Chapter 6 vocab

Question 1

According to Hegel, the totality of the universe; a knowledge of this constitutes the only true knowledge, and separate aspects of the universe can be understood only in terms of their relationship to this; through the dialectic process, human history and the human intellect progress toward this

Answer 1

The absolute

Question 2

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

Answer 2

Active mind

Question 3

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

Answer 3

Anthropology

Question 4

Conscious experience

Answer 4

Apperception

Question 5

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

Answer 5

Apperceptive mass

Question 6

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

Answer 6

Categorical imperitive

Question 7

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

Answer 7

Categories of thought

Question 8

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

Answer 8

Commonsense philosophy

Question 9

According to Hegel, the process involving an original idea, the negation of the original idea, and a synthesis of the original idea and its negation; the synthesis then become the starting point (the idea) of the next cycle of the developmental process

Answer 9

Dialectic process

Question 10

The belief that sensory experience represents physical reality exactly as it is; also called naive realism

Answer 10

Direct realism

Question 11

Spinoza’s contention that material substance and consciousness are two inseparable aspects of everything in the universe, including humans

Answer 11

Double aspectism (psychophysical double aspectism and double-aspect monism)

Question 12

The belief that the mind consists of several powers or faculties

Answer 12

Faculty psychology

Question 13

Like Spinoza, believed the universe to be an interrelated unity; this person called this unity the absolute, and he thought that human history and the human intellect progress via the dialectic process toward the absolute

Answer 13

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Question 14

Likened ideas to Leibniz’s monads by saying that they had energy and a consciousness of their own; also said that 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; considered one of the first mathematical and educational psychologists

Answer 14

Johann Friedrich Hebert (1776-1841)

Question 15

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; also believed that morality is, or should be, governed by the categorical imperative; did not believe psychology could become a science because subjective experience could not be quantified mathematically

Answer 15

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Question 16

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

Answer 16

Law of continuity

Question 17

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

Answer 17

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)

Question 18

For Leibniz and Herbart, the border between the conscious and the unconscious mind; also called the threshold

Answer 18

Limen

Question 19

According to Leibniz, the indivisible units that compose everything in the universe; all of these are characterized by consciousness, but some more 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 of these is to think as clearly as it is capable of doing; because humans share these with matter, plants, and animals, sometimes our thoughts are less clear

Answer 19

Monads

Question 20

The belief that bodily events and mental events are coordinated by God’s intervention

Answer 20

Occasionalism

Question 21

The belief that God is present everywhere and in everything

Answer 21

Pantheism

Question 22

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 sensationalist tended to postulate such a mind

Answer 22

Passive mind

Question 23

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

Answer 23

Petites perceptions

Question 24

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

Answer 24

Preestablished harmony

Question 25

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

Answer 25

Psychic mechanics

Question 26

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

Answer 26

Psychophysical parallelism

Question 27

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

Answer 27

Rationalism

Question 28

Believed that we could trust our sensory impressions to accurately reflect physical reality because it makes common sense to do so; attributed several rational faculties to the mind and was therefore a faculty psychologist

Answer 28

Thomas Reid (1710-1796)

Question 29

Equated God with nature and said that everything in nature, including humans, consisted of both matter and consciousness; his proposed solution to the mind-body problem is called double aspectism; the most pleasurable life 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; his deterministic view of human cognition, activity, and emotion did much to facilitate the development of scientific psychology

Answer 29

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)