HISTORICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, AND SUBJECTIVITY

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the historical and epistemological foundations of Psychology, highlighting how different periods of Western thought contributed to the constitution of the discipline and to the development of the concept of subjectivity. The investigation begins with Greek Philosophy, where the earliest inquiries into the soul, reason, virtue, and self-knowledge emerged, and advances through the Middle Ages, when these issues were reinterpreted in light of the relationship between faith and reason. The study then examines modernity, marked by rationalism, empiricism, and the rise of the scientific method, whose consolidation in the nineteenth century enabled the establishment of Psychology as an autonomous science. Subsequently, the contributions of Wundt and James to the formation of the first scientific paradigms of Psychology are analyzed. The article also explores different conceptions of subjectivity, including psychoanalysis, the historical-cultural perspective, and several contemporary approaches, demonstrating the theoretical and methodological plurality that characterizes the field. It concludes by emphasizing that Psychology is a science shaped by epistemological disputes, tensions between objectivity and subjectivity, and multiple explanatory traditions, whose historical understanding is essential for critical training and theoretical advancement in the area.