Psychologies
J. Michael Murphy, Ed.D. mmurphy6@partners.org 617-510-3927
Big Psychology and Big Psychologies 101
A new field of psychology owes its name and approach to another new field called Big History. In that approach, the rise of humanity is studied in the context of the entire 13.7 billion year history of the universe, viewed from the vantage point of differing scales and multiple disciplines. Big Psychology uses the broad framework provided by Big History to see the underlying unity of all knowledge…and knowers…in the hope that studying psychology from this perspective can help humanity to find ways to live together sustainably and meaningfully. Big Psychologies 101 combines this approach with material from a number of other big psychology approaches.
The course will begin with a study group that will review David Christian’s Teaching Company course and the materials he has created in collaboration with Bill Gates from the perspective of what they have to teach us about human psychology. We will add readings from Jared Diamond, Thomas Berry, and others who have already used a similar approach in conjunction with their studies of psychology.
