Chapter 5: Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism Flashcards
Alexander Bain
The first to attempt to relate known physiological facts to psychological phenomena. He also wrote the first psychology texts, and he founded psychology’s first journal (1876). Bain explained voluntary behavior in much the same way that modern learning theorists later explained trial-and-error behavior. Finally, Bain added the law of compound association and the law of constructive association to the older, traditional laws of association
Jeremy Bentham
Said that the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain governed most human behavior. Bentham also said that the best society was one that did the greatest good for the greatest number of people
George Berkeley
Said that the only thing we experience directly is our own perceptions or secondary qualities. Berkeley offered an empirical explanation of the perception of distance, saying that we learn to associate the sensations caused by the convergence and divergence of the eyes with different distances. Berkeley denied materialism, saying instead that reality exists because God perceives it.We can trust our senses to reflect God’s perceptions because God would not create a sensory system that would deceive us
Auguste Comte
The founder of positivism and coiner of the term sociology. He felt that cultures passed through three stages in the way they explained phenomena: the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific
Étienne Bonnot de Condillac
Maintained that all human mental attributes could be explained using only the concept of sensation and that it was therefore unnecessary to postulate an autonomous mind
Julien de La Mettrie
Among the first philosophers to suggest “you are what you eat,” believed the body influences the thought processes, believed the universe was nothing but matter and motion, sensations and thoughts were nothing but movements of particles in the brain.
Pierre Gassendi
Saw humans as nothing but complex, physical machines, and he saw no need to assume a nonphysical mind. Gassendi had much in common with Hobbes
David Hartley
Combined empiricism and associationism with rudimentary physiological notions
Claude Helvétius
Elaborated the implications of empiricism and sensationalism for education. That is, a person’s intellectual development can be determined by controlling his or her experiences
Thomas Hobbes
Believed that the primary motive in human behavior is the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. The function of government is to satisfy as many human needs as possible and to prevent humans from fighting with each other. He believed that all human activity, including mental activity, could be reduced to atoms in motion; therefore, he was a materialist
David Hume
Agreed with Berkeley that we could experience only our own subjective reality but disagreed with Berkeley’s contention that we could assume that our perceptions accurately reflect the physical world because God would not deceive us. We can be sure of nothing. Even the notion of cause and effect, which is so important to Newtonian physics, is nothing more than a habit of thought. Hume distinguished between impressions, which are vivid, and ideas, which are faint copies of impressions
John Locke
An empiricist who denied the existence of innate ideas but who assumed many nativistically determined powers of the mind. He distinguished between primary qualities, which cause sensations that correspond to actual attributes of physical bodies, and secondary qualities, which cause sensations that have no counterparts in the physical world. The types of ideas he postulated included those caused by sensory stimulation, those caused by reflection, simple ideas, and complex ideas, which were composites of simple ideas
Ernst Mach
Proposed a brand of positivism based on the phenomenological experiences of scientists. Because scientists, or anyone else, never experience the physical world directly, the scientist’s job is to precisely describe the relationships among mental phenomena, and to do so without the aid of metaphysical speculation
James Mill
Maintained that all mental events consisted of sensations and ideas (copies of sensations) held together by association. No matter how complex an idea was, he felt that it could be reduced to simple ideas
John Stuart Mill
Disagreed with his father James that all complex ideas could be reduced to simple ideas. He proposed a process of mental chemistry according to which complex ideas could be distinctly different from the simple ideas (elements) that constituted them. He believed strongly that a science of human nature could be and should be developed
Associationism
The belief that the laws of association provide the fundamental principles by which all mental phenomena can be explained
Empiricism
The belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, especially sensory experience
Ethology
J.S. Mill’s idea, the explanation of individual personalities as opposed to human nature which provides information concerning what all humans have in common
Law of cause and effect
According to Hume, if in our experience one event always precedes the occurrence of another event, we tend to believe that the for- mer event is the cause of the latter
Law of compound association
According to Bain, contiguous or similar events form compound ideas and are remembered together. If one or a few elements of the compound idea are experienced, they may elicit the memory of the entire compound
Law of constructive association
According to Bain, the mind can rearrange the memories of various experiences so that the creative associations formed are different from the experiences that gave rise to the associations
Law of contiguity
The tendency for events that are experienced together to be remembered together
Law of resemblance
According to Hume, the tendency for our thoughts to run from one event to similar events, the same as what others call the law, or principle, of similarity
Mental chemistry
The process by which individual sensations can combine to form a new sensation that is different from any of the individual sensations that constitute it
Panpsychism
Francesco Patrizi, the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality
Paradox of the basins
Locke’s observation that warm water will feel either hot or cold depending on whether a hand is first placed in hot water or cold water. Because water cannot be hot and cold at the same time, temperature must be a secondary, not a primary, quality
Positivism
The contention that science should study only that which can be directly experienced. For Comte, that was publicly observed events or overt behavior. For Mach, it was the sensations of the scientist
Primary laws (J. S. Mill)
According to J. S. Mill, the general laws that determine the overall behavior of events within a system
Primary qualities (Locke)
Attributes of psychical reality, refers to actual attributes of physical objects or events
Quality
According to Locke, that aspect of a physical object that has the power to produce an idea
Reflection
According to Locke, the ability to use the powers of the mind to creatively rearrange ideas derived from sensory experience
Scientism
The almost religious belief that science can answer all questions and solve all problems
Secondary laws (J. S. Mill)
According to J. S. Mill, the laws that interact with primary laws and determine the nature of individual events under specific circumstances
Secondary qualities (Locke)
Attributes of subjective or psychological reality, refers to psychological experiences that have no counterparts in the psychical world
Sensation
The rudimentary mental experience that results from the stimulation of one or more sense receptors
Sociology (Comte)
The study of how different societies compared in terms of the three stages of development
Spontaneous activity (Bain)
According to Bain, behavior that is simply emitted by an organism rather than being elicited by external stimulation
Utilitarianism
The belief that the best society or government is one that provides the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of individuals. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were all utilitarians
Vibratiuncles
According to Hartley, the vibrations that linger in the brain after the initial vibrations caused by external stimulation cease
Voluntary behaviour (Bain)
According to Bain, under some circumstances, an organism’s spontaneous activity leads to pleasurable consequences.After several such occurrences, the organism will come to voluntarily engage in the behavior that was originally spontaneous
