The Concept of Everything
Concepts are building blocks of thoughts and ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of principles, thoughts and beliefs. Consequently, they are crucial to such mental processes as categorization, inference, memory, learning, decision-making, and ultimately; actions.
Most concepts have these three aspects.
1. Philosophy
2. Psychology
3. Practice
The philosophy of the matter is the knowledge behind the matter (you all call it the theory). It is an intellectual inquiry for the essence of a thing. It contains the basic tenets of the matter, the soul of it, the basic assumptions on which other things are built and bolted on. Eg the concept of money in an economy — as a means of exchange and as a store of value. A fundamental point of “The Philosophy of Money” is that money brings about personal freedom. Money gives you options and choices. As a result, the individual experiences a sense of independence and self-sufficiency; needed no assistance from anyone to take care of his personal needs (Ralph Waldo Emerson expounded more on this in his seminal work “Self Reliance ”). This is the belief and as such, many would do as much as is within their means to obtain personal freedom by getting as much money as they can possibly have; even if it means stealing from someone else.
The psychology of the matter is how you feel about the thing. It is what is real to you. Let us again take money as an example. You hear a lot that money is to get. Sometimes, others take it to another notch, “You need to be evil to make money”. I grew up and heard that a lot and it affected how I viewed people who hard monetary substance. One starts viewing the world in a certain way. I was not alone. Have you ever wondered why the wealthy are vilified often? There is a way, most have been “trained” to look at them. Especially in Africa, being wealthy connotes some association with the occultic.
So the psychology of money is the study of how people behave with money. And behavior is hard to teach and even decipher, even to ultra-smart people. Psychology is built on ingrained beliefs. You can’t sum up behaviour with formulas or spreadsheet models. Behaviour is inborn, varies by people (you can see various behavioural patterns in the same family or even amongst twins), is hard to measure and changes over time. Some people deny its existence altogether and that is why models like the Johari Window become useful.
Now you know why aspects of social science eg behavioural economics have become the mainstay of society. Behavioral economics combines elements of economics and psychology to understand how and why people behave the way they do in the real world. This is very useful in buying decisions. Think of it, why would someone prefer one brand to the other, even when they have the same attributes, word-for-word and price-for-price? Welcome to psychology.
The practice of a matter is what you do to actualize what you desire about the matter. It combines both your philosophy of a thing (your beliefs) and your psychology (how you react and interact) of the matter, which shows how you go about handling the subject matter. Eg how people actually make money.
If you believe (philosophy) that it is only bad people that have access to wealth, then you will either hate (psychology) wealth (because it is for bad people) or embrace the bad ways of life (practice), because you think that is the only way to be wealthy.
Let me combine all three.
If you believe (philosophy) that the end justifies the means. That will also mean that you believe that getting money brings some self-worth that places you above some people in society (psychology). It would mean that getting money by all means is worth it. It is something that can be ventured into, without any moral barriers. “Get the money first and we can discuss later”, becomes the mantra of life. Both your philosophy and psychology on this matter will mean you will do anything to get money (practice).
“What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money … but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth … In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are “coins” for real things.”
― Alan Wilson Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
What you believe (philosophy) will influence how you feel (psychology) and both will affect what you do (practice).
Philosophy is the ancestor of psychology. Both when formed, fertilize the practice. Be careful what thou believeth for it directs thy whole life.
I hope my TED talk was useful.
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