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This book offers a historical introduction to psychology. It investigates the evolutionary origins of our capacity to practice psychology, including the necessary social conditions and the specialised language involved. It then turns to two cultural containers in which it first emerged, those of ancient Greece and ancient India. This is the second book in a new series, which presents the emergence of Western psychology in a global context.
The author begins by building a bridge between evolutionary psychology and the history of psychology. From one side, this bridge is an evolutionary account of human culture. From the other, it is a narrative of human evolution using the latest fossil and genetic evidence. Finally, linguistics and anthropology link the appearance of our species with the emergence of ancient psychologies. Central to this is the role of the shaman-figure in all ancient cultures, which is connected to the origins of psychological language. The key words 'psyche' (mind, conscious and unconscious) and 'logos' (talk, discourse, reason) will find their permanent meanings in Greece before they are combined to form 'psychology' in Plato. Parallel terms in India such as 'atman' (the universal self) and 'manas' (mind) also find their range of meanings. Ancient Europe and ancient India, two wings of the Indo-European world, are introduced as distinct cultures related by language, each developing distinct psychological traditions. Descriptions and explanations of mental phenomena are traced from Homer to Plato, and in India from the Vedas to the Upanishads. In each case these are related to the competing 'psychologies' of religious cults as manifestations of shamanism, leading to the birth of world psychologies. Presented in an accessible manner, this is an excellent resource for students and teachers of psychology, philosophy, history, linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology, as well as general readers who want to learn more about the origins of psychology on a global stage.
This title follows on from The Global Origins of Psychology: Neurology, Language and Culture in the Ancient World. It applies the same framework to the Indo-European world.
List of contents
Part 1: Evolution and Psychology 1. Evolution and Culture 2. Cultural Ecologies 3. Becoming Human 4. Tools for Global Psychology Part 2: Origins of Greek Psychology 5. Ancient Europe 6. Mythos and Logos in Homer 7. Psyche in Homer 8. The Fate of Psyche 9. Shamanism in Ancient Greece Part 3: Origins of Indian Psychology 10. India, Ancient and Modern 11. Sources of Indian Psychology 12. Vedic Psychology
About the author
Richard Valentine is a member of the British Psychological Society and Associate Fellow of the Kirkby Laing Centre for Public Theology, a research institute in Cambridge, UK. From an academic background in philosophy and natural sciences, and a long career in education, he retrained in psychology. He has since worked in occupational psychology, developing profiling products for careers counselling and mentoring, and in higher education as a researcher, consultant and broadcaster for the induction of international students. He has published on policy in higher education in physics, psychology and religious studies. He lives on the coast of Cumbria, UK.
Report
"This grand, enthralling, wide-ranging project is a journey backwards into the deep history of the seemingly simple nineteenth-century word psychology, from ancient Greek psyche and logos, and then further back into proto-Indo-European and into Africa. A modern integration of the humanities, archaeology, sociocultural processes, neurology, biology and evolutionary theory sees psychological language as originating in Neolithic shamans, who were priests, mystics, doctors, politicians and psychologists. Coupling our enlarged brain's unique cognitive fluidity and symbolic thought, with migration, mobility and cultural mixing, the result was modern minds, and also the science of psychology."
Chris McManus, Professor of Psychology, University College London, UK
