Definition of psychology

Definition of psychology :

Definition of psychology forms and important chapter in any book on psychology. The term psychology is derived from the greek words namely psych and logos. Psych mean soul and logos means course or discourse. So, etymologically psycho means study of soul, where various attempts have been made to define psychology from the time of 'Aristotle' till the recent times ( Aristotle defined psychology as ' Science of Soul). According to him psychology deals with soul and its properties. This definition was occupied for a long time. But after some time people began to ask questions such as ' What is soul' ? Where is it to be found ? What are its properties ? and so on-of which to the question, ' what is soul ?' different thinkers gave different answers, it was a kind of speech.
' Socrates' a famous greek philosopher was of the opinion that ' soul' is a kind of a fluid, which unhurts the entire body of a being gives life to it and is responsible for all its activities as to the question ' Where has it situated ? Some people thought that it was in a brain, some others said that it was in the heart. But it was clear that no body had seen the soul or handled it. Therefore it was not the proper subject for scientific study.

Another attempt was made to define psychology. Some thinkers tried to define psychology as ' Science of Mind'. This definition is better than the previous one for, we know that these is an entirely called mind. But we are not satisfied with this definition for :
1) Mind is a vague (unclear) term. It gives an impression that mind is a concrete substance, which can be seen and touched. As a matter of fact, mind is a function, whose nature can be known only when an individual is engaged with one or other mental activity.

2) This definition includes that the nature of mind can be studied apart from body. Reality speaking mind has no independent existent It is a part of the human organism. So a study of mental activity necessarily involves a study of its physiological counter part.

Towards the end of the 19th century a group of psychologists under the leadership of Withelon Wundt, attempted to define psychology. Wundth was a pioneer ( first person) in psychology who started the first psychology laboratory in 1879, at lepziq in Germany. According to Wundt, 'Psychology is the study of conscious activities ' he along with his students emphasized the fact that the man is endored with consciousness or awareness. Because of this man is able to think or perceive ( clear knowledge) feel and remember. These are other experiences formed a subject matter of psychology. These experiences could be divided into units of conscious experience, just like a matter which can be split into its constituents. This defination has found to be inadequate (not correct) for the following reasons...............................READ


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