One of the first stones laid for the foundation of scientific psychology when an ancient Greek physician Alcmaeon (BC 700), put forward the proposition that mental life is a function of brain.
The greatest scholar of ancient Greek, Aristotle, considered heart as an organ responsible for spiritual processes. Aristotle was the first to give the systematic exposition of psychological concepts on his discourse “on the soul”. Socrates compared his own vies with those of his predecessors, analyzing and evaluating them in detail. His discourses regarding this may be seen as the first psychological enquiries. He talked about the unity of the soul and body, which was entirely controversial to the view points of his master Plato. Plato was one of the preliminary proponents of dualism, which explained that soul and body are two separate entities.
The ancient Indian thoughts too supported heart as the principal organ of mental activity, the cardiocentric view. In India, the most influential documents were Vedas. It is generally agreed that Vedas reach their culmination in the ‘Upanishads’. ‘Vedantas’ take further the objective idealistic trend already present in ‘Upanishads’. All these are currently identified as the part of Hindu philosophy. Synopsizing these collections of philosophical doctrines, the self was not the mortal body, but a special intuitive consciousness in which the external and internal were not distinguished. This was given the name ‘Atman’, which is identical with Brahmin – the boundless cosmic consciousness, the base of the world. The individual soul or the soul of one human being is not ‘Atman’. Its divine nature is obscured by the constant stream of sensory perceptions and bodily urges. Only through the knowledge and strict moral discipline can the soul be become free and thereby be identified with the ‘Brahman’.
Apart from Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism got developed and flourished in ancient India. Jainism considered that soul was locked in the body, and therefore, unfree. Buddhism did not agree with the existence of a soul as a separate entity. According to Buddhism, mental-spiritual life is a stream, of never repeated moments, of different states, following one upon another.
Yoga, another school of thought, suggested the control of all the mental activity, which darkens knowledge, in order to attain true knowledge. Yoga elaborated a system of techniques which can be practiced regularly to make this a reality. It included eight fold way and begins with regulation of mental functions, attention and thought.
There are some other schools too, such as, Sankhya, Purva Meemamsa, Nyaya, Vaisheshika etc. These schools also dealt soul as a subordinate aspect of their prime concern with metaphysics and ethics.
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