Of Psychological Elements

The list of psychological elements that have been proposed within the last three centuries includes innate ideas which served to justify the doctrines of the church while rejecting the authority of the scholastics. Innate ideas were opposed by the empiricists as undemonstrable, a revolutionary epoch finding support in the doctrine of associated ideas, received through the senses. When this theory seemed to lead the skepticism, separate faculties were advocated, thus providing an innate form to human mental and moral life which was independent of experience. Faculty psychology became top-heavy and was abandoned, only to reappear in our day in the form of abilities, whether of "intelligence" or of other skills. The experimental period produced the notion of sensations and feelings as elements, but this could not meet the difficulties of the mind-body problem. Other proposed elements include separate instincts, specific reflexes, innate structures of Gestalten, and wishes or desires. The disagreement about the nature and number of the elements suggests that psychology has pursued a false analogy. Instead of describing the process of social life in terms of antecedent elements, the so-called elements could better be interpreted in terms of the process and as significant aspects of the process

Analogy · Antecedent (behavioral psychology) · Cognitive psychology · Denial · Doctrine · Empiricism · Epistemology · Feeling · Instinct · Process (computing) · Psychoanalysis · Skepticism · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Neuroscience, Education and Cognitive Function · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

• George Herbert Mead’s Social Psychology

  Open Access•Sam Parkovnick•The American Sociologist•2015

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• On the Origin of the Concept of “Deviant Subculture” in Criminology

  Reza Barmaki•Deviant Behavior•2016

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• A 'Scientific Revolution

  Open Access•Henrika Kuklick•Sociological Inquiry•1973

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