Chapter 5-Empiricism, Sensationalism, And Positivism

Question 1

What is the definition of empiricism in the text, and what are its general characteristics?

Answer 1

It is the epistemology that asserts that the evidence of sense constitutes the primary data of all knowledge; that knowledge cannot exist in this evidence has first being gathered; and that all subsequent intellectual processes must use as evidence in only this evidence in framing valid propositions about the real world

Characteristics: sensory experience constitutes the primary data of all knowledge; it does not say that such experience alone constitutes knowledge

Knowledge cannot exist until sensory evidence has first being gathered; so for the empiricist, attaining knowledge begins with sensory experience.

All subsequent intellectual processes must focus on only sensory experience in formulating propositions about the world. Thus, it is not the recognition of mental processes that distinguishes the imperial system on the rationalist; rather, it is what those thought processes are focused on

Question 2

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. Believed that all human activity, including mental activity, could be reduced to atoms in motion; therefore, he was a materialist

Answer 2

Thomas Hobbes

Question 3

Describe Hobbs position with respect to empiricism

Answer 3

Rejected Bacons inductive method in favor of the deductive method. Agreed with bacon on the importance of sensory experience. Excepted Descartes deductive method but rejected his concept of innate ideas. For Hobbs, all ideas came from experience or, more specifically, from sensory experience

Question 4

Describe Hobbs position with respect to materialism

Answer 4

He was a materialist. Because all that exists is matter and motion, he thought it absurd to postulate a nonmaterial mind, as Descartes had done.

Also called mental phenomena could be explained by the sense experiences that result when the motion of external bodies stimulates the sense receptors, thereby causing internal motion. For Hobbs, the mind was nothing more than the sum total of a person’s thinking activities-that is, a series of motion is within the individual. He was a physical monist; he denied the existence of a nonmaterial mind

Question 5

Describe Hobbs position with respect to psychological phenomena

Answer 5

Attention was explained by the fact that as long as sense organs retain the motion caused by certain external objects, they cannot respond to others

Imagination was explained by the fact that sense impressions decay overtime so imagination is nothing more but decaying sense

When a sense impression had decayed for a considerable amount of time, it is called memory

Dreams also have a sensory origin, the imaginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams the reason that they are typically so vivid is because during sleep there are no new sensory impressions to compete with the imagination

Question 6

Describe Hobbs position with respect to motivation

Answer 6

External objects not only produce sense impressions but also influence the vital functions of the body. Those incoming impressions that facilitate vital functions are experienced as pleasurable, and the person seeks to preserve them or to seek them out. Conversely, since impressions incompatible with the vital functions are experienced as painful, and the person seeks to terminate or avoid them.

Human behavior is motivated by appetite the seeking are maintaining of pleasurable experience, and eversion the avoidance or termination of painful experiences. In other words, Hobbes accepted a hedonistic theory of motivation

Question 7

Describe Hobbs position with respect to free will

Answer 7

With his deterministic view of human behavior, there was no place for free will. People may believe they are choosing because at any given moment they may be confronted with a number of appetite and aversions and therefore there may be conflicting tendencies to act. He referred to the recognition of such conflicting tendencies as deliberation and to the behavioral tendency that survives that deliberation as will.

Will was defined as the action tendency that prevails when a number of such tendencies exist simultaneously. What appears to be choice is nothing more than a verbal label we used to describe the attractions and aversions we experience while interacting with the environment

Question 8

Describe Hobbs position with respect to complex thought processes

Answer 8

Hobbes attempted to explain trains of thought, by which he meant the tendency of one thought to follow another in some coherent manner. He introduced the law of contiguity first proposed by Aristotle. That is, events that are experienced together are remembered together and are subsequently thought of together.

Question 9

And empiricist who denied the existence of innate ideas but who assumed many nativisticly determined powers of the mind. 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 postulated by him included those caused by sensory stimulation, those caused by reflection, simple ideas, and complex ideas, which were composites of simple ideas

Answer 9

John Locke

Question 10

Describe locks position on empiricism

Answer 10

He was an empiricist Who influenced most of the subsequent British empiricists, more so than Hobbs did

Question 11

Describe locks position on the mind-body distinction

Answer 11

He rejected Hobbs physical monism and accepted a mind body dualism. Where is Hobbs equated mental images with the motions in the brain that were caused by external motions acting on the sense receptors, lock was content to say that somehow sensory stimulation caused ideas. He washed his hands of the question as to how something physical could cause something mental-it just did

Question 12

Describe locks position on innate ideas

Answer 12

He was opposed to innate ideas, and because it was mainly clergymen who excepted the innateness of morality, by attacking the existence of innate ideas, he was attacking the church.

He observed that if the mind contained innate ideas, then all humans should have those ideas, and clearly they do not

The ideas that humans have come from experience according to Locke

Question 13

Describe locks position on sensation and reflection

Answer 13

For lock, an idea was simply a mental image that could be employed while thinking.

All ideas come from either sensation or reflection, in other words ideas result either by direct sensory stimulation or by reflection on the remnants of prior sensory stimulation.

Thus, the source of all ideas is sensation, but the ideas obtained by sensation can be acted on and rearranged by the operations of the mind, thereby giving rise to new ideas

Question 14

Describe locks position on simple and complex ideas

Answer 14

Simple ideas, whether from sensation or reflection, constitute the atoms or corpuscles of experience because they cannot be divided or analyzed further into other ideas

Complex ideas are composites of simple ideas and therefore can be analyzed into their component parts, or simple ideas.

When the operations of the mind are applied to simple ideas through reflection, complex ideas are formed

The mind can either create nor destroy ideas, but it can arrange existing ideas in an almost infinite number of configurations

Question 15

Describe locks position on emotions

Answer 15

He maintained that the feelings of pleasure or pain accompanied both simple and complex ideas. The other passions or emotions such as love, desire, joy, hatred, sorrow, anger, fear, despair, envy, shame, and hope we’re all derived from the two basic feelings of pleasure and pain.

Things that cause pleasure are good, and things that cause pain are evil. The greatest good was the freedom to think pleasurable thoughts.

Therefore, like Hobbs, his theory of human motivation was hedonistic

Question 16

Describe locks position on primary and secondary qualities

Answer 16

Primary and secondary qualities referred to characteristics of the physical world; what distinguish them was the type of psychological experience they caused.

Following Boyle, lock referred to any aspect of a physical object that had the power to produce an idea as a quality. Primary qualities have the power to create in us ideas that correspond to actual physical attributes of physical objects-for example, the ideas of solidity, extension, shape, motion or rest, and quantity. With primary qualities, there is a match between what is physically present and what is experienced psychologically

The secondary qualities of objects also have the power to produce ideas, but the ideas they produce do not correspond to anything in the physical world. The ideas produced by secondary qualities include those of color, sound, temperature, and taste

Question 17

The rudimentary mental experience that results from the stimulation of one or more sense receptors

Answer 17

Sensation

Question 18

According to lock, the ability to use the powers of the mind to creatively rearrange ideas derived from sensory experience

Answer 18

Reflection

Question 19

The mental remnants of sensations

Answer 19

Simple ideas

Question 20

Configurations of simple ideas

Answer 20

Complex ideas

Question 21

According to lock, that aspect of a physical object that has the power to produce an idea

Answer 21

Quality

Question 22

Locks 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

Answer 22

Paradox of the basins

Question 23

Describe locks position on Association of ideas

Answer 23

He used association to explain the faulty beliefs that can result from accidents of time or circumstance. He called the belief that resulted from associative learning a degree of madness because they were in opposition to reason.

In addition to ideas that are clustered in the mind because of some logical connection among them, some ideas are naturally associated, such as when the owner of baking bread causes one to have the idea of bread. The types of associations that constitute a degree of madness are learned by chance, custom, or mistake. These associations lead to errors in understanding, whereas natural associations cannot

Example of an unreasonable belief: a person who eats too much honey become sick and thereafter avoids even the thought of honey, or a person undergoing painful surgery will develop and aversion to the surgeon

Question 24

The believe that the laws of association provide the fundamental principles by which all mental phenomena can be explained

Answer 24

Associationism

Question 25

Describe locks position on education

Answer 25

His book had a profound and long lasting influence on education throughout the Western world

By insisting that nurture or experience, was much more important than nature, or innate ability, for character development, his views on education were in accordance with his empirical philosophy.

Important education took place both at home and at school. He encouraged parents to increased stress tolerance in their children through a process he called hardening, by having them sleep on hard rather than soft beds. Exposing children to moderate amounts of coldness and wetness would also increase tolerance for the inevitable hardships of life. Crying should be discouraged with physical punishment if necessary. Parents should provide their children with sufficient sleep, food, fresh air, and exercise because good Health and effective learning are inseparable

In the classroom, mild physical punishment of students was advocated but severe physical punishment was not because of learning occurs under aversive conditions, it will be avoided both in school and beyond

Question 26

Describe locks position on government

Answer 26

Because he did not believe in innate ideas or innate moral principles, he did not believe that people should seek the truth for themselves rather than having it imposed on them. For this and other reasons, empiricism was considered to be a radical movement that sought to replace religion based on revelation with natural law. He proposed a government by and for the people and was accepted enthusiastically by the 19 century utilitarians, and it was influential in the drafting of the US Declaration of Independence

Question 27

Describe Berkeleys ideas with respect to his theory of distance perception

Answer 27

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

Believe that a person who was born blind and was later able to see would not be able to distinguish a cube from a triangle because such discrimination requires the association of visual and tactile experiences and such a person would also be incapable of perceiving distance because many sensations must be associated to judge the proper distance of an object.

The cues for distance are learned through the process of association

Question 28

Disagreed with his father James that all complex ideas could be reduced to simple ideas. Proposed the process of mental chemistry according to which complex ideas could be distinctly different from the simple ideas, or elements, that constituted them. Believed strongly that a science of human nature could be and should be developed

Answer 28

John Stuart Mill

Question 29

The belief that the best society or government is one that provides the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of individuals

Answer 29

Utilitarianism

Question 30

The process by which individuals sensations can combine to form a new sensation that is different from any of the individual sensations that constitute it

Answer 30

Mental chemistry

Question 31

Describe Jon Stewart Mills philosophy with respect to mental chemistry

Answer 31

He believed that every sensation leaves in the mind an idea that resembles the sensation but is weaker in intensity; that similar ideas tends to excite one another; when sensations or ideas are frequently experienced together, either simultaneously or successively, they become associated-law of contiguity; more vivid sensations or ideas for him stronger associations then do less vivid ones; The strength of association varies with frequency of occurrence

He took issue with his father on one important issue, however, instead of agreeing that complex ideas are always aggregates of simple ideas, he proposed a type of mental chemistry. Similar to how chemicals often combine and produce something entirely different from the elements that made them up, he believed that the same kind of thing sometimes happens in the mind. That it was possible for elementary ideas to fuse and to produce an idea that was different from the elements that made it up

Question 32

Describe Jon Stewart Mills philosophy with respect to psychology as a science

Answer 32

He was perhaps the most respected philosopher of science of his day and who contributed most to the development of psychology as a science.

Attacked the common belief that human thoughts, feelings, and actions are not subject to scientific investigation in the same way that physical nature is. He stressed to the point that any system governed by laws is subject to scientific scrutiny, and this is true even if those laws are not presently understood.

Sciences can range from those whose laws are known and the manifestations of those laws easily and precisely measured (primary laws) to those whose laws are only partially understood and the manifestations of those laws measured only with great difficulty (secondary laws)

Question 33

Describe John Stuart Mill philosophy with respect to ethology

Answer 33

Argued for the development of a science of the formation of character and he called this science ethology. Bears little resemblance to modern ethology which studies animal behavior in the animals natural habitat and then attempts to explain that behavior in evolutionary terms.

Question 34

John Stewart Mills proposed study of how specific individuals act under specific circumstances. In other words, it is the study of how the primary laws governing human behavior interact with secondary laws to produce an individual’s behavior in a situation

Answer 34

Ethology

Question 35

Describe John Stewart Mills philosophy with respect to social reform

Answer 35

He was a dedicated social reformer like his father and his causes included freedom of speech, representative government, and the emancipation of women. He embraced utilitarianism.

Question 36

Believe humans were machines that differed from other animals only in complexity. Believed that so-called mental experiences are nothing but movements of particles in the brain. He also believed that accepting materialism would result in a better, more humane world

Answer 36

Julien de La Mettrie

Question 37

Describe La Mettrie’s views concerning man as a machine

Answer 37

Believed that if Descartes had followed his own mechanist method, he would have reached the conclusion that humans, like nonhuman animals, we’re automated machines.

He believe that man was a machine, and that in the whole universe there is but a single substance differently modified. The single substance was matter, and this belief that every existing thing, including humans, consists of matter and nothing else makes him a physical monist. The existence of an immaterial soul was silly.

Question 38

Describe La Mettrie’s views concerning The differences between humans and nonhuman animals

Answer 38

Intelligence was influenced by three factors: brain size, bring complexity, and education. Humans are typically superior in intelligence two other animals because we have bigger, more complex brains and because we are better educated.

Humans differ from nonhuman animals only in degree, not in type

Question 39

Describe La Mettrie’s views concerning The desirability of accepting materialism as a worldview

Answer 39

He believes that the uniqueness of humans, dualism, and in God are not only incorrect but also responsible for widespread misery. Humans would be much better served by accepting their continuity with the animal world. We should accept the fact that, like other animals, humans are machines

Believe that accepting materialism would result in a better, more humane world

Question 40

The almost religious belief that science can answer all questions and solve all problems

Answer 40

Scientism

Question 41

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

Answer 41

Auguste Comte

Question 42

Describe Comte’s beliefs regarding positivism

Answer 42

The only thing we can be sure of is that which is publicly observable-that is, sense experiences that can be shared with other individuals. The data of science are publicly observable and therefore can be trusted.

His insistence on equating knowledge with empirical observations was called positivism

Question 43

Describe Comte’s beliefs regarding The law of three stages

Answer 43

Societies passed through stages that are defined in terms of the way its members explain natural events:

Theological-the first and most primitive stage where explanations are based on superstition and mysticism

Metaphysical-explanations are based on unseen essences, principles, causes, or laws

Scientific-description is emphasized over explanation, and the prediction and control of natural phenomena becomes all important. During this stage, positivism is accepted

Question 44

For Comte, A study of the types of explanations various societies accepted for natural phenomena. He believed that, as societies progress, they go from theological explanations, to metaphysical, to positivistic. He also meant the study of the overt behavior of humans, especially social behavior

Answer 44

Sociology

Question 45

Describe Comte’s beliefs regarding humanistic religion

Answer 45

He discussed positivism as if it were religion. To him, science was all that one needed to believe in and all that one should believe in and he described a utopian society based on scientific principles and beliefs and whose organization was remarkably similar to the Roman Catholic Church. However, humanity replaced God, and scientists and philosophers replaced priests. Disciples of the new religion would be drawn from the working classes and especially from among women.

Question 46

Describe Comte’s beliefs regarding The hierarchy of the sciences

Answer 46

Arrange the scientists in a hierarchy from the first developed and most basic to the last developed and most comprehensive as follows: mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, physiology and biology, and sociology. Psychology did not appear on his list of sciences. He believe that psychology was metaphysical nonsense because science can only deal with what could be publicly observed and that excludes introspective data.

Two methods could be used to study the individual objectively: phrenology and to study the mind by its products such as overt behavior and social behavior

Question 47

Proposed a brand of positivism based on the phenomenological experiences of scientists. Because scientists, or anyone else, never experiencea physical world directly, the scientists job is to precisely describe the relationships among mental phenomena, and to do so without the aid of metaphysical speculation

Answer 47

Ernst Mach

Question 48

Compare and contrast the positivism of Comte and Mach.

Answer 48

Mock, like COM T, insisted that science concentrate only on what could be known with certainty. Neither allowed metaphysical speculation in their views of science. The two men differed radically in what they thought scientists could be certain about: for Conti, it was physical events that could be experienced by any interested observer. Mock, however, agreed with the contention of Berkeley and Hume-that we can never experience the physical world directly we experience only sensations or mental phenomena. For mock, the job of the scientist was to note with which sensations typically clustered together and to describe imprecise mathematical terms the relationships among them

He concluded that so-called cause and effect relationships are nothing more than functional relationships among mental phenomena. The ultimate subject matter of any science was necessarily cognitive, and this fact need not prevent scientists from doing their work objectively and without engaging in metaphysical speculation

Question 49

How did Mach Believe that concept should be defined?

Answer 49

Insisted that scientific concepts be defined in terms of the procedures used to measure them rather in terms of their ultimate reality or essence. Anticipated the concept of operational definition.

Question 50

The belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, especially sensory experience

Answer 50

Empiricism