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(objectives)
This course aims will examine the historical development of the main themes, problems and theories of behavioural sciences and neuroscience. In particular, the course aims to foster a critical understanding of the historical development of the major themes, problems, and models of scientific explanation on behavior and psychological processes, from the earliest naturalized conceptualizations to experimental psychology and contemporary neuroscience. The evolution of the behavioural sciences and neuroscience will be discussed in its relationship with the history of philosophical ideas and other human sciences such as sociology and anthropology, in its close intertwining with the natural and biological sciences. At the same time the history of the behavioural sciences and neuroscience will be situated in the context of concrete history, such as the material, economic and techological transofrmations.
Particular attention will be given to the examination of the evolution of neuroscientific models of explanation of cognitive and communication processes.
The course will also examine the history of the cultural and moral impact of developments of the behavioural sciences and neuroscience with particular regard to the applications of cognitive science, neuropsychopharmacology and neurotechnologies in the 20th century.
The course aims to achieve these learning outcomes:
1) an organic knowledge of the major research programs, concepts, and problems of the behavioural sciences and neuroscience;
2) the ability to contextualize, analyze, and critically interpret the ideas and models of explanation of the behavioural sciences and neuroscience also in relation to other research disciplines, material history, culture, ethics, and technological evolution;
3) the historical and theoretical tools for understanding the transformations of psychological and neuroscientic models of cognitive and communication processes.
4) the lexical and conceptual tools necessary to the study of the history of the behavioural sciences, neuroscience, and for acquiring good analytical and argumentative skills in written and oral form.
The monographic part of the program this year aims to critically illustrate the history of the contribution of the behavioral sciences and neuroscience to the understanding of the nature of desire and the processes of construction of habits and their control/dyscontrol, with particular focus on the case of pathological addictions (behavioral/ substance/affective addictions).
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Teacher
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CANALI STEFANO
(syllabus)
Institutional part on the general history of behavioral sciences, and neuroscience:
I) History of science and history of psychology 1. Why study the history of the sciences of the mind 2. Historiography of science: continuism and scientific revolutions 3. Normal science and paradigms 4. Historiography of psychology and neuroscience
II) Prehistory of the Behavioral Sciences: 1. Mind and behavior in ancient philosophy; 2. Early scientific conceptions of behavior from the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution 3. From Descartes to the "idéologues" 9. Theories of mind and behavior in empiricism; 4. The advent of the biological perspective of theories of behavior: evolutionism.
III) The birth of experimental psychology: from Helmholtz to Wundt 1. The birth of experimental psychology 2. Helmholtz: specific nervous energy and unconscious inference 3. The phenomenological innatism of Ewald Hering 4. Wilhelm Wundt and physiological psychology 5. Titchener and North American structuralism
IV) American functionalism, between evolutionism and pragmatism
V) Psychodynamic perspective and psychoanalysis 1. Introduction 2. From organicistic to psychodynamic conception of mental illness 3. Janet's theory 4. Psychoanalysis from Freud to the 1950s 5. Jung's theory 6. Adler's theory 7. Psychoanalysis themes of the second twentieth century and new themes 8. Phenomenological psychiatry 9. Theories of personality 10. Integrated models between health and pathology of the mind
VI) The behaviorist perspective I. Introduction 2. American psychology at the beginning of the century: structuralism and functionalism 3. Behaviorism from Watson to the 50s 4. Skinner and the behaviorist utopia 5. Operationism in psychology 6. Personality, psychopathology and social learning in the behaviorist perspective
VII) The cognitive perspective 1. Introduction 2. The study of cognitive processes: from the Würzburg school to Bartlett 3. The theories of intelligence 4. Theories of psychic development 5. Piaget's theory 6. Probabilistic and ecological theories of mental processes 7. Cognitivism 8. Cognitive science
VIII) The biological and neuroscientific perspective 1. Introduction 2. Animal and comparative psychology. Ethology 3. Research on brain functions at the beginning of the twentieth century 4. Bechterev's reflexology 5. Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity 6. Holistic theories of the functioning of the mind and brain in the early twentieth century 7. The neuroconnectionism of Hebb 8. Research on brain function and behavior: 1950-70 9. The theory of brain functional systems of Lurija 10. Cognitive, affective and social neuroscience.
IX) The contemporary debate 1. Crisis of theories or crisis of psychology 2. Empirical verification in psychology 3. Psychology of common sense and alternative psychology 4. The primacy of neuroscience 5. The discomfort of psychotherapy 6. Psychology and contemporary society.
Monographic Part
The monographic part of the program this year aims to critically illustrate the history of the contribution of behavioral sciences and neuroscience to the understanding of pathological addictions
(reference books)
Mecacci L. (2019). Storia della psicologia dal Novecento a oggi. Roma- Bari: Laterza (capitoli: 4; 5; 7; 8).
Stefano Canali, Cosa sono le dipendenze, Carocci, in corso di stampa
for the monographic part:
teacher's handouts
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Dates of beginning and end of teaching activities
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From to |
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Delivery mode
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Traditional
At a distance
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Attendance
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not mandatory
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Evaluation methods
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Written test
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Università Roma Tre