Commentary - Neruda - from the Foot to Its Child

1. What basic assumptions lead to the development of the biological assumption?

2. Identify the research methods employed in the study of the biological perspective?

The biological perspective is the approach in which links how we think and what we do, to our physical being as a biological organism. There are two basic assumptions which direct us to this perspective; a) the relationship between the mind and body and b) the influence of heredity on behaviour. These two ideas come from two different backgrounds yet relate.

The relationship between mind and body is called materialism, which is the assumption that all behaviour has a physiological basis. This concept was initially developed by a religious man named Rene Descartes, who believed that the "intangible nature of the soul" interacted with our machine like bodies. His idea became interpreted as the relation between the mind and body, known as dualism. Although these two were distinct, they still had an interaction. Almost a hundred years later, La Mettrie, a physician came down with a fever, and noticed that his physical condition affected his mental state as well, known as materialism. He wrote a book arguing that the mind was no different from the soul and was part of the body. His views were strongly disagreed upon with other religious oppositions. The theory that behaviour is associated with physiological structure, was proven by accident, as a doctor, Paul Broca, in an insane asylum noticed that a patient was unable to speak after a head injury. He had executed an autopsy which proved that the cause of the lack of speech was resulted from damage to a specific point in the brain. Localization of function was a term which intended that specific functions are associated with specific areas of the brain. This was the final step which resulted in a turning point of attitude from seeing behaviour as controlled by the soul, to behaviour having a physiological basis.

The second assumption is heredity, meaning the biological transmission of characteristics from one generation to another. In the eighteenth century, people believed that each plant and animal had been independently created, as said in the Bible. However in 1735, Linnaeus published a catalogue of different types of plants and animals, showing the connections amongst the different species. Then in 1809, a French naturalist Lamarck,