc.
Aristotle is known as he was the first one to put principles in
the study of reasoning that determines the direction of the
history of psychology. He contributed to the formation of the
mind as one of the first ones in the debate between nature
and nurture which influence psychology even today.
 The Decline of Greek Naturalism and the Rise of Christianity and other Schools of Thought
Teleology and Philosophy
 St. Augustine St. Augustine believed in the soul that is immaterial and
immortal and that the body is material and mortal. He
believed that knowledge was obtained through self-
awareness and not from sensory impressions.
 St. Thomas Aquinas St. Thomas Aquinas believed in the oneness of the body
and soul through the view that all bodies are made up of
both primary matter and substantial form.
 Rene Descartes Descartes believed in the existence of God and the
distinction between the human soul and the body. He
believed that humans are a union of mind and body and
that the mind and body are distinct but closely joined.
 Leibnitz Leibnitz believed that everything has a mind or something
analogous to a mind. He believed that in all things, there
are simple, immaterial, mind-like substances that perceive
the world about them.
 Spinoza Spinoza believed that God is the sum of all the substances
of the universe therefore God is the only substance in the
universe, and everything is a part of God.
Neurophysiology and
Psychophysics
 Galen Galen believed that four fluids are responsible for different
human moods, behaviors, and emotions. He believed that
sickness came from an imbalance of these fluids in the
body.
 Joseph Gall Gall believed that the anatomy and structure of the brain
influenced and molded the shape of the skull, and the study
of the skull could reveal information about the size and
structure of the brain. He believed that the surface of the
St. Augustine is known for his descriptions of subjective events
in which this begins the tradition of introspection and
phenomenology in psychology which is widely used today.
Moreover, he contributed with his perception of time and
concluded that it is an inner experience thus it can be
considered as psychological.
St. Thomas Aquinas contributed with his concept of rational or
thinking soul. He added the interior senses such as reflective
power, imagination, and memory to Aristotle’s five senses in
which can be considered as major concepts in modern
psychology.
Descartes is known as he was the one to solve the mind-body
problem with his theory of mind-body interaction. His
explanation of the interaction serves as a model for several
schools of psychological thought such as functionalism and
psychoanalysis.
Leibnitz is known for his idea he called “monads” which can be
likened to perception in psychology. Also, his explanation on
the degree of consciousness and unconsciousness can be seen
in the school of thought of psychoanalysis.
Spinoza is known as he was the one to believe that humans
follow the order of nature. He also contributed with his moral
concepts, such as the concepts of good-evil, virtue, and
perfection, in which these have a basis in human psychology.
Galen is known for his concept of balance and imbalance of
fluids which can be linked to the concept of individual
differences in psychology. He also contributed as he was the
first one to emphasize that there is a physiological basis for
mental disorders.
Gall is known as he was the one to link neurology to
psychology. He contributed with his explanation on the areas
of the brain and particular mental activities. It is regarded that
modern psychology considers that human behavior is
 skull reflects the relative development of the various
regions of the brain.
 Ernest Weber Weber believed that there is a threshold of sensation that
must be passed before an increase in the intensity of any
stimulus can be detected.
 Theodore Fechner Fechner believed that everything is endowed with a soul,
and nothing is without a material basis. He believed that
the mind and body are the same essence but seen from the
different side.
Empiricism
 Thomas Hobbes Hobbes believed that mental activity consists of motions in
the nervous system that resulted from the motions in the
outside world. He believed that mental activity is merely
the motion of atoms in the brain.
 John Locke Locke believed that human beings have no inborn or innate
ideas in their minds at birth. He believed that everything
that gets into the mind comes from one source which is
experience.
 George Berkeley Berkeley believed that there are no proof of the existence
of anything outside of the mind and all evidence and
experiences are within the mind. He believed that anything
outside the experiences in our minds must be within the
mind of God.
 David Hume Hume believed that we all have impressions and ideas. He
believed that our mind did not exist apart from
impressions, and we had no way of knowing that anything
existed apart from our experiences.
dependent on mental functions which are localized in the
specific regions of the brain.
Weber is known for his concept of “just-noticeable
differences” in which he found out that sensations can be
measured. It can be regarded that Weber contributed to his
quantitative methods which are now used to solve different
psychological problems.
Fechner is known as the real founder of psychophysics in
which his methodology is still used in psychological
experiments today. He was the one to study sensation on a
quantitative basis and developed experimental psychology.
Hobbes is known as he was the one to conceptualize
materialist principles that can be applied to human behavior.
His materialist principles can be used in explaining psychology
in terms of human motivation in which human beings pursue
their own self-interest, mechanically avoiding pain, and
pursuing pleasure.
Locke is known for his concept of “tabula rasa” which
contributed to the psychology of learning. His concept is
linked to the psychological explanation that people learn
through their senses and that all behaviors and thought
patterns are learned rather than inherent. His idea is also one
of the earliest ideas that were used for the basis of
behaviorism.
Berkeley is known through his psychology of vision with his
explanation of how we perceive and interact with objects. This
contributed to psychological relativism which is the view that
everyone sees and creates their own reality. His ideas also
have some influence on the structural school of thought and
cognitive psychology.
Hume contributed to modern psychology with his concept
that our beliefs about the world are the result of accumulated
habits, which are developed in response to accumulated sense
experiences. Also, he added another important method of
induction that is used in answering and explaining various
psychological phenomena today.
Associationism
 Herbert Spencer Spencer believed that various types of associations and
integrated experiences are outcomes of the increasing
complexity of the nervous system. He believed that higher
function follows from the increased complexity of the
structure.
 David Hartley Hartley believed that sensations enter the nervous system
as vibrations in which gives rise to localized vibrations in the
brain. He believed that ideas become associated when they
are presented at the same time or in immediate succession,
that is, the first idea will bring the second to mind, and their
vibrations in the brain will follow in sequence.
 Thomas Reid Reid believed that the train of conscious thoughts is the
accumulated effect of the numerous mental faculties at any
given time. He believed that frequently repeated train of
thoughts might become habitual and these habits is
another faculty that makes these sequences easier to
repeat.
Nativism
 Immanuel Kant Kant believed that human beings have inherent or given
ways of knowing things that are not dependent on
experience. He believed that experience is a unitary
phenomenon, and the mind cannot be reduced into
divisible parts.
 Johanne Herbart Herbart believed that the mind can be described in
mathematical and quantified terms. He believed that the
mind is the sum total of all ideas which entered into one's
consciousness. He believed that ideas have the energy of
their own which attracts similar ideas and compels
opposing ideas and these compatible ideas form a cluster
into one’s consciousness.
Spencer contributed to psychology that human knowledge
and experience can be explained in terms of evolutionary
principles. The adaptive nature of nervous and mental
processes that human beings experience to survive the
environment can be attributed to his theory on evolutionary
associationism.
Hartley is known for his contribution that modern psychology
can be described in associative terms. Some mental faculties
such as memory, imagination, and dreaming, as well as
emotional capacities like sympathy, can be applications of the
associative principle.
Reid is known as he was the one to advocate that the mind is
characterized in terms of “faculty psychology”. He contributed
that the mind is a collection of distinct powers or capacities
such as memory, imagination, conception, and judgment in
which these perform various psychological activities.
Kant is known for his principle of unity of perception which
influenced the school of thought of Gestalt Psychology. He
contributed to Gestalt through his concept of perception of
things in natural ways which are not dependent on learning.
Herbart is known as he contributed that psychology could be
quantified. The measurement and quantification that he used
are important bases for modern experimental psychology.