Psychologists Return to the First Question of Western Philosophy

When ancient humans gained the ability to investigate abstract questions, what first question did they pose? This article offers a novel, sweeping, historical analysis with important implications for psychological theory. The story begins with identifying the first question in Ancient Greek philosophy as "Where am I?" with particular interest in the world's overarching basic traits. For example, Pythagoras proposed the world was defined by beauty and Heraclitus suggested change. Though this discourse has traditionally puzzled historians, recent psychological research suggests it might have been largely a debate over primal world beliefs, an emerging research topic that this article introduces and situates historically. Recently, the latent structure of primal world beliefs was mapped statistically, revealing 26 dimensions. Most of these beliefs were new to psychologists, yet already posed by ancient philosophers-including Pythagoras' Beautiful world belief and Heraclitus' Changing world belief. Identifying first questions in early history may have value for psychological theorizing because it hints at something that social psychologists have long suspected: that humans are creatures fundamentally driven to understand their situation and what it calls for.