Psychology has assumed an extraordinary importance in the life of an individual. In fact, every action of life, May it be home, school, neighborhood or social gathering, is influenced by it.
All communications between the teacher and students are based on the knowledge of psychology. Theories of intelligence, creativity and personality have been responsible for shaping and designing the educational system according to individual needs.
Psychology is the Science of Soul. The word ‘psychology’ comes from Greek words ‘Psyche’ and ‘logos’ where psyche means soul and logos means science. Thus, literally psychology means a science of soul. But this is not acceptable because of following criticisms:
(i) Nature, origin and place of soul are not known. It has no physical existence. It cannot be seen and heard. It has no weight and volume. It is a metaphysical concept.
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(ii) It makes psychology more of religion than of science because it is a theological concept and implies certain theories of religion and relationship to God.
(iii) Soul makes science speculative as it is not open to observation and experimentation and therefore not given to verification. So this definition of psychology is unscientific and hence this is discarded.
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Psychology is Science of Mind. Alternatively philosophers evolved another definition of psychology as science of mind. Mind is a combination of sum total of mental processes and it stands for Personal internal experiences of man, e.g., pleasures and pains, hopes and wishes, dreams and desires. But this is also criticized on following grounds:
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It is subjective. We can know our own mind and not the mind of others. So it is half true.
Mind implies continuity and unity but it is lacking in abnormal, insane and animals etc.