PSYC85H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Ludwig Binswanger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Humanistic Psychology
History of Psychology
July 25th 2016
Chapter Fourteen:
• Third Force: what humanistic psychologists called themselves in an attempt to distinguish clearly their approach from the other
two forces (psychoanalysis and behaviorism).
o Psychoanalysis is too pessimistic about human nature and they wanted to stress the importance of enabling people to
attain their human potential.
o Behaviorists are too concerned with being objective and as a result ignored the richness of human experience.
o People ae’t uled stiuli ad eifoes o uosious, istitual ipulses.
o Each person is a conscious, rational being who can exercise free will and choice.
o Environment has an effect, but human beings can transcend it to some degree.
o Idiographic approach is necessary for the study of people.
• Existentialism: the view that people are free to make of themselves what they will and are responsible for their own choices.
o The world confers no meaning on the lives of individuals.
• Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55)
o Danish philosopher preoccupied with the nature of human choice.
o Argued faith in God is absurd but possible nonetheless.
▪ The leap of faith that makes one into a religious person is not grounded in any objective fact—it is purely a
subjective act.
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
o Believed that nihilism marked the end of Christianity.
▪ Nihilism: the notion that there are no absolute truths or values.
▪ Perspectivism: the notion that there are any number of interpretations of reality, all of them equally valid.
➢ Rejects the superiority of a scientific understanding of the world.
➢ Nietzsche saw the emergence of this in the place of Christianity.
o Will power: the motive to be powerful and dominate over others.
▪ What society as a whole takes to be true is only what powerful people want to be true; however, each
individual is free to choose some other interpretation of reality in accordance with his/her own will power.
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80)
o Refused a Nobel Prize due to his general attitude of disdain for established cultural institutions.
o Acquainted with and contemptuous of the work of academic psychologists who regarded their discipline as an
objective, experimental science.
o Adopted Betao ad Hussel’s oept of itetioalit, eaig that osiousess is always directed at something
other than itself.
o People ae’t pedeteied ad a’t lai that the had o hoie ut to eoe hat the ae.
o Regarded lying to oneself as a form of bad faith.
o Humanism: places the person at the center of the action, the only one responsible for his/her own life.
▪ Sartre regarded his approach as a form of humanism.
• Martin Heidegger (1899-1976)
o A studet of Hussel’s iflueed Sate.
o Argued a person is fundamentally concerned with the fact that s/he is a being-in-the-world and ask fundamental
questions about the nature of existence.
▪ Being-in-the-old: peso a’t e sepaated fo the otet ad all peeptios oe fo a patiula
perspective at a particular time.
➢ Umwelt: real world; physical biology
➢ Mitwelt: with world; social
➢ Eigenwelt: own world; internal self
➢ Uberwelt: religious aspects of the world
o Believed that the phenomenological method was the only proper way to investigate the nature of being in the world.
o People vary in the way that they are related to the world that they live in.
• Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966)
o Deeloped a eistetial appoah to pshotheap uildig o Heidegge’s asi ideas.
o Argued people must make some spiritual commitment in order to make fundamental changes in themselves.
o Claimed that pshotheap as’t soethig that oe a do ith ol pat of oeself, ut euies a total
commitment to encounter a mutual understanding with his fellow man and understanding human being in their
totality.
• Charlotte Malachowski Bühler (1893-1974)
o Bühle’s etal haateistis to huaisti psholog:
▪ Humanistic psychology studies the person as a whole.
➢ Examines functions in relation to another one.
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Document Summary
Third force: what humanistic psychologists called themselves in an attempt to distinguish clearly their approach from the other two forces (psychoanalysis and behaviorism). Psychoanalysis is too pessimistic about human nature and they wanted to stress the importance of enabling people to attain their human potential. Behaviorists are too concerned with being objective and as a result ignored the richness of human experience. People a(cid:396)e(cid:374)"t (cid:396)uled (cid:271)(cid:455) sti(cid:373)uli a(cid:374)d (cid:396)ei(cid:374)fo(cid:396)(cid:272)e(cid:396)s o(cid:396) (cid:271)(cid:455) u(cid:374)(cid:272)o(cid:374)s(cid:272)ious, i(cid:374)sti(cid:374)(cid:272)tual i(cid:373)pulses. Each person is a conscious, rational being who can exercise free will and choice. Environment has an effect, but human beings can transcend it to some degree. Idiographic approach is necessary for the study of people. Existentialism: the view that people are free to make of themselves what they will and are responsible for their own choices. The world confers no meaning on the lives of individuals.
