On the early history of psychology

Abstract

The paper begins with a comparison between the history of the neologisms of ontology and psychology. If from a historical point of view there are many similarities of the diffusion of the two terms, from an epistemological point of view we encounter great differences. Ontology has always been collocated in the field of metaphysics, while psychology, before becoming an independent science, was a discipline divided between physics and metaphysics. Next, there is a focus on the debate of the status of the science of the soul developed in the centuries since Aristotle (2.1). During the Reformation Era the term was coined and the science of psychology had a great diffusion amongst philosophers and in university disputes (2.2). The paper sustains several new historical findings in regards to the first occurrences of the term. A historical assessment (3) on the early history of psychology concludes the paper.