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HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY Psychology on the whole deals with the nature of the mind and mental processes. Questions concerning these factors first came about from ancient Greek philosophers, the most famous being Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, during the forth and fifth centuries B.C. Hippocrates, was a Greek physician, frequently called the “father of medicine.” He was especially interested in the study of the living organism and its parts. He observed how the brain controlled various parts of the body. This gave rise to the biological perspective of psychology. Today, all new physicians reflect upon Hippocrates’s medical ethics for their study. Following the Greek philosophers, around the 17th century, one of the discussions of human psychology was whether or not human beings are born with knowledge and understanding of reality, or are they acquired through experiences and interactions with the world. The view that we are born with existing knowledge is called the nativist view. The view that knowledge is gained through experiences is called the empiricist view. An English philosopher called John Locke, put forward a theory that at birth, the mind is at a blank slate, or tabula rasa, onto which experiences of what he/she sees, hears, smells, tastes and feels are written.
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