Empiricism, Associationism, Positivism, and CommonSense Psychology

1
Empiricism, Associationism, Positivism, and
CommonSense Psychology

• Basic concepts
• Materialism
• Empiricism
• Associationism
• Positivism
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
• Mechanist, materialist, determinist
• Hedonism
• Empiricism
• Sense-imagination-memory
• Association by contiguity

2
John Locke (16321704)

• An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Psychological empiricism
• Ideas from experience
• Sensation
• Reflection
• Simple or complex
• Complex ideas associations of simple ideas
• Primary and secondary qualities
• Knowledge
• Intuitionimmediate comparison
• Reason or demonstrative knowledge
• Comparison by means of a third idea
• Sensation

3
George Berkeley (1685-1753)

• Perception existence, idealism
• No primary and secondary qualities
• Esse est percipi to exist is to be perceived
• God as a perceiver
• Depth perception
• Depth constructed by perceiver
• Associating cues to distance and touch
• Pupilary convergence
• Clarity of the object
• Relative size
• Interposition

4
David Hume (17111776)

• Skepticism
• Reality consistent experience
• Mind perceptions
• Impressions ideas
• Simple complex
• Association
• Resemblance
• Contiguity
• Cause and effect
• Volition
• Habit
• Reality?

5
Empiricism

• Theoretical rationale for psychology
• Man is an animal
• Importance of experience
• Humans simple and knowable
• Influence of Newtondesire to explain the mind

6
British Associationism

• Emphasizing principles and mechanism of
  association
• David Hartley (17051757)
• Association by simultaneous or successive
  contiguity
• Sensations/vibrations ideas/vibratiuncles
• Brain and muscular
• Cultureliterature
• Free will
• Deism

7
Utilitarians and Associationists

• Jeremy Bentham (17481832)
• Motivated by pleasure and pain
• Utilitarianismgreatest good for the greatest
  number
• James Mill (17731836)
• Passive mind
• Atomistic
• Simple and complex sensations and ideas
• Association
• Frequency and vividness
• Not similarity

8

• John Stuart Mill (18061873)
• Science of human nature
• General laws
• Mental chemistry
• Laws of association
• Similarity, frequency, intensity
• Ethologyscience of character
• Alexander Bain (18181903)
• Unite psychology and physiology
• Feeling, volition, intellect
• Associationcontiguity, frequency, similarity
  rooted in nervous system
• Compound and creative association
• Voluntary behavior and trial and error learning
• Reflexiveelicited versus spontaneousemitted
• Spontaneous associated with pleasure repeated as
  voluntary behavior

9
Across the Channel

• Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (17151780)
• Sensation is the source of knowledge
• Mechanistic
• Psychology did not prosper in France

10
Positivism

• August Comte (17981857)
• Positivism
• Observable facts only valid knowledge
• Theological, metaphysical, scientific stages of
  development
• Ernst Mach (18381916)
• Physicist
• Public, observable with sensory data
• Leads to behaviorism

11
Scottish Common-Sense School

• Reaction against Hume
• Thomas Reid (17101796)
• Minister
• FacultiesGod given active mental powers