Role Of Materialism In Psychology

1. Materialism attempts to explain the psychological in terms of the non-psychological – please explain this statement and explain which contemporary approach to psychology best epitomizes this statement. (15)

• In explaining the psychological in terms of the non-psychological, Democritus assigned different psychological functions to different sections of the body: the brain – thought, the heart – anger, liver – appetite. The material processes, such as, the biochemistry of the brain and the nervous system, without which they cannot exist. All things are as a whole is not as important as it is in broken down pieces. In detail, the body as a whole is not as important in comparison to each individual organ function. Materialism is matter and

Discuss the four “causes” of Aristotle, using an example will help. What contribution does this perspective make to science generally and psychology particularly? (15)

• Material Cause (Matter and form) – this is the substance that something is made from. For example, a tv is made from glass, metal, and plastic. Another example, the human body is made up of cells.

• Formal Cause (Potential and actual) – this refers to what gives the matter its form. For example, a tv is not just a piece of glass but glass and metal arranged in a certain way and programmed to work as it does. Ex. The human body is human, the difference between a mere collection of cells and a human body is that a human body has properties and functions that come from a particular arrangement of the right kind of cells doing the right kind of things.

• Efficient Cause (Inherent properties) – this refers to the reason behind somethings existence. For example, a tv exists because someone has the idea to build one and put all the parts together to make it work. Ex. If your eye sees, then it sees because light from the object strikes your eyes and causes you to see what is

Faith involves a commitment “to believe in a God,” “to believe God,” and “to believe in God”. The Greeks believed reason was the secret to the Good Life. Augustine found the revelation of God through human experience. He shows that to discover the meaning of Scripture we must attend both to things and to signs, as it is necessary to know what things we ought to teach to the Christian people, and also the signs of these things, where the knowledge of these things is to be sought. The difference between God and his creatures was one of kind, as existence was something in itself separated us from