Chapter 6: Rationalism

Question 1

Nicolas de Malebranche

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Answer 2

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)

Question 3

Johann Friedrich Herbart

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Immanuel Kant

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Thomas Reid

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Baruch Spinoza

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

The Absolute

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Active mind

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Anthropology (Kant)

Answer 10

Kant’s proposed study of human behavior. Such a study could yield practical information that could be used to predict and control behavior

Question 11

Apperceptive mass (Herbart)

Answer 11

According to Herbart, the cluster of interrelated ideas of which we are conscious at any given moment

Question 12

Categorical imperative

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Categories of thought

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Common Sense philosophy

Answer 14

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

Question 15

Dialectic process

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Direct realism

Answer 16

The belief that sensory experience represents physical reality exactly as it is. Also called naive realism

Question 17

Double aspectism

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Faculty psychology

Answer 18

The belief that the mind consists of several powers or faculties

Question 19

Emotion (Spinoza)

Answer 19

Linked to a specific thought

Question 20

Law of continuity (Leibniz)

Answer 20

Leibniz’s contention that there are no major gaps or leaps in nature. Rather, all differences in nature are characterized by small gradations

Question 21

Limen

Answer 21

For Leibniz and Herbart, the border between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Also called threshold

Question 22

Monads

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Occasionalism

Answer 23

A wish to do something becomes the occasion for God to act, Idea of Nicolas de Malebranche

Question 24

Pantheism

Answer 24

The belief that God is present everywhere and in everything

Question 25

Passion (Spinoza)

Answer 25

Reduces the probability of survival, not associated with any particular thought

Question 26

Passive mind

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Petites perceptions (Leibniz)

Answer 27

According to Leibniz, a perception that occurs below the level of awareness because only a few monads are involved

Question 28

Preestablished harmony (Leibniz)

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Psychic mechanics

Answer 29

The term used by Herbart to describe how ideas struggle with each other to gain conscious expression

Question 30

Psychophysical parallelism

Answer 30

The contention that bodily and mental events are correlated but that there is no interaction between them

Question 31

Rationalism

Answer 31

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