Psychology is a relatively young science with its experimental roots in the 19th century, compared, for example, to human physiology, which dates much earlier. As mentioned, anyone interested in exploring issues related to the mind generally did so in a philosophical context prior to the 19th century. Two men, working in the 19th century, are generally credited as being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct from philosophy.
Their names were Wilhelm Wundt and William James. Wilhelm Wundt — was a German scientist who was the first person to be referred to as a psychologist. His famous book entitled Principles of Physiological Psychology was published in Wundt viewed psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience, and he believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience.
He believed in the notion of voluntarism—that people have free will and should know the intentions of a psychological experiment if they were participating Danziger, Wundt considered his version experimental introspection; he used instruments such as those that measured reaction time.
He also wrote Volkerpsychologie in in which he suggested that psychology should include the study of culture, as it involves the study of people. The second requirement was the use of repeatable stimuli that always produced the same experience in the subject and allowed the subject to expect and thus be fully attentive to the inner reaction. Wundt established his psychology laboratory at the University at Leipzig in See Chalmers , Holman, for criticism of this view, but see the responses of Loar , and Hill and McLaughlin , Balog, , Levin, , forthcoming, Diaz-Leon, , ; see also see Levin , , and Shroer, , for the presentation, if not endorsement, of a hybrid view.
Though neither Nagel nor Jackson now endorse this argument, many philosophers contend that it raises special problems for any physicalistic view see Alter , and, in response, Jackson Nemirow , , Lewis , Levin See Tye , for a summary of the pros and cons of this position; for further discussion, see the essays in Ludlow, Nagasawa, and Stoljar An alternative view among contemporary functionalists is that coming to know what it's like to see red or feel pain is indeed to acquire propositional knowledge uniquely afforded by experience, expressed in terms of first-personal concepts of those experiences.
This view, of course, shares the strengths and weaknesses of the analogous response to the conceivability arguments discussed above. If it is plausible, however, it can also challenge the argument of some philosophers e.
There is one final strategy for defending a functionalist account of qualitative states against all of these objections, namely, eliminativism Dennett ; Rey , Frankish, One can, that is, deny that there are any such things as irreducible qualia , and maintain that the conviction that such things do, or perhaps even could , exist is due to illusion — or confusion.
In the last part of the 20th century, functionalism stood as the dominant theory of mental states. But, in contrast to behaviorism, functionalism's characterization of mental states in terms of their roles in the production of behavior grants them the causal efficacy that common sense takes them to have.
And in permitting mental states to be multiply realized, functionalism seems to offer an account of mental states that is compatible with materialism, without limiting the class of those with minds to creatures with brains like ours. More recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in the psycho-physical type- identity thesis, fueled in part by the contention that, in the actual practice of neuroscience, neural states are type-individuated more coarsely than early identity theorists such as Place, Feigl, and Smart assumed.
If this is so, then it may well be that creatures that differ from us in their fine-grain neurophysiological make-up can nonetheless share our neural states, and thus that the psycho-physical identity thesis can claim some of the scope once thought to be exclusive to functionalism. The plausibility of this thesis depends, first, on whether or not such creatures would in fact be our functional equivalents, and if so, whether or not their underlying similarities would in fact be coarse-grain neural similarities, and not finer-grain psycho-functional similarities.
Even so, it seems that there could be creatures, both biological and non-biological, that are functionally equivalent to us but do not possess even our coarse-grain neural properties.
If so, and if these creatures can plausibly be regarded as sharing our mental states—to be sure, a controversial thesis—then even if neural states can be individuated more coarsely, functionalism will retain its claim to greater universality than the identity thesis.
There remain other substantial questions about functionalism. Most discussions of the prospects for functionalism focus on its adequacy as an account of familiar experiential states such as sensational and perceptual experiences, and familiar intentional states such as beliefs and desires.
But although some philosophers have considered whether there can be adequate functionalist characterizations of emotions and moods e. Rey, , Nussbaum, , deHoog, et al, there is increasing interest in these questions, and more work needs to be done. In addition, there is increasing interest in determining whether there can be plausible functional characterizations of non-standard perceptual experiences, such as synaesthesia, and various sorts of altered states of consciousness that can arise from the ingestion of drugs or from focused meditation.
See Gray et al. For general discussions of altered states of consciousness, see Velmans and Schneider, eds. Yet another question is whether functional theories can accommodate non-standard views about the location of mental states, such as the hypothesis of extended cognition, which maintains that certain mental states such as memories—and not just their representational contents—can reside outside the head.
This question has implications not only for the viability of a functionalist characterization of memory, but also of beliefs, emotions, and moods. In general, the sophistication of functionalist theories has increased since their introduction, but so has the sophistication of the objections to functionalism, especially to functionalist accounts of mental causation section 5.
For those unconvinced of the plausibility of dualism, however, and unwilling to restrict mental states to creatures physically like ourselves, the initial attractions of functionalism remain.
The primary challenge for future functionalists, therefore, will be to meet these objections to the doctrine, either by articulating a functionalist theory in increasingly convincing detail, or by showing how the intuitions that fuel these objections can be explained away. What is Functionalism? Antecedents of Functionalism 2. Varieties of Functionalism 3. Constructing Plausible Functional Theories 4. Objections to Functionalism 5. Antecedents of Functionalism Although functionalism attained its greatest prominence as a theory of mental states in the last third of the 20th century, it has antecedents in both modern and ancient philosophy, as well as in early theories of computation and artificial intelligence.
Pain is the state that tends to be caused by bodily injury, to produce the belief that something is wrong with the body and the desire to be out of that state, to produce anxiety, and, in the absence of any stronger, conflicting desires, to cause wincing or moaning. Constructing Plausible Functional Theories So far, the discussion of how to provide functional characterizations of individual mental states has been vague, and the examples avowedly simplistic.
Objections to Functionalism The previous sections were by and large devoted to the presentation of the different varieties of functionalism and the evaluation of their relative strengths and weaknesses. The Future of Functionalism In the last part of the 20th century, functionalism stood as the dominant theory of mental states. Bibliography Adams, F. Aizawa, Aizawa, K. Alter, T. Nagasawa, Walter, Antony, L. Levine, Armstrong, D.
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List of Partners vendors. Structuralism and functionalism were the two earliest schools of thought in psychology. When psychology was first established as a science separate from philosophy, the debate over how to explain human behavior and analyze the mind began. As a result, different approaches and perspectives emerged. Both functionalism and structuralism made important contributions to the development of modern psychology.
In order to get an idea of how the field of psychology emerged and got to where it is today, it can be helpful to look at these older perspectives and the impact that they had.
Structuralism emerged as the first school of thought in psychology. Wilhelm Wundt , the founder of the first experimental psychology lab , advocated some of the ideas associated with the structuralist school.
Structuralism was the first school of psychology and focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components. Researchers tried to understand the basic elements of consciousness using a method known as introspection. One of Wundt's students, Edward B. Titchener , would later go on to formally establish and name structuralism, although he broke away from many of Wundt's ideas and at times even misrepresented the teachings of his mentor.
Wundt's theories tended to be much more holistic than the ideas that Titchener later introduced in the United States. Structuralism is important because it is the first major school of thought in psychology. The structuralist school also influenced the development of experimental psychology. While Wundt's work helped to establish psychology as a separate science and contributed methods to experimental psychology, Titchener's development of structuralism helped establish the very first "school" of psychology.
Structuralism itself did not last long beyond Titchener's death. Other critics argue that structuralism was too concerned with internal behavior, which is not directly observable and cannot be accurately measured.
Other theories also surfaced to vie for dominance in psychology. In response to structuralism, an American perspective known as functionalism emerged from thinkers such as the evolutionist Charles Darwin and William James. Functionalists sought to explain mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner. Rather than focusing on the elements of consciousness, functionalists focused on the purpose of consciousness and behavior.
Functionalism also emphasized individual differences, which had a profound impact on education. Functionalism was an important influence on psychology. It influenced the development of behaviorism and applied psychology.
Functionalism was criticized perhaps most famously by Wundt. While these two schools of thought served as the foundation for the future developments of psychology, there were important differences between the two.
In , Mary Whiton Calkins published an article in Psychological Review asking for a reconciliation between these two schools of thought.
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