Operation Enduring Freedom

My maternal grandfather was a Korean War veteran. Despite being a high school student, he had been sent to fight on the front lines as an emergency troop when the war broke out. After three years of the brutal war, only two students in his class returned to their hometown, and my grandfather was lucky enough to be one of them. While he remained one of the kindest souls I have ever encountered, his painful memories from the war made a profound impact on his life.

A few months after my grandfather's passing, I was deployed to Afghanistan. At that time, I saw this as an opportunity to reconnect with him and better understand the sufferings he endured during the war. I served for six months and two weeks in Bagram, Afghanistan with the Dasan Engineering Unit, an overseas deployment unit of the Republic of Korea Army. During this deployment, I observed substantial differences in how my comrades coped with the chronic stress and emotional challenges of a combat environment.

These observations ignited my interest in psychopathology research, driving me to explore the mechanisms of emotional dysregulation in individuals suffering from affective disorders. This experience also led me to pursue a psychology internship at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, where I had the honor of helping veterans cope with their traumas and emotional problems. It is a privilege that I hope to extend to Korean War veterans and Afghan refugees who are suffering from emotional difficulties.

The Story of a Philosopher Who Dreamed of Being a Psychologist

Hanjoo Kim

Today, psychology stands as an independent discipline dedicated to the scientific exploration of the human mind. When you open an introductory psychology textbook, one of the first names you encounter is the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. By measuring and analyzing psychological phenomena through experiments, Wundt established psychology as a distinct science, earning him the title “father of modern psychology.”

Yet, nearly 140 years before Wundt introduced experimental methods into psychological research, a philosopher was already examining the human mind from a scientific perspective. That philosopher was David Hume. Hume argued that we understand the world through our senses and experiences and that human thought operates according to discernible principles. Just as Leonardo da Vinci imagined a flying machine long before the Wright brothers achieved powered flight, Hume sought to uncover the laws governing the human mind well before psychology emerged as an independent field. This article delves into Hume’s philosophy—the very foundation of early psychological thought—and explores its enduring significance for modern psychology.

Hume: Doubting Everything and Opening New Paths

Born in 1711 to a family of lawyers in Scotland, Hume initially pursued law at the University of Edinburgh. However, his passion for philosophy led him to drop out and move to France, where he spent four years writing A Treatise of Human Nature. Although this work was both his debut and arguably his greatest achievement, it received little attention at the time. Hume humorously remarked that his book “fell dead-born from the press,” reflecting on how thoroughly it was ignored. In an era when philosophers were still mired in medieval theology and rationalist traditions, and when Hume’s treatise branded him as an atheist, he struggled to secure academic positions and endured long periods of financial hardship. Over time, however, A Treatise of Human Nature came to be celebrated as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy.

But what exactly did Hume argue in this treatise?

In the early 18th century, rationalist philosophers like Descartes elevated “ideas” above “experience.” Descartes’ famous dictum, “I think, therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum),” emphasizes that even if everything else is doubted, the thinking self, the subject of ideas, cannot be denied. He further argued that sensory experience is prone to error, and that only knowledge derived from ideas provides a secure foundation for existence.

In contrast, Hume did not entirely deny the existence of the “thinking self,” but he maintained that all ideas, including our concept of self, are merely products of a continuous stream of sensory impressions and experiences. In other words, Hume saw experience as primary to ideas. Let's imagine that we were born into a world of malleable liquid slime. In this world, the very concept of “hardness” might never develop. Our recognition of a floor as solid when observing a bouncing ball is a result of past experiences. Hume concluded that because ideas are secondary products derived from sensory experiences, and are entirely dependent on them, they cannot be granted absolute certainty.

He further argued that even experience itself is not a fixed entity. Consider a chair: when we touch a chair, we perceive its material, structure, and function, but we do not grasp the true essence of “chair-ness.” Similarly, our expectation that thunder will follow lightning is not based on the direct observation of an inherent causal force, but on the repeated association of the two phenomena. Just as the long-held belief that “all swans are white” was upended by the discovery of a black swan in Australia, our experience-based perceptions are inherently fallible and open to revision. The same holds true for our perception of the self: while we may offer countless descriptions of “me,” none can fully encapsulate the entirety of our being. They are merely fragments of our experience.

Thus, Hume highlighted the limitations of both ideas and experience. Although some have mistakenly labeled him a radical skeptic, his core argument was not to “doubt everything,” but rather to stress that our understanding is confined to the limits of our experience. In other words, we cannot transcend the boundaries of our sensory inputs, and only by thoughtfully synthesizing our experiences within those bounds can we arrive at reliable knowledge.

Hume: Viewing Humanity Through a Scientific Lens

Hume believed that, just as Newtonian physics provided a systematic understanding of the natural world, the human mind could be studied empirically according to natural laws. He argued that researchers should avoid dogmatic assertions about human nature and instead maintain a stance of continuous doubt and verification. In essence, scholars should prioritize inductive reasoning based on sensory experience and objective observation while recognizing that inductive knowledge is inherently provisional and subject to change.

Modern psychology embodies Hume’s empiricist approach and reliance on inductive reasoning through a range of scientific methods, including controlled experiments and probabilistic statistical techniques. For example, psychologists meticulously control variables in experimental settings to identify the factors influencing specific emotions or behaviors, thereby probing causality more effectively. Moreover, statistical analyses show that when multiple observations are aggregated, more reliable patterns emerge, enabling researchers to test hypotheses and mitigate the uncertainties of isolated observations.

Of course, the methodologies of modern psychology have not completely overcome the limitations Hume identified. Rather than revealing absolute causality, they provide reasonably reliable explanations. Since exceptional cases, like the proverbial black swan, cannot be entirely ruled out, our conclusions are based on “probability” rather than incontrovertible “truth.”

Nevertheless, from Hume’s perspective, modern psychology represents the ideal form of science, a discipline that, while acknowledging the inherent limits of human experience, strives to understand humanity from multiple angles through a refined synthesis of that experience. Although it may never offer complete certainty, psychology’s rapid development is founded on embracing the limits of our experience, actively seeking new empirical data, and remaining open to revising conclusions in light of disconfirming evidence. These qualities—humility, boldness, and intellectual honesty—are the greatest strengths of psychology as a science and capture the enduring quest to understand the human mind that Hume so passionately championed. In that respect, one might say that the modern psychologist is, in a way, a philosopher who investigates human nature with the tools of science.

Fine Art

Art has been a profound passion throughout my life, shaping my university years as I devoted much of my time to drawing and painting portraits. This passion, combined with my fascination for emotional expression, naturally extended into my academic pursuits. In my doctoral research, I incorporated facial expressions as a physiological measure. This interest also led to the development of "ISEE," a collection of image stimuli designed for psychological experiments.

I am particularly drawn to graphite and charcoal, as their monochromatic simplicity reveals the intricate complexity of shapes and forms. Recently, I submitted one of my drawings to the Employee Art Exhibition at the University of Michigan and was honored with an honorable mention in the drawing category. Building on this, my upcoming work will further explore the nuances of human emotion through expressive facial portrayals.

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

Art Among the Prechter Program: Michigan Medicine Employee Art Exhibition

Prechter Program Research Fellow Hanjoo Kim, Ph.D., receives honorable mention for his piece, Freedom, in the Michigan Medicine Employee Art Exhibition.

Gifts of Art, a comprehensive arts in medicine program, brings the world of art and music to Michigan Medicine. Each year, the program presents the Employee Art Exhibition inviting Michigan Medicine staff, faculty, learners, volunteers, and family members to submit artwork to be showcased to the healthcare community. 

This year, dozens of faculty, staff, learners, and family members submitted their pieces of art for the exhibition including Hanjoo Kim, Ph.D., a Prechter Program Research Fellow.

Kim explained why he submitted work to the exhibition:  

"Having a mental health problem or being in a medical condition is like walking in a fog. I drew this for patients at Michigan Medicine, hoping they would be free from the stress and fear of uncertainty and get back to their lives again."

Freedom received an honorable mention in the category of drawing and pastel. This year’s exhibition is on display through December 2nd, 2022 in the Gifts of Art Gallery on the first floor of Taubman Health Center’s South Lobby.