Chapter 6: Rationalism Flashcards
Nicolas de Malebranche
A 17th century priest who accepted Descartes separation of the mind and body but believed that when a person has a desire-say to move an arm-God is aware of this desire and moves the person’s arm. He believed there was no contract between mind and body but there appears to be because of God’s intervention
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Like Spinoza, believed the universe to be an interrelated unity. Hegel called this unity the Absolute, and he thought that human history and the human intellect progress via the dialectic process toward the Absolute (The absolute)
Johann Friedrich Herbart
Likened ideas to Leibniz’s monads by saying that they had energy and a consciousness of their own. Also, according to Herbart, ideas strive for consciousness. Those ideas compatible with a person’s apperceptive mass are given conscious expression, whereas those that are not remain below the limen in the unconscious mind. Herbart is considered to be one of the first mathematical and educational psychologists
Immanuel Kant
Believed that experiences such as those of unity, causation, time, and space could not be derived from sensory experience and, therefore, must be attributable to innate categories of thought. He also believed that morality is, or should be, governed by the categorical imperative. He did not believe psychology could become a science because subjective experience could not be quantified mathematically
Thomas Reid
Believed that we could trust our sensory impressions to accurately reflect physical reality because it makes common sense to do so. He attributed several rational faculties to the mind and was therefore a faculty psychologist
Baruch Spinoza
Equated God with nature and said that everything in nature, including humans, consisted of both matter and consciousness. Spinoza’s proposed solution to the mind–body problem is called double aspectism. The most pleasurable life, according to Spinoza, is one lived in accordance with the laws of nature. Emotional experience is desirable because it is controlled by reason; passionate experience is undesirable because it is not. Spinoza’s deterministic view of human cognition, activity, and emotion did much to facilitate the development of scientific psychology
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Believed that the universe consists of indivisible units called monads. God had created the arrangement of the monads, and therefore this was the best of all possible worlds. If only a few minute monads were experienced, petites’ perceptions resulted, which were unconscious. If enough minute monads were experienced at the same time, apperception occurred, which was a conscious experience (Petites perceptions)
The Absolute
According to Hegel, the totality of the universe. A knowledge of the Absolute constitutes the only true knowledge, and separate aspects of the universe can be understood only in terms of their relationship to the Absolute. Through the dialectic process, human history and the human intellect progress toward the Absolute
Active mind
A mind equipped with categories or operations that are used to analyze, organize, or modify sensory information and to discover abstract concepts or principles not contained within sensory experience. The rationalists postulated such a mind
Anthropology (Kant)
Kant’s proposed study of human behavior. Such a study could yield practical information that could be used to predict and control behavior
Apperceptive mass (Herbart)
According to Herbart, the cluster of interrelated ideas of which we are conscious at any given moment
Categorical imperative
According to Kant, the moral directive that we should always act in such a way that the maxims governing our moral decisions could be used as a guide for everyone else’s moral behavior
Categories of thought
Those innate attributes of the mind that Kant postulated to explain subjective experiences we have that cannot be explained in terms of sensory experience alone—for example, the experiences of time, causality, and space
Common Sense philosophy
The position, first proposed by Reid, that we can assume the existence of the physical world and of human reasoning powers because it makes common sense to do so
Dialectic process
According to Hegel, the process involves an original idea, the negation of the original idea, and a synthesis of the original idea and its negation. The synthesis then becomes the starting point (the idea) of the next cycle of the developmental process
Direct realism
The belief that sensory experience represents physical reality exactly as it is. Also called naive realism
Double aspectism
Spinoza’s contention that material substance and consciousness are two inseparable aspects of everything in the universe, including humans. Also called psychophysical double aspectism and double aspect monism
Faculty psychology
The belief that the mind consists of several powers or faculties
Emotion (Spinoza)
Linked to a specific thought
Law of continuity (Leibniz)
Leibniz’s contention that there are no major gaps or leaps in nature. Rather, all differences in nature are characterized by small gradations
Limen
For Leibniz and Herbart, the border between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Also called threshold
Monads
According to Leibniz, the indivisible units that compose everything in the universe. All monads are characterized by consciousness, but some more so than others. Inert matter possesses only dim consciousness, and then with increased ability to think clearly come plants, animals, humans, and, finally, God. The goal of each monad is to think as clearly as it is capable of doing. Because humans share monads with matter, plants, and animals, sometimes our thoughts are less than clear
Occasionalism
A wish to do something becomes the occasion for God to act, Idea of Nicolas de Malebranche
Pantheism
The belief that God is present everywhere and in everything
Passion (Spinoza)
Reduces the probability of survival, not associated with any particular thought
Passive mind
A mind whose contents are determined by sensory experience. It contains a few mechanistic principles that organize, store, and generalize sensory experiences.The British empiricists and the French sensationalists tended to postulate such a mind
Petites perceptions (Leibniz)
According to Leibniz, a perception that occurs below the level of awareness because only a few monads are involved
Preestablished harmony (Leibniz)
Leibniz’s contention that God had created the monads composing the universe in such a way that a continuous harmony existed among them. This explained why mental and bodily events were coordinated
Psychic mechanics
The term used by Herbart to describe how ideas struggle with each other to gain conscious expression
Psychophysical parallelism
The contention that bodily and mental events are correlated but that there is no interaction between them
Rationalism
The philosophical position postulating an active mind that transforms sensory information and is capable of understanding abstract principles or concepts not attainable from sensory information alone
