Difference between philosophy and psychology.

Philosophy and psychology refer to man as a subject of research. It is interesting that psychology has developed over time as an integral part of philosophy, taking from it quite a lot of theoretical knowledge. But there are quite a few differences between these two sciences, which are not so easy to formulate. Let's try to figure out what is the global difference between these approaches to the study of the human personality and the surrounding world as a whole.

Definition

Philosophy - science, the subject of research of which is an almost limitless field of knowledge and ideas both about man and humanity in general, and about the world around them in the broadest sense; a worldview striving for knowledge of all that exists.

Psychology is a science that studies the mechanisms and patterns of human mental activity.

Comparison

Philosophy, which arose several millennia ago, is a phenomenon much older than psychology. Philosophy can hardly even be called a science (some philosophers are protesting against this), so much is it an all-encompassing way of comprehending reality. Psychology, like many other sciences, was closely associated with philosophy and only in the middle of the 19th century separated into an independent study.

One of the main tasks of philosophy can be called the comprehension of consciousness as the largest ideological category. Psychology, on the other hand, divides consciousness into many separate elements: memory, thinking, will, perception, imagination, etc. Consciousness is only one of the types of mental activity, along with the unconscious. Philosophy finds out how consciousness (the sphere of the spirit) interacts with the corporeal, material. Psychology is not able to solve such a problem, as well as how to answer the question of where the spiritual in general came from. Here psychology gives way to the primacy of philosophy, in matters of spirituality relying on this worldview as its basis. Psychology can only describe the successive stages of the formation of consciousness in an individual, substantiates mental actions, helps to form mental skills, and analyzes the state of a person. Therefore, we can say that psychology cannot exist without philosophy, while philosophy does not rely on psychology in its calculations. A psychologist must be a philosopher, but a philosopher does not need to know psychology.

There is a kind of paradox: having originated as a science of the soul (psyche- "soul" in Greek), psychology then began to study the inner world of man, features of character, behavior and thinking. In fact, psychology is the science of the soul, which does not study the soul, because this substance is elusive. The initial subject of philosophy comprehension was nature, then the focus was on the relationship "man - the world". His philosophy examines from various angles, answering the questions: "What is this?", "Why is that?" Psychology faces other tasks: it finds out how to change the existing state of affairs, what are the ways to solve the problem.

Conclusions TheDifference.ru

  1. Philosophy has been for several millennia, psychology took shape as an independent teaching about a century and a half ago. Nevertheless, psychology and philosophy are closely related: the first developed for a long time as part of the second.
  2. Philosophy comprehends the world and man in the world, the sphere of the spiritual, the concept of the soul. Psychology, being the “science of the soul,” studies the various manifestations of the human psyche, without being able to investigate the soul as an elusive substance.
  3. Philosophy is closer to theory, psychology - to practice. Philosophy ponders why this is so and not otherwise, psychology answers the question: "What to do?"
  4. Psychology cannot exist without the foundations of philosophy, philosophy needs psychology much less.
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