Philosophical Influences

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Philosophical Influences

• On the Development of Psychology as a Discipline
• Briefly, Greek-ly! Big leap The 17th to mid-19th
  centuries

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How did the early Greeks address the major
issues?

• Socrates (c470-399 BC)
• Knowledge? Rationalism
• Cosmos?cognition
• Plato (427-347 BC)
• Knowledge? Nativism
• Innate predispositions? cognition
• Doctrine of Reminiscence
• Theory of Forms ideas
• Individual differences
• Reasoning
• Dualism
• veined marble

• Aristotle (384-323 BC)
• Knowledge? Empiricism
• Experience?cognition
• Scientific method
• Principles of association
• Monism
• Doctrine of psyche
• Rational versus sensitive souls
• tabula rasa

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The Genealogy of IdeasA preview

• Plato ? Rene Descartes ?Immanuel Kant? Francis
  Galton? G. Stanley Hall?
• Lewis Terman
• Aristotle ?John Locke? James Mill ? John Stuart
  Mill ?John Watson? B.F. Skinner
• Underwood?Jahnke?
• Davis?Underwood, etc.

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Terms too think about in todays discussion

• Mechanism
• Determinism
• Reductionism/atomism
• Empiricism

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The Cartesian RevolutionRene Descartes
(1569-1650)

• Zeitgeist
• Medicine--Harvey (1628) blood circulates
• PhysicsNewton (1662) light refraction
• Automata clock metaphor
• Mind-body issue
• Dualism
• Pineal gland

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Mind-body issue Theory of reflex action

• Supports dualist position and theory of animal
  spirit movements
• Presages S-R doctrine of Behaviorists

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The Cartesian RevolutionRene Descartes

• Mind-body issue
• Knowledge? Rationalism
• Cogito ergo sum
• Doctrine of ideas
• innate ideas
• derived ideas
• Objective methods

8
John Locke (1632-1704)

• Zeitgeist
• Refraction
• Scientific rigor
• Con Descartes rationalism
• Politics
• Knowledge? Empiricism
• Tabula Rasa now, blank (white) paper
• Sensation and reflection
• Simple and complex ideas
• External stimuli affect senses
• Primary and secondary qualities

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Examples

• Primary Qualities
• Those qualities that reside or inhere in an
  object whether we perceive them or not
• extension, figure, mobility, solidity
• shape
• size

• Secondary qualities
• Hidden powers of an object that result in
  specific sensations exist in a persons
  perception
• color
• sound
• warmth
• taste

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Place for notes
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What happens when we turn down the lights!

• The red disappears due to an interaction of color
  with light.
• Thus, Galileos subtraction test (Viney King,
  1998) If a quality can be subtracted from an
  object without destroying the identity of the
  object, then that quality is secondary
• Subtract red, object still triangle
• Subtract the figure (primary), not a triangle

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However! Look at the door!What shape is a door?
Rectangle
Trapezoid

• On whom and what does its shape depend?
• Thus, how do we know objects? What to do about
  the unreliability of the senses?

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What about the unreliability of the senses?
Bishop Berkeley . . .

• If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a
  sound when there is no one there to perceive it?

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George Berkeley (1695-1753)

• An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision (1709)
• Major interest sensory systems
• Secondary qualities, alone
• Esse ist percipi

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Summing up Berkeley.

• There was a young man who said, God
• Now doesnt it seem to you odd
• That this great chestnut tree
• Simply ceases to be
• When theres no one about in the quad?

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• Dear Sir,
• It really is not at all odd
• Im always about in the quad
• And the great chestnut tree
• Never ceases to be
• In the mind of Yours Faithfully,
• God.
• (Landa, 1981, p. 22)

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The later empiricists (18th 19th) centuries

• David Hume (1711-1776)
• A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)
• Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748)
• David Hartley (1705-1757)
• Observations on Man (1749)
• James Mills (1773-1836)
• Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind
  (1829)
• John Stuart Mills (1806-1873)
• A System of Logic (1843)

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Knowledge Acquisition

• Experience
• Sensations--gtimpressions--gtideas (Hume Senso
  ergo sum)
• Proliferation of senses with James Mills!

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Principles of Association

• How they become strong and durable
• Continuing contiguity
• Certainty
• Facility
• Similarity

• How they become associated (principles)
• Resemblance
• Contiguity (time and/or space)
• Cause-effect
• Repetition (Hartley)
• Simultaneity
• Successiveness

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Principles of Association ---- The Process ...

• Mechanical model (James Mill)

• Simple, complex, duplex ideas

• Mental chemistry model (John Stuart Mills)

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Mind-body Issue

• Psychophysical parallelism (Hartley)

VIBRATIONS

• Brain localizations

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Preview of Coming Attractions

• Test your limits with two pencils!
• Guess which sense is the most acute! (I didnt
  say cute!)
• Can you say Psycho.physics?