Philosophical Influences on Psychology

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• Chapter 2
• Philosophical Influences on Psychology

The Defecating Duck
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17th to 19th century

• Automata
• Industrial machinery
• Clocks

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René Descartes (1596-1650)

• Reflex action theory
• Human behavior is predictable if inputs are known

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René Descartes

• Diverted attention from the soul to the
  scientific study of mind.
• Shifted the methods of intellectuals
• metaphysical analysis ? objective observation and
  experimentation

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René Descartes

• The mind-body problem
• Pre-Descartes
• mind influences body, but not vice versa the
  puppeteer and puppet
• Descartes a mutual interaction
• Mind and body both influence each other
• Pineal gland
• The site of the mind-body interaction

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René Decartes

• Support of Christian thought
• Animals do not possess souls, feelings,
  immortality, thought processes, or free will
• Animal behavior explained totally in mechanistic
  terms

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Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century

• Mechanism
• the universe viewed as an enormous machine
• Matter made up of small parts (atoms), that
  interacted in a predictable manner (i.e., they
  were mechanical )
• Therefore, natural processes can be measured and
  explained logically

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• If it is possible to measure every aspect of the
  natural universe
• and
• If scientists could grasp the laws by which the
  world functioned,
• They would be able to determine its future course

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Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century

• Reductionism
• We can reduce a clock to its components, such as
  springs and wheels, to understand its functioning
• Implies that analyzing or reducing the universe
  to its simplest parts will produce understanding
  of it
• Characteristic of every science

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Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century

• Determinism
• every act is caused by past event(s)
• no free will
• As with a clock, the universe
• has parts that function with order and regularity
• once clock is set in motion, events will continue
  in a predictable manner without outside influence

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The calculating engine

• Created by Charles Babbage (19th c.)
• Machine did basic math, had memory, played games
• First successful attempt to duplicate human
  cognitive processes

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5 - 2 3
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Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century

• Empiricism
• the pursuit of knowledge through observation

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Review of Zeitgeist

• Mechanism
• Reductionism
• Determinism
• Empiricism

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René Descartes

• The doctrine of ideas
• Derived ideas
• Products of the experiences of the senses
• Innate ideas
• Develop from within the mind rather than through
  the senses

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John Locke (1632-1704)

• An essay concerning human understanding (1690)
• Marks the formal beginning of British
  empiricism

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Locke (continued)

• How does the mind acquire knowledge?
• Rejected existence of innate ideas
• Any apparent innateness due to early learning and
  habit
• All knowledge is empirically derived
• mind as a tabula rasa or blank slate

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Locke (continued)

• Two kinds of experiences
• Sensations input from external physical objects
  experienced as sense impressions, which operate
  on the mind
• Reflections mind operates on the sense
  impressions to produce ideas
• Sensations always precede reflections

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Lockes Theory of association

• Simple ideas (atoms of the mental world)
• Complex ideas
• Association learning
• Linking of simple ideas/elements into complex
  ones

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James Mill

• Believed in only derived (experiential) ideas

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John Stuart Mill

• Believed in both innate and derived ideas
• Creative synthesis