The theory of mind and body originated from the French philosopher Descartes. He believes that there are two independent entities: a material entity with extensive attributes and a spiritual entity with thinking attributes. People have these two kinds of entities at the same time: people's body is made up of material entities, and people's mind is made up of spiritual entities. Descartes is a dualist. Based on the psychosomatic theory, functional psychology holds that there are various functions in the entity of the heart; Perception is the ability of the brain to perform certain activities. Functional psychology appeared with a clear psychological outlook in the18th century.
German philosopher F von C Wolff can be said to be the founder of modern functional psychology. He systematized and developed functional psychology. In "Rational Psychology" published by 1743, he expounded his point of view: although the mind is a unity, it has various functions; The mind is always involved in all kinds of personal activities, just as the whole body is engaged in many different activities at different times. According to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's classification of the five functions of the mind: growth function, desire function, feeling function, movement function and rational function, Wolff divided the human mind into two types: ① cognitive function, that is, knowledge function, including feeling, imagination, memory, attention and pure reasoning. Reasoning refers to the ability to distinguish clearly and form judgments. (2) the desire for function, that is, emotional function, including pleasant and unpleasant feelings and will. Later, on the basis of Wolff's functional psychology, German psychologist J.N. Tettens founded the ternary division of mental functions: understanding, feeling and will of happiness and pain, namely knowledge, emotion and will. By the end of 18, the recognized functions are summarized as knowledge, emotion and will.
J Locke, a British educator, is usually regarded as an advocate of formal training theory. He said: "There is no need for everyone to become an advanced mathematician. I just think that learning mathematics will definitely give people a method of reasoning. When they have the opportunity, they will transfer the method of reasoning to other parts of knowledge. " This argument is regarded as the standard of formal education. Locke's A Guide to Understanding (1706) shows some of his formal education thoughts. However, in Theory of Human Understanding (1690) and Random Talk on Education (1693), Locke discussed his theory of substantive education from the perspective of sensory theory.
The theory of formal education, based on functional psychology, had a great influence on the educational practice of primary and secondary schools in Europe and America in the second half of the18th century and the beginning of the19th century. What it maintains is the classical education direction aimed at cultivating bourgeois ruling talents after the Renaissance. Emphasize the teaching of classical Chinese, writing and ancient history, and despise the teaching of natural science knowledge.
From the end of 18 to the beginning of 19, due to the objective needs of the further development of capitalist economy and science and technology, the theory of substantive education advocates and emphasizes the teaching of natural science and vocational technology, so the two factions are opposite in curriculum setting and textbook selection, emphasizing the development of students' ability or focusing on the teaching of basic knowledge.
Modern teaching theory holds that cultivating students' ability and basic knowledge teaching are mutually conditional and unified processes. The one-sidedness of formal education theory lies in the development of imagination function because of pure formal training, and the conditions of migration are divorced from the mastery of basic knowledge; At the same time, the functional psychology on which it is based understands psychology as an independent spiritual entity and regards various faculties as isolated psychological phenomena. These are idealistic and metaphysical views, which do not conform to the principles of modern educational psychology and teaching theory (see substantive education).