Dr. R. Greenwald
Office: JO 4.206
Phone: 972.883.6752
E-mail: rrgreen@utdallas.edu
Office hours: Thursday 12:30-1:30 or by appointment
Course Web Site: http://webct6.utdallas.edu (login-in and go to the PSY 3360 course)

Office: MP 2.204C
Office Hours: Thursday 5 \u2013 6 pm or by appointment
E-mail: ac5jl@yahoo.com

This course examines the historical and philosophical
antecedents of our present conceptual frameworks in psychology.
Beginning with ancient times, the course looks at the
philosophical discussion of issues central to our work as
psychologists: What is it that psychology studies? What counts as
data? Is psychology ultimately reducible to biology, chemistry,
and physics? Are humans mere deterministic machines, and do
they possess a free will? Central issues in the philosophy of
science and the philosophy of mind that are pursued into the 20th
century include the synthesis of rationalism and empiricism, the
mind/body problem, the problem of free will, and the scientific
status of mental events. Twentieth century developments include
ethology, behaviorism, logical positivism, the Gestaltists, Freud,
human information processing, connectionism, and artificial
intelligence.

After completing the course, students should be able to:
1.1 Describe and explain the nature of psychology as a scientific
discipline.
1.2 Describe and analyze major theoretical perspectives and
overarching themes of psychology and their historical development.
1.3 Understand, apply, and analyze five selected content areas within
psychology.
2.1 Identify and explain different research methods used by
psychologists.
4.1 Demonstrate effective writing skills in various formats (technical
reports) and for various purposes (e.g., informing, persuading,
evaluating).

This is a good place to help you in your studies. It has many
resources including study questions, quizzes, chapter summaries
etc.:

will be worth 30 points. Material covered on the exams will be
taken from the assigned readings and class lectures. The exams
will be in multiple choices, short answer formats and are not

In order to help you apply what you have learned, you will be
required to write a 7 to 9 page research paper describing an event
and/or person in the history of psychology, and its/their historical
antecedents and consequences. This paper is designed to help
review the material and sharpen your thinking about the History of
Psychology. It also serves to involve you in assessing what you
have learned in the course and to help you to further develop your
learning skills. The paper assignment will be described further by
the instructor and is graded base upon a rubric (to be discussed
in class). The term paper will be worth 30 points (same as an
exam).

Your final grade is based on a simple arithmetic average of the 4
scores and the grade on the term paper. The formula is shown
below:

To find your grade at any time during the semester, divide the
number of points you've earned by the total available and
compare your percentage to the table below:

Please visit the course website for information on the term paper, helpful hints & guides, helpful Links on the History of Psychology and lecture outlines.

were seriously ill and have verifiable documentation from a
physician, or (b) you were detained the day and time of the exam,
or (c) you made arrangements prior to the exam to attend an
urgent family affair (e.g., funeral). In any of these cases, you
must notify the professor in advance of the scheduled time of the
exam (call and leave a voice-mail message if you can do nothing
else). Otherwise, you will receive an F. It is the student's
responsibility to make sure that an exam is made up within one
week of the scheduled time. Note that make-up exams are
designed to be more comprehensive to compensate for having
more study time.

Your performance in this course will be greatly influenced by your
attendance. Some material covered in lecture is not covered in
the textbook.

I strongly encourage you to form study groups to prepare for the
exams. It has been my experience that students tend to do better
in this course if they were part of a dedicated study group.

This is a core course in Psychology and Cognitive Science. All
students are required to participate in ongoing research. This
requirement is described in a flyer circulated on the first day of
class. The research credit sign-up system is online:
https://utdallas.sona-systems.com. Use your UTD NetID to login
and sign up for experiments. New experiments appear every few
days throughout the semester; keep checking the board if you
cannot find a suitable time slot.

The Earl Greek Philosophers
After Aristotle
The Beginnings of Modern Science and Philosophy

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Rationalism
Romanticism and Existentialism
Early Developments in Physiology and the rise of Experimental Psychology

Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Behaviorism
Neobehaviorism
Gestalt Psychology

Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14