chapter 5 - british empiricism

Question 1

what are the basic assumptions of empiricism? what is one of the main reasons that early scientists emphasized these assumptions?

Answer 1

• basic assumption is that all knowledge comes from the senses; tabula rasa (mind is a blank slate) & nurture
• passive mind (no free will because we act off of our programming)
• hedonism
• mechanistic and materialistic
• reductionistic
• science at this time was hard (study of physical things that can be objectively measured) and the greeks thought there was a nonphysical realm

Question 2

what are simple and complex ideas? what were the empiricisms trying to accomplish by using this framing of the mind?

Answer 2

• simple ideas are the mental remnants of sensations (the m sound); raw sensory data
• complex ideas are configurations of simple ideas (the word mom from the m sound); complicated concepts
• the mind can neither create or destroy ideas, but can arrange existing ideas in an infinite number of configurations; bottom-up processing and passive

Question 3

what role does emotion play according to the british empiricists?

Answer 3

• hedonism
• emotions become associated with various sensations and ideas by the same mechanical laws of association that bind ideas together
• emotions are derived from pleasure and pain (Locke), all emotions are combinations of good and bad inputs
• emotions motivate all behavior and we all possess the same passions but in different ways (Hume)
• sensations are stronger than ideas, but sensations with emotions are even stronger (Mill)

Question 4

what is associationism? why is it important to the empiricist paradigm? where did these ideas originate?

Answer 4

• the fundamental principle of mental life, in terms of which even the higher thought processes are to be explained; complex ideas come from the association of simpler ideas
• in their efforts to become “newtons of the mind” they argued that the laws of association provided the gravity that held ideas together
• originates from hume’s laws of association, which are based on aristotle’s (contiguity, similarity, contrast, frequency)

Question 5

how do the empiricists characterize the mind?

Answer 5

• the mind is a bundle of perceptions active at a given time (senses, past experiences); complex machines
• the mind is a blank slate, a machine

Question 6

how would the empiricists describe the causes of human behavior and thought?

Answer 6

• all ideas can be explained in terms of experience and associative principles
• emotions (passions) drive behaviors, we all have them but at different degrees
• empiricists emphasize mechanical causes of behavior, stress induction as a method
• develops thoughts only through later experience