An overview of the various schools of psychology and their equally various approaches to the Hard Problem of Consciousness

1. Consciousness:
Science’s Greatest Anomaly
By: Ben Miller and Brooke Newman

2. Key Definitions
● psychology - scientific study of mind &
behavior
● operations - what mind does; not what it
contains

3. Voluntarist Movement
● mind consisted of elements
● stressed introspection
● two types of consciousness
o immediate experience
o mediate experiences
● tridimensional theory of feeling

4. Structuralism
● mind is to be understood in terms of basic
elements and their combination (chemistry)
● three goals of psychology
o describe consciousness
o discover laws
o understand relationship
● sensations
o quality, intensity, duration, clearness, extensity

5. Functionalism
● focus on what mind could do
● two kinds of thought
o substantive
o transitive
● three major themes
o mental operations
o fundamental utilities of consciousness
o psychological relations

6. Mental Physics/Gestalt Movement
● emphasized importance of conscious whole
● principles of perceptual organization
o proximity
o similarity
o closure
● insight learning
o preparation
o incubation
o illumination
o verification

7. Psychoanalytic Psychology
● three tiered system of psychology
o conscious mind
o preconscious mind
o unconscious mind
● id, superego, ego
● strong determinism belief (Freud)

8. Behaviorist Approach
● focused entirely on study of behavior
● rejected introspection → objective science of
behavior
● intervening variables determine behavior