Chapter 1 - Introduction Flashcards
Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996)
Changed the idea that the scientific method guaranteed objectivity and that science produced information in a steady, progressive way by showing science to be a highly subjective enterprise.
Introduced the concepts of Paradigms, which is a widely accepted viewpoint, and its reinforced through the process of normal science (the “mopping-up” operation) and likened normal science to puzzle solving which involve little creativity
Karl Popper (1902-1994)
Saw scientific method as having three components: problems, proposed solutions to the problems (theories), and criticisms of the proposed solutions. Because all scientific theories will eventually be found to be false, the highest status any scientific theory can attain is not yet disconfirmed
Created the idea of principle of falsifiability and risky predictions
Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994)
Seen as an anarchist, believes that philosophers of science who claim that scientists follow no prescribed set of rules, and whatever rules do exist must be broken in order for scientific progress to occur
He believed that taking an anarchist approach to science as without paying attention to idiosyncrasies of person and circumstances, what precisely it was that led to progress in the past, and nobody can say what moves will succeed in the future
Successful research does not obey general standards; it relies now on one trick, now on another, and the moves that advance it are not always known to the movers
active mind
Rationalist idea, mechanism that interacts with data from experience transforming it; the mechanism by which physical reality is organized, pondered, understood or valued
Anomalies
A persistent observation that a currently accepted paradigm cannot explain, Kuhn explained that a scientist or group of scientists then will propose an alternative viewpoint that accounts for most of the phenomena that the prevailing paradigm accounts for and explains
biological determinism
The idea that physical and mental characteristics are determined at conception by hereditary factors passed from the partents to the offspring. For example, evolutionary psychologists claim that much of human behavior, as well as that of nonhuman animals, reflects dispositions inherited from our long evolutionary past
causal law
Specifies how events are causally related, for example, if we knew the causes of a disease, we could predict and control that disease— as preventing the causes of a disease from occurring prevents the disease from occurring. Allows us to predict and control, more powerful than correlational laws and generally far more desirable
confirmable propositions
Part of the scientific theory, an assertion or theory that is able to be verified or disproved by trial and error processes
correspondence theory of truth
What guided scientific activity until Thomas Kuhun, the notion that the goal, when evaluating scientific laws or theories, is to determine whether or not they correspond to an external, mind-independent world
correlational law
How classes of events vary together in some systematic way. For example, exercise tends to indicate positive health.With such information, only prediction is possible.That is, if we knew a person’s level of exercise, we could predict his or her health, and vice versa
Determinism
Philosophical doctrine, The assumption that what is being studied can be understood in terms of causal laws
Assumes that everything that occurs is a function of a finite number of causes and that, if these causes were known, an event could be predicted with complete accuracy
Double aspectism
A person cannot be divided into a mind and a body but is a unity that simultaneously experiences events physiologically and mentally
Dualist
The belief that there are physical events and mental events
Eclectic approach
Using whatever method seems best able to illuminate an aspect of the history of psychology
Emergentism
Mental states emerge from physical brain states. A common analogy is how the unique qualities of water (its wetness, its boiling point, its density, etc.) emerge when hydrogen and oxygen combine— elements without those qualities. The emergent properties of water then are analogous to mind, as something that arises from the right sort of physical substrate (brain)
One kind, advocated by Roger Sperry, claims that once mental events emerge from brain activity, the mental events can influence subsequent brain activity and thus behavior
Empirical observation
The direct observation of nature, first step of the scientific theory
Empiricism
Contrast to rationalism, the source of knowledge is always based on sensory observation
Environmental determinism
Stresses the importance of environmental stimuli as determinants of behavior
Epiphenomenalism
The brain causes mental events, but mental events cannot cause behavior. In this view, mental events are simply by-products of brain processes with no ability to exert any influence
Epistemology
The study of knowledge
Asks such questions as what can we know, what are the limits of knowledge, and how is knowledge attained?
Great-person approach
Emphasizing the works of individuals such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Darwin, or Freud
Historical development approach
Showing how various individuals or events contributed to changes in an idea or concept through the years. For example, one could focus on how the idea of mental illness has changed throughout history
Historicism
Contrast to Stockings presentism, the study of the past for its own sake without attempting to relate the past and present
Historiography
The study of the proper way to write history
Idealist
Contrast to monists, the belief that even our so-called physical reality results from perceived ideas but share with the monists idea that they attempt to explain everything in terms of consciousness
Indeterminism
A viewpoint in the umbrella of Werner Karl Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the belief that there are specific causes of behavior but that they cannot be accurately known
