His beliefs on the soul, insight to early medicine practice, and perspective on emotions, memory, and learning earns him the title of the ‘father’ of modern psychology ^[1]. Vives was the first to shed light on some key point ideas that established how we perceive psychology today.

The Soul

Vives expressed an interest in the soul. He believed that understanding how the soul functions is more valuable than understanding the soul itself. “He was not concerned with what the soul is, but rather what the soul was like” ^[2]. Norena explains that Vives thought that the soul had certain characteristics, and the best parts of the soul is its ability to “…understand, remember, reason, and judge” ^[3]. Vives touched on the mind in terms of his explanations of the soul—he claims that one cannot simply define what the soul is, but by piecing together parts of its manifestations, a better concept of how the soul works can be achieved. He compared the soul to art with an analogy by stating: “How we perceive a painted picture is more telling than declaring what the picture is itself” ^[2]. Vives rejected the deterministic view of human behavior, and said instead that our soul can, “Modify our behavior in ethically and socially” ^[4]. He also suggested that the way we feel day to day affects whether our soul is attaining good or evil ^[5].

Insight on Medicine

Vives is acknowledged for integrating psychology and medicine. “His ideas were new and they paved the way for other contributions that have greatly impacted our society today in terms of how we view the impact of medicine on humans” ^[6]. He expressed the importance of animal testing before doing so on to people –“Although Vives did not perform actual medical procedures, his suggestions were among the first of his time” ^[6]. Vives had hopes that his ideas would influence the public. “With time, some may argue that a sort of social reform was created largely due to Vives’ ideas on medicine” ^[6]. Clements described Vives’ contributions as being “original”, yet many would classify him as being very underrated in terms of his accomplishments and ideas ^[6]. Vives also made important early observations on the health of the human body--he urged that “Personal habits of cleanliness and temperance greatly impacted health” ^[7]. He claimed that the cleanliness of the body impacts the welfare of the body and the mind ^[8]. He touches on how to medicate the mentally unstable by saying that mocking, exciting, and irritating those individuals who are mentally ill does not contribute to their treatment ^[7]. This claim is very modern considering when it was made. Vives said that, “Using the mentally ill as a form of entertainment is one of the most inhumane practices he had ever encountered” ^[7]. His belief was that the some individuals who are mentally ill should be provided medication, but others just need friendly treatment ^[9].

Emotions and the Body

Another psychological contribution from Vives involves his thoughts on emotion. His ideas were largely influenced by the ideologies that came from Galen and Hipocrates in terms of how emotion is related to biles in the body ^[6]. He agreed with the two with the belief that “different colored biles that humans have reflected different types of emotions” ^[10]. Further, Vives believed that, “Certain emotions colors bile inside of human bodies and colored bodies likewise influences emotions” ^[11]. According to Norena, Vives followed Galen’s recommendations of eating certain types of food for certain types of temperaments ^[8]. Vives also suggested that almost all of our emotions, even those considered to be negative, are actually beneficial in a lot of ways ^[5]. He expressed how there is potential to learn and grow from negative emotions as well as positive emotions. His emphasis on animism or, animal spirits influenced Decartes according to Clements ^[11]. Vives suggested in his work that how strongly a person believes in his or her morals have a great impact on the way they feel about themselves—“mental strength can influence physical strength” ^[7]. Emotions, according to Vives, can be divided up into “Hot, cold, moist, dry, and varying combinations of the four” ^[9]. Personality disturbances with emotions could be fixed when applying the correct temperature on to the body ^[10].

Memory

Vives placed emphasis on memory. He defined memory as “…relating to the past, while perception relates to the present” ^[12]. “Memory is something that is retained by either externally or internally perceiving it” ^[13]. He especially emphasized how humans imagine something internally and associate it with an event in order to create a memory. This, according to Vives, makes retrieval of memory easier ^[14]. He touched on memories in which we are unaware of, otherwise known as the unconscious ^[14]. He says information is the “Most accessible from memory when a certain amount of attention is given”. According to Murray, Vives shows understanding of modern-day conception of how humans process retrieval ^[14]. Vives observes that the more a memory is connected to a strong emotional experience, the easier it can be remembered. In terms of retaining memory, imagination was thought to play a key role, especially in children ^[8]. He also believed in a theory that pointed towards the fact that memory can be improved with practice. He advices, “One should memorize something every day, even a useless quotation” ^[15]. Vives even touches on childhood memory—he believes that children learn quickly because their mind is less cluttered with worries that an adult’s mind has. Vives believed that recall of memory is brought about by a concept where the soul processes the memory. Vives himself had a recall experience as a child where he ate cherries when he had a fever…when he was adult and had cherries again, he “felt as though he was sick just as he was when he was a child” ^[16]. He found this remarkable and determined that memory can exist unconsciously for a very long time. He also believed that “memory declines every day that the mind is not exercised” ^[17].

Learning

Vives used the word “intelligence” in a way that can be translated to the word “supervisor” as we know its meaning today: intelligence, according to Vives, involves functions directing attention from different kinds of stimulus ^[13]. Intelligence is very much a cognitive structure according to Vives. When we learn, the memory of the experience is locked in an order of the actual intelligence ^[14]. Vives’ perception on intelligence is that it is only important when it is put to use. Having an intelligent gift is only meaningful when the person is actively exercising it. The exercising of intelligence is important in retaining memory, which creates a better learning experience in general. Vives was among to be the first to suggest that the health of a student, the personality of the teacher, the classroom environment, and the types of authors that the students are required to read from is very important on how the student learns ^[7]. “Vives placed special stress upon the proper environment of the school as the first ecological ingredient of the child’s sense experience” ^[18]. He compares learning and gaining knowledge to how humans digest food ^[7]. Feeding the mind with knowledge is the same as feeding the body with food; it is essential to the human being ^[19].

Notes

References

• Clements, R. D. (1967). Physiological-Psychological Thought in Juan Luis Vives. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 3, 219-235.

• Murray, D. J., & Ross, H. E. (1982). Memory and Recall. Canadian Psychology, 23, 22-30. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org.ezproxy.umw.edu/journals/cap/23/1/22.pdf

• Norena, C. G. (1970). Juan Luis Vives. The Hague: Nijhoff.

• Watson, F. (September 1915). The Psychological Review: The Father of Modern Psychology. Archive.org, Vol. XXII. No. 5. Retrieved from http://archive.org/stream/psychologicalrev22ameruoft#page/332/mode/2up