| Abstract: | Discusses Aristotle's place in the history of psychology in terms of the nativist-empiricist controversy. It is argued that Aristotle is in many respects a Platonist, and some distinctions and similarities between the psychologies of both are illustrated. Aristotle's view of sensation and information processing are analyzed, and the view that he was a nominalist and an associationist regarding learning is discussed and rejected. It is argued that Aristotle's psychology is both nativist and empirical. It is further suggested that modern nativist or cognitivist psychologies such as those of Chomsky, U. Neisser, and Piaget are fundamentally Aristotelian. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
