William James was a philosopher and psychologist but was most well known in the field of Psychology for developing the philosophy of pragmatism, or the Functionalist theory: "Theory of mental life and behavior that is concerned with how an organism uses its perceptual abilities to function in its environment." He was also the first Psychologist to be born in America.
William James was born on January 11, 1842 in New York City. His father, Henry James Sr. was a Swednborgian theologian, and one of his brothers was the great novelist Henry James. Throughout his youth, William attended private schools in the United States and Europe. He later attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University and then Harvard Medical School, where he received his degree in 1869 in the field of Physiology. The way that William got into the field of Psychology was that he got his degree in physiology and also enjoyed studying philosophy in his spare time, in psychology, he found, linked the two together. Before finishing his medical studies, he went on an exploring expedition in Brazil with the Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz and also studied psychology in Germany. During this time, William retired due to illness but that didn’t stop his from excelling in the field. Three years later, in 1872, at the age of thirty, William become an instructor in physiology at Harvard University. In 1875, William started teaching Psychology at Harvard and after 1880 he was teaching both cl...
A little background history about Joseph white would be beneficial in understanding why I choose him to write my paper about. In addition, it would be informative to the reader of his lifestyle and why he became a psychologist. Joseph white had a general childhood. He was born in Lincoln Nebraska, but had moved shortly after to Minneapolis, Minnesota. White has been married twice. His first wife and him had three beautiful children. He did remarried again, but does not have any children with his current wife. The more important information about in childhood was that he never had a desire to further his education after high school. Mr. White’s mother had convinced him to do further his education. Whites mother had sent him to college Preparatory School at young age. He studied at San Francisco University, and continued on to get his PhD at Michigan State University in 1962. Mr. White studied at San Francisco University, ...
Many people attribute modern psychology to psychologist such as Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner. Though, they were a part of developing modern psychology, many forget to recognize important founders such as William James. According to King, Viney and Woody, James came from a family with a strict father, raised in tolerance. James and his father had many encounters because of their different views. They were a wealthy and cultured family. James attended Harvard, studying a broad spectrum of just about everything. He finally received his medical degree in 1869, but then became depressed and anxious about life. He was not fond of medicine and was then offered to teach a course in the Relations between Psychology and Physiology. He was also the founder of Harvard’s first psychology laboratory. James then began to teach psychology as well as writing the first U.S. psychology text, Principles of Psychology, in 1890; this book was the main psychology textbook for many years to come (p.284). James was well known for his philosophy, which he explored many areas. For example individualism, which he believed that circumstances shape individuals and then individuals shape the world also that we understand reality only through individual experiences. Pluralism was another view which he believed that there are many ways to understand the world, and a variety of methods and topics to study. Also, for James pragmatism was a belief that if an idea worked it was valid; these ideas should have “cash value” as he stated. He meant that these ideas should be useful and apply them to the real world. Although philosophy was a major part of his work, he was also known as the American founder of psychology (King, Viney &Woody 2013, p.286). Wi...
	There are two sides to everything. Coins have both heads and tales, the moon has a dark side and a face that we are so familiar with, and yes, the Lochness Monster has both a head and a tail. To every opinion, or story, there will always be one that contradicts it. This is the case with conceptions regarding Jesse James. Jesse Woodson James was born on the cold and early morning of September 6, 1847 in Kearney, Missouri. At the age of fourteen, Jesse joined the Confederate effort during the Civil War and fought until a Union bullet injured him in 1865. Instead of becoming a farmer like most of the rest of the beaten Confederacy, Jesse turned to crime. From 1866 to 1882, Jesse, his brother Frank, and other ex-Confederates robbed over fifteen different banks and trains. The James Gang operated in the Mid-west until a fellow gang member shot Jesse in the back of the head. There are two different schools of thought regarding James. Most people consider Jesse James a murdering outlaw who was driven by a greed for money, while others sympathize with Jesse and view him as an American hero who had no choice but to turn to crime.
James Alan McPherson, an essayist, short-story writer and critic, is among the generation of African American writers and intellectuals who were inspired and mentored by Ralph Ellison. Ralph Ellison was a highly acclaimed scholar and writer. Ellison used racial issues to express universal dilemmas of identity and self-discovery, but didn’t use his writing as a propaganda tool to heighten his people. "Literature is colorblind," he once said “and it should be read and judged in a larger framework.” Many writers disagreed with his beliefs, but McPherson, like Ellison, sees African American culture as integrally connected with the "white" culture. McPherson doesn’t consider himself a "black writer", but rather compares himself to other practitioners of the American short fiction. Even though his writing is drawn from his experiences as a black man, he rejects the notion that black or white fiction must necessarily concern certain black or white topics.
A captivating tale of relationship of two troubling brothers in Harlem, "Sonny's Blues" is told from a perspective of Sonny's brother, whose name is never mentioned. Baldwin's choice of Sonny's brother as a narrator is what makes "Sonny's Blues" significant in terms of illustrating the relationship and emotional complications of Sonny and his brother. The significance of "Sonny's Blues" lies in the way Sonny's brother describes the relationship based on what he observes, hears, and feels, and how he struggles trying to understand Sonny through the course of the story.
Rationalism and empiricism were two philosophical schools in the 17th and 18th centuries, that were expressing opposite views on some subjects, including knowledge. While the debate between the rationalist and empiricist schools did not have any relationship to the study of psychology at the time, it has contributed greatly to facilitating the possibility of establishing the discipline of Psychology. This essay will describe the empiricist and rationalist debate, and will relate this debate to the history of psychology.
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
The main concern of the discipline of psychology in ancient times was the “[speculation of] the nature and locus of the mind, sensation and perception, memory, and learning”. There existed a strong connection between psychology and medicine, physiology, and neurology. The purpose of psychology, for the ancient physicians and philosophers, was to describe its procedures and demeanor in terms of science (e.g. medicine). In order to understand the emergence of psychology, the advances in medicine in these ancient cultures must be discussed. That way, one can see how psychology was linked to each one of them, in one way or the other.
Amongst them all, James cannot be ignored because he was the key founder of the functionalism school of psychology. On the other hand, Spencer was vocal to further promote this theory to higher levels. He claimed that the structural changes cannot be take place without the impacts of the functional changes. He viewed society as an organism, where the diverse institutions are comparable with those organs in an organism that have like functions. An example would be the government being considered as analogous with a brain and that roads were paralleled with veins. This metaphor has been popular among later social scientists and led to a line of thought called functionalism. James McKeen Cattell and Stanley Hall were also key functionalists with the latter having presented an analysis of how education was fundamental in the lives of young children and many people in the society in general. It is worth mentioning that in as much as the concepts of structuralism and functionalism were sidelined over time, there impact to the field of psychology cannot be ignored. This is because they opened up a platform for further research work on comparable
Rieber, R. W. (2001). Wilhelm Wundt in history: the making of a scientific psychology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
There is great reward in the study of psychology; the study of the Homo sapiens species. Their minds that include intellect, intelligence, habits and behavior rationalizing just as the quote at the beginning advocates—the entire world, history and future, revolves around them. Psychology, not limited to contemporary, “is a rich and varied subject that can simulate theoretical questions while at the same time offering practical application in almost all areas of everyday life” (Cherry). This is the gift that Leon Festinger was born with in New York City on May 8th, 1919. From there, he would go on to earn his Bachelor of Science degree from City College of New York in 1939 (Cherry). Psychology is a science. It has its methodology and asks for phenom...
One of the first psychologists to research memory was James in 1890. James was the first person to make the distinction between primary and secondary memory, which corresponds with short-term, and long-term memory, without this distinction then the MSM could not have been created.
The development of psychology like all other sciences started with great minds debating unknown topics and searching for unknown answers. Early philosophers and psychologists such as Sir Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin took a scientific approach to psychology by introducing the ideas of measurement and biology into the way an indi...
Functionalism, an early school of psychology, focuses on the acts and functions of the mind rather than its internal contents. Its most prominent American advocate is William James. William James is the author of ?The Principles of Psychology? a book that is considered to be one of the most important texts in modern psychology.
When Jim was 14 and his father lost his job, he learned that "life offers