PSY-3330: HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY I
FALL 1995
Dr. ROBERT KUGELMANN
Dept. Psychology
University of Dallas
Irving, Texas
SYLLABUS
Orientation to the Course:
This course will be a study of the history of psychology
using the approaches of J. H. van den Berg's historical psychology
and of social constructionism. This approach assumes that human
phenomena are historical and cultural artifacts. The purposes
of the course are twofold. First, it will be an opportunity to
reflect on the structures of our psychological lives and on the
discipline of psychology. Modern life and the discipline of psychology
express and cultivate a certain type of self, the possessive individual.
In previous ages, this self did not exist, except as an oddity.
The second purpose of this course will be to develop a history
of the self. This history will enable us to gain perspective
on our situation and to begin to consider other ways of being
human. We will begin with the Homeric period, i.e., the pre-literate
West. The self of this type of world is a self of honor and fate.
Then, we will turn to Athens of the 7th-5th centuries B.C.E.,
and investigate how the polis (among other things) transformed
the character of the self into what I call a rational, ethical
self. Following that period, during which we can say that the
soul as a moral entity came into being, we will study the early
Christian period, with its novel notion of an equalized, volitional,
outworldly self. Finally, we will look at the 12th century, during
which, as Colin Morris argues, the humanist individual first came
to flower.
Before psychology existed as a modern discipline, there
were "psychologies" in the sense of inquiry into the
nature of the human soul, mind, character, and their relation
to fate and destiny. In this course, we will also devote our
time to the study of this continuing discourse. We will focus
on the passions, especially grief, pity and a variety of types
of melancholia.
Outline:
1. The history of the self and contemporary approaches to
the history of psychology. Readings: Hermans
et al; Foucault.
2. Oral culture and the self: honor and fate. Readings:
Vernant (1989), Bremmer. Primary source: Iliad XXIII
& XXIV.
3. The polis and the rational, ethical self. Readings:
Vernant (1982); Vernant (1991). Primary sources: Aristotle,
Rhetoric, Book 2, Chapters 1-17.
4. Christianity, the equal self, and the freedom of the will.
Readings: Brown; Vernant (1988); Thompson (1990). Primary
source: John Cassian.
5. The High Middle Ages and the Humanist Individual:
Reading: Morris. Primary source: from The letters
of Abelard and
Heloise.
Requirements:
1. Mid-term and final exams.
2. Brief paper on the experience of self in one of the ages
studied, using a primary source of the period as a
phenomenological protocol.
Readings:
Bremmer, J. (1983). The early Greeks concept of the
soul. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brown, P. (1971). The world of late antiquity.
New York: Norton.
Cassian, J. (1955). Conference of Abbot Daniel (E. C.
S. Gibson, Trans). In P. Schaff, & H. Wace (Eds.), A select
library of Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church.
(Vol 11, pp. 330-339). Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Cassian, J. (1955). Conference of Abbot Serapion: On
the eight principal faults (E. C. S. Gibson, Trans.). In P. Schaff,
& H. Wace (Eds.), A select library of Nicene and post-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian. (Vol 11, pp. 339-351). Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans.
Foucault, M. (1988). Technologies of the self. In L.H.
Martin, H. Gutman, & P.H. Hutton (Eds.), Technologies of
the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault. (pp. 16-49).
Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Hermans, H. J. M., Kempen, H. J. G., & van Loon, R.
J. P. (1992). The dialogical self: Beyond individualism and
rationalism. American Psychologist, 47 (1), 23-33.
Morris, C. (1987). The discovery of the individual
1050-1200. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
The letters of Abelard and Heloise. (1974). Harmondsworth:
Penquin.
Thompson, G. B. (1990). The emerging tension between
self and society, as exemplified in Augustine. Listening:
Journal of Religion and Culture, 25 (3), 267-280.
Vernant, J.-P. (1991). The individual within the city-state.
In F. Zeitlin (Ed.), Mortals and immortals. (pp. 318-333).
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vernant, J.-P. (1988). Intimations of the will in Greek
tragedy (J. Lloyd, Trans.). In Myth and tragedy in ancient
Greece. (pp. 49-84). New York: Zone Books.
Vernant, J.-P. (1989). Dim body, dazzling body (A.M.
Wilson, Trans.). In M. Feher (Ed.), Fragments for a history
of the human body, Part One. (pp. 18-47). New York: Zone
Books.
Vernant, J.-P. (1982). The origins of Greek thought.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.