Course Description.
This course provides a historical context for the modern field of psychology by studying writers, in the past, who were concerned with psychological issues and thus helped shape psychology as we know it today. Approximately half the course will be spent on contributions prior to the mid-nineteenth century, before psychology was recognized as separate from philosophy and religion on the one hand and the natural sciences on the other. The second half deals with psychlogy as a discipline in its own right. The course will provide a sound foundation for understanding current trends by showing the historical origins of fundamental conceptions and controversies. The importance of the interplay between different branches of knowledge in shaping the field will be emphasized throughout.