For ages mankind has wondered what it means to be human. There are various approaches to defining humanity. One paradigm by which it can be understood is through the three enduring themes of psychology. Because the enduring themes are so fundamental in defining who we are, the questions they have brought about have long been of interest to philosophers. The questions proposed by ancient philosophers continue to motivate psychology today. The fundamental themes, as proposed by ancient philosophers and as expressed in modern psychology, help us to more fully understand what it means to be human.
The first enduring theme we will examine is the nature versus nurture issue. Is our behavior governed by the environment or by our genetic makeup? Evidence suggests that both significantly contribute: nature sets up the boundaries and nurture defines the specifics of our behavior. This is seen in the philosophical theory of Empedocles. He proposed that all matter consists of four basic elements: earth, air, fire, and water. These "roots," he said, are indivisible and unchanging. Fire never becomes water; air never turns to earth. But change is seen in the world as these four elements recombine, due to the forces of love and strife (Gaarder 37). Empedocles fundamental elements represent nature and its unchanging boundaries; his forces represent nurture and the changes it brings about within these boundaries.
Modern psychology offers a specific example of nature and nurture at work together. Nature sets the boundaries for human behavior by giving infants the desire to satisfy basic biological needs, and the ability to make associations. Within these boundaries nurture works to develop the child's conduct. In rare cases nature will not endow these gifts, leaving smaller boundaries for nurture to work within. A young child attaches no value to the dollar bill, whereas water, food, and shelter are important to the child, they are unconditioned reinforcers. As the child undergoes normal development he learns that the dollar bill can be exchanged for his basic needs, and thus he starts attaching value to the dollar bill, it becomes a conditioned reinforcer (Kalat 249). Nature and nurture help us to understand the behaviors that make us human. The boundaries of all human behavior are defined by nature, within which nurture establishes the specifics of human behavior.
Further contributing to our understanding of what it means to be human is the enduring theme concerning monism and dualism. Does our mind exist separately from the physical realm, or is it a part of that realm? In either case, experiences we understand physically belong to the physical realm. Dualists place that which is not yet physically understood in another realm. Over time such phenomena move into the physical realm when we come to understand them. Such tendencies suggest that everything will eventually become a part of the physical realm, and the world would then be necessarily monistic. Such a monistic world was envisioned by the Stoics: "They...denied any conflict between 'spirit' and 'matter.' There is only one nature, they averred" (Gaarder 131).
Monism is suggested every time something that was not understood becomes clear, and moves into the physical realm. Reason, emotion, and memory were once believed to belong to the "other" realm. Various experiences have now established the link between the "other" realm and the physical realm. One contribution to this transition occurred when prefrontal lobotomies were performed on schizophrenic patients. During the 1940s and 1950s physicians would damage parts of the prefrontal cortex in order to relieve schizophrenia. The side effects of these operations included "longterm losses of initiative and emotional expression, a decreased ability to concentrate, impaired social skills, and defects of memory and reasoning" (Kalat 669). These side effects show a strong connection of emotion, memory, and reasoning with the physical brain, suggesting monism. These three traits — emotion, memory, and reasoning — are a fundamental part of our humanity. Monism explains the connection between these traits and our physical body, thus more clearly defining what it means to be human.
The remaining enduring theme, free will versus determinism, also contributes to our view of humanity. Does everything have a cause, or do things sometimes happen randomly? Determinism is the belief that everything has a cause, and its implication in human behavior is that all behavior has a cause. Free will, on the other hand, suggests that we make decisions independently. The debate between the two has long been an issue among philosophers. Determinism was anciently supported by the Stoics, modernly by Freud. During the Renaissance, Kant was one of the strong supporters of free will, which was accepted for moral rather than scientific reasons.
Determinism was fundamental to the value system of the Stoics, who originated in Athens around 300 BC. They believed that a natural law exists which governs our lives and the whole universe. The Stoics stressed that sickness, death, and all other natural processes are subject to this law. Thus they believed that everything happens for a reason, nothing accidentally. As a result of this belief, the Stoics sought to be unaffected by all events (Gaarder 131-32). The whole paradigm of the Stoics was based on their presupposition of determinism.
In opposition to this belief Immanuel Kant, born in 1724 in K`nigsberg, suggested that every man has his own free will (324). However, he arrived at this viewpoint through faith rather than reason. Thus he claimed that free will is a practical postulate, something that cannot be proven but is assumed of moral necessity. This idea was appealing to the Renaissance man, who valued his individuality and personal morality, but was not based on any evidence (332).
This unfounded supposition was put into question by Freud, a leading psychoanalyst born in 1856, and his ideas concerning the unconscious. He proposed that our behavior, even that which seems irrational, stems from a cause:
Our actions are not always guided by reason. Man is not really such a rational creature as the eighteenth century rationalists liked to think. Irrational impulses often determine what we think, what we dream, and what we do. Such irrational impulses can be an expression of basic drives and needs (432).This view clearly implies determinism, proposing that basic drives lead to human behavior. His theoretical support for this was found in the idea of the unconscious, from where basic drives influence behavior.
From these examples we can see that free will has no factual foundation; it was only accepted for moral purposes. Determinism, on the other hand, is increasingly supported as we come to understand that seemingly random or causeless events actually do have a determinant. As our understanding of such events increases, more and more evidence will support determinism and free will will eventually be disproved. Two specific examples that help to reinforce our understanding of determinism are personality consistency and patterns in attitudes.
Personality is the collection of behavioral traits that one person has that makes them unique from others. Such individual attributes would appear to be a result of free will, individually selected. Research on personality throughout ones life indicates that "the personality you have as a young adult is likely to mature as you grow older, but you are not likely to change drastically" (Kalat 576). This consistency suggests that personality indeed has a definite cause and pattern, and that it does not occur randomly or of our own "free will."
Our attitudes are the way we view things around us, which in turn influence our behavior towards these things (689). These preferences would appear to have come about through free will. However, even the apparently random process of attitude formation follows certain patterns. This can be seen in the sleeper effect. Good ideas may be initially rejected due to biases against the source. Such ideas may unconsciously return after a while, evaluated this time for their own value, not that of their source (691). Another pattern in attitude formation is that of the inoculation effect. When a weak argument is immediately followed by a stronger one, people are likely to reject both of them. On the other hand, when the same strong argument is given alone it is more likely to be accepted on its own merit (694).
The sleeper and inoculation effects show that our attitudes are not dependent on decisions that we make independently, but that attitude formation tends to follow predictable patterns. These patterns suggest that attitudes stem from definite causes, and are not freely adopted. Part of being human includes making choices, a process which is governed by our personalities and attitudes. Comprehending how these stem from determinism help us to better understand humanity.
The three enduring themes of psychology contribute to our understanding of what it means to be human. As human beings, we have highly complex behavior. Nature sets boundaries for this behavior, which is then specified by nurture. Monism implies that we can eventually understand all aspects of human behavior, as we exist wholly in the physical realm. Determinism teaches that all human behavior has a cause, it does not come about randomly. Together these three principles, as viewed both by ancient philosophy and by modern science, enhance our view of humanity.