The Philosophers Who Contrubuted to the Development of...

Behaviorism has its roots as far back as the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates (460-377 BCE), known as the father of medicine, developed humorism consisting of four humors that corresponded with four temperaments. Physicians and philosophers used this model with its four temperaments for many long years. Socrates (469-339 BCE), Plato (427-347 BCE), and Aristotle (385-322 BCE) are often spoken of together due to the unique relationship they shared. Aristotle was the student of Plato, who was intern the student of Socrates, and it is their developments in philosophy, a precursor to modern psychology, that begin to lay the seeds for what would one day develop into behaviorism. Socrates began by teaching the need to examine in order to know truth,†¦show more content†¦In contrast, his view was one of a mind and body consisting of a single entity. While he acknowledged Descartes’ view of the mind controlling voluntary action, he expanded this to include all human activity. Locke (1632-1704) further discounted the work of Descartes, as well as that of Plato. He maintained that all ideas originate in ones experiences. A newborn is devoid of ideas until experience begins to form these ideas. Another leader in associationism, Hume (1711-1776) joined Hobbes and Locke in their rejection of Descartes’ ideas. In contrast to Descartes’ rationalism, Hume came to believe desire was the driving force behind human behavior, and not reason. The seed of behaviorism can be seen here if one can associate desire with a condition. Kant (1724-1804) is known as one of the great philosophers of modern times. Despite skeptics like Hume and others of the associationism movement, Kant sought to settled debate between empirical and rationalist schools of thought. Of his many beliefs, he held that space and time were ideas essential to human experience. Although Darwin’s (1809-1882) work in evolutionary observation might appear radically different from those focused on other areas, the theories he developed from these observation lead to such groundbreaking publishing’s as The Origin of Species. These intern caused an upset within the then accepted norms of philosophy and religion, had a profound impact on the academia, and further