Perhaps an appropriate place to begin the history of psychology is with the Father of Modern Philosophy French philosopher René Descartes who was born in 1596.

René Descartes laid the foundation for 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, but opposed by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Descartes believed that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks. He defined "thought" (cogitatio) as "what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it". In his famous Wax Argument, Descartes considers a piece of wax. His senses inform him that it has certain characteristics such as shape and texture and so forth. But when he burns the wax, these characteristics change completely. However, it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still the same piece of wax, even though the data of the senses inform him that all of its characteristics are different.

About the Author: David Elio Malocco was born in Dundalk, County Louth, Ireland. His father was born in Casalattico in Frosinone in Italy and his mother was born in Monaghan in Ireland. He was educated at the Christian Brothers School in Dundalk and his parents later sent him to St. Patrick's College in Cavan where they hoped he would be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. But he chose law and business instead. He received his Bachelor of Civil Law degree from University College Dublin and spent fifteen years as a criminal lawyer before taking a second degree at the Open University, Milton Keynes in England where he obtained a first class honors degree in Psychology majoring in Cognitive Development. In 1991 he realized a personal ambition and moved to New York where he studied film direction, production and writing for film at New York University. Since then he has written numerous screenplays in several genre and has written, produced and directed numerous shorts and three feature films, Virgin Cowboys, Magdalen and Jack Gambel: The Enigma. He later studied creative writing at Oxford University. He has written several books on true crime and forensic science. The books were motivated by dual diplomas he had taken. The first was in the Psychology of Criminal Profiling and the second in Forensic Science specializing in crime scene analysis. His publications include: Who's Who Serial Killers: The Top 100; Murder for Profit: They Killed for Money; Sexual Psychopaths: British Serial Killers; Serial Sex Killers: Real American Psychos; Wicked Women; I am a Cannibal: A Study of Anthropophagy; The World's Worst Serial Killers; Criminal Profiling: A Basic Introduction; The Beatles Conspiracy: John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bill!; Forensic Science: Crime Scene Analysis. Psychotherapy: The Top 50 Theorists and Theories His next book is a discussion on the crime of murder and those who make a living from killing others. Witty, informative and slightly tongue in cheek, it also features evidence from crime scene analyses and entitled How to Commit the Perfect Murder.