This course aims to introduce philosophy students to psychology. It has three main objectives. The first one is to offer them the basic conceptual tools so that they can understand the ideas that articulate the main currents of contemporary psychology. For that reason, psychology as a human science and its special scientific nature should be critically expounded, together with its origin and evolution as an independent academic discipline. The second one is to find out the specific anthropological view implicit in the different schools of psychology. In this way, the students should be able to appreciate the truths that are present in them and should recognize and understand the eventual anthropological misconceptions that lie behind them. The third and last one is to show how the different psychological theories and techniques could be used to build a view of human psychology open to transcendence.
- Plotnik, R. & Kouyoumdjian, H., Introduction to Psychology, Cengage Learning, 2013.
- Myers, D. G., Exploring psychology, Worth Publishers, 2014.
- Myers, D. G. A. & Jeeves, M. A., Psychology Through the Eyes of Faith, HarperCollins, 2002.
- Ewen, R. B., An Introduction to Theories of Personality, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.
- Vitz, P. C., Psychology as Religion: the Cult of Self-Worship, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1977.
- Vitz, P. C., Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious, Guilford Press, New York 1988.
- Vitz, P. C., Faith of the Fatherless: the Psychology of Atheism, Spence Pub. Co, Dallas 2000.
- Vitz, P. C. – Felch, S. M. (eds.), The Self Beyond the Postmodern Crisis, ISI Books, Wilmington (De) 2006.
- Sollod, R. N. – Monte, C. F. – Wilson J. P., Beneath the Mask: An Introduction to Theories of Personality, John Wiley & Sons Inc, New York 2017.