Denysha Taylor's Archive

Jean Piaget was a very well-rounded academic at an early age and was a prominent writer. He’s contributed work in the areas of children’s cognitive perception of causality, time, morality, and space. His contributions still influence many areas of study that involve human development. Though he’s known for much more, the textbook mainly covers Piaget’s 4 stages of human ontogeny.

1. Sensorimotor (birth-2): infant becomes aware of the relationship of physical sensations and actions.
2. Preoperational (2-7): child begins to identify how the world is organized, how it functions, and how humans interact with one another.
3. Concrete operations (11 or 12): mental processes that allow individuals to solve problems begins to develop for physical objects
4. Formal operations (11 or 12): the ability to solve abstract problems develop

These are stages of early human development, and for that reason, I believe Piaget fits well into Creation. His research is about understanding how individuals develop in their environments.  I believe Piaget was one of the first to create a reliable map that we use to predict human development. This was considerably useful in therapeutic context for psychology, language, and sociology.  Also in my opinion, Piaget’s approach is much more realistic than psychoanalytic psychology.

Skinner is difficult for me to categorize, but I think he fits more into Fall and Redemption. Like several positivists before him, Skinner doesn’t focus on causation of behaviors. He’s more concerned about how to change or stop them. He also doesn’t focus on what he cannot see. This approach does make sense. What’s done is done, and when a behavior has happened it doesn’t necessarily change once you figure out why it occurred in the first place. Although I personal think there’s a lot to gain from the unknown aspects of human beings and the world we live in, Skinner does offer effective methods of understanding behavior. One such method is functional analysis, which highlights the relationship between environments and certain behaviors.

As modern Christians, we do tend to find it important to learn about the Old Testament and how we fell from grace. However, that knowledge is nowhere near as important to us as the salvation given to us by the death of Christ.  Furthermore, our main goals today are centered on moving forward. We try to attain these goals through attempting to live as Christ intended us to do so. We also attempt to approach the secular world as Christ intended us to do so. Both of these attempts in the past have crashed and burned quite horribly. That’s why we rely on redemption: to get up and try again. Skinner’s contributions lead us, not to just understand humans, but to learn how we can change.

In the transition to physiology and psychophysics, we can see more application of the information that was learned in the past. Previously, there was not a lot of support for psychology becoming an actual science. Many thinkers such as Galileo and Hume highlighted the limitations of studying the brain and the mind. However, in evaluating why it could not become a science, thinkers have also used this as a way of ruling out options or finding other ways to study this problem. This, in part, contributes to the emergence of experimental psychology. The mind at this point and time is still very abstract, so researchers like Ernst Heinrich Weber continued to study the more tangible nervous system instead. Many scientists like Weber assumed that there might be a connection between brain processes and mental processes.

One of Weber’s areas of interests was kinesthesis. Weber’s research contributes to our modern understanding of touch and physical sensations. In studying physical sensations, Weber conducted experiments that revealed relationships between physical sensations and judgments. His findings led to concepts such as Weber’s law, a notable contribution to experimental psychology.

Weber’s contributions as a physiologist reflect one the many methods of understanding man. This is why he fits very well in the Creation category, in my opinion. Rather than an abstract assumption scientists in this time period are getting closer and closer to understanding the human being which creates new paradigms and new questions. Personally, I find this an exciting time period in history as we watch the story of man unfold. Due of our modern understanding of psychology, some of the past philosophical ideas almost look ridiculous in comparison.  But it’s also fascinating to see our thoughts transform and unfold.

Personally, I find existentialism difficult to categorize. On one end of the spectrum, it could fall under Creation. To the existentialist, the human experience, freedom of choice, and fullness of life are what drives existence. This explores the question of human meaning and purpose.

But in Kierkegaard’s case, freedom and experience was most needed in the institution of the church. He believed the mundane laws and rituals to be a shallow religious experience that did not create an adequate connection with God. That’s why his ideals fall in line with Redemption. His call for a personal relationship with God introduces a paradigm shift within the church that was very similar to the effect of Jesus’ teachings among the Jews. Because of their history and their rituals, the Jews had specific expectations for their culture based on their own understanding and not of God’s will. Kierkegaard also lived in a place where religious officials and doctrine dictated society. He rejected this social structure that lacked emphasis on qualities unique to human beings.

I find Kierkegaard to have been a bold individual of his time. His ideals reflect modern struggles of both Christianity and evangelism today. Humans do desire real experiences and without those experiences many individuals question the existence of God.

Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz was a noteworthy German mathematician. His contributions to the development of psychological thought largely reflect a Creation perspective. Leibniz explored the possibilities of the unknown/unseen world that exists outside of and within the mind. He did not distinguish between living and non-living, but declared everything in the world to be living. He supports this declaration with his concept of monadology, or the separate live atoms that make up matter. Leibniz presented the idea that all monads were active and capable of thought.

Similar to Aristotle’s proposition, Leibniz believed there to be a hierarchy of the clarity of thought. God had the highest clarity and plants had the lowest. Man was second to God in clarity of thought.  Monads had a goal of increasing their clarity of thought because this manner of thinking was thought to be pleasurable. One way that monadology represents Creation is that monads had this ability to advance in the hierarchy and become actualized. Therefore monads had the ability to fulfill a purpose. Since man was made of these monads, they shared this purpose as well. So, following the question of where does man come from, Leibniz’ answer is monads and their purpose is to increase their intelligence to the point were they become actualized. Realizing one’s full potential is still a prominent concept in modern societies and is often expressed in US culture by athletes, academics, and those are mastering an art or a craft.

Leibniz also presents a Creation perspective in his understanding of the mind-body relationship in human beings. His proposition that God created a preestablished harmony explores the question of what is the universe in which we live. He also stated that the very agreement of the mind and body was designed by the nature of monads and this idea of preestablished harmony.

As a philosopher, Socrates tries to answer the questions of meaning in being a human and the problems humans face in their lives. This qualifies him as a contributor to Creation.   However, I feel Socrates’ life contributed to Redemption because of the numerous parallels in his perspective and the nature of salvation. From Socrates’ perspective, knowledge is parallel to virtue and morality. So this perspective is related to Redemption because to gain knowledge is parallel to gaining a new life in Christ. He believed immorality to be a product of ignorance, which is also parallel to sin. Sin separated the Israelites from God. So, in a sense, they were “trapped” within their own immorality and the only hope for salvation was Jesus, or knowledge.  A search for knowledge is parallel to a closer walk with Christ. Similar to fact that no human can be perfect, it is also impossible to gain all knowledge. To Socrates, gaining knowledge involved methods of questioning things that were blindly accepted in society that included inductive definition. He even questioned his own wisdom and searched for suitable comparisons. He believed there was a structure to things like beauty and truth and sought to understand that structure. In following his own theory, Socrates’ answer for human purpose in life is, ultimately, to gain knowledge.

As a philosopher, Socrates tries to answer the questions of meaning in being a human and the problems humans face in their lives. This qualifies him as a contributor to Creation. However, I feel Socrates’ life contributed to Redemption because of the numerous parallels in his perspective and the nature of salvation. From Socrates’ perspective, knowledge is parallel to virtue and morality. So this perspective is related to Redemption because to gain knowledge is parallel to gaining a new life in Christ. He believed immorality to be a product of ignorance, which is also parallel to sin. Sin separated the Israelites from God. So, in a sense, they were “trapped” within their own immorality and the only hope for salvation was Jesus, or knowledge. A search for knowledge is parallel to a closer walk with Christ. Similar to fact that no human can be perfect, it is also impossible to gain all knowledge. To Socrates, gaining knowledge involved methods of questioning things that were blindly accepted in society that included inductive definition. He even questioned his own wisdom and searched for suitable comparisons. He believed there was a structure to things like beauty and truth and sought to understand that structure. In following his own theory, Socrates’ answer for human purpose in life is, ultimately, to gain knowledge. — Denysha A. Taylor Communication Sciences and Disorders McNair Scholars Program Abilene Christian University *254-366-4397* *dat11a@acu.edu*