e1 Flashcards
Spinoza, Baruch
Spinoza, Baruch (1632–1677): 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. Emotional experience is desirable because it is controlled by reason
Active mind
A mind that transforms, interprets, understands, or values physical experience.
Anomalies
Persistent observations that cannot be explained by an existing paradigm. Anomalies eventually cause one paradigm to displace another
Biological determinism
The type of determinism that stresses the biochemical, genetic, physiological, or anatomical causes of behavior.
Causal laws
Laws describing causal relationships. Such laws specify the conditions that are necessary and sufficient to produce a certain event.
Confirmable propositions
Within science, propositions capable of validation through empirical tests.
Correlational laws
Laws that specify the systematic relationships among classes of empirical events.
Correspondence theory of truth
The belief that scientific laws and theories are correct insofar as they accurately mirror events in the physical world.
Determinism
The belief that everything that occurs does so because of known or knowable causes and that if these causes were known in advance, an event could be predicted with complete accuracy.
Double aspectism
The belief that bodily and mental events are inseparable because they are two aspects of every experience.
Dualist
Anyone who believes that there are two aspects to humans, one physical and one mental.
Eclectic approach
Taking the best from a variety of viewpoints.
Emergentism
The contention that mental processes emerge from brain processes.
Empirical observation
The direct observation of that which is being studied in order to understand it.
Empiricism
The belief that the basis of all knowledge is experience.
Environmental determinism
The type of determinism that stresses causes of behavior that is external to the organism.
Epiphenomenalism
The form of emergentism that states that mental events emerge from brain activity but that mental events are subsequently behaviorally irrelevant.
Epistemology
The study of the nature of knowledge.
Feyerabend, Paul
Argued that science cannot be described by any standard set of rules, principles, or standards. In fact, he said, history shows that scientific progress occurs when individual scientists violate whatever rules, principles, or standards existed at the time.
Great-person approach
The approach to history that concentrates on the most prominent contributors to the topic or field under consideration.
Historical development approach
concentrates on an element of a field or discipline and describes how the understanding or approach to studying that element has changed over time.
Historicism
The study of the past for its own sake
Historiography
The study of the proper way to write history.
Idealists
Those who believe that ultimate reality consists of ideas or perceptions and is therefore not physical.
Indeterminism
even though determinism is true, attempting to measure the causes of something influences those causes, making it impossible to know them with certainty.
interactionism
bodily experiences influence the mind and that the mind influences the body.
irrationalism
determinants that are not under rational control—for example, explanations that emphasize the importance of emotions or unconscious mechanisms.
Kuhn, Thomas
Believed that the activities of members of a scientific community are governed by a shared set of beliefs called a paradigm
Materialists
Those who believe that everything in the universe is material (physical), including those things that others refer to as mental.
Mechanism
The belief that the behavior of organisms, including humans, can be explained entirely in terms of mechanical laws.
Monists
believe there is only one reality.
naive realism
the belief that what one experiences mentally is the same as what is present physically
Normal science
According to Kuhn, the research activities performed by scientists as they explore the implications of a paradigm.
nondeterminism (free will)
The belief that human thought or behavior is freely chosen by the individual and is therefore not caused by antecedent physical or mental events.
Occasionalism
The belief that the relationship between the mind and body is mediated by God
paradigm
A viewpoint shared by many scientists while exploring the subject matter of their science.
paradigmatic stage
stage in the development of a science during which scientific activity is guided by a paradigm
passive mind
A mind whose contents are determined by sensory experience.
physical determinism
stresses material causes of behavior
Popper, Karl
Saw scientific method as having three components: problems, proposed solutions to the problems (theories), and criticisms of the proposed solutions. (See also Principle of falsifiability and Risky predictions.)
Postdiction
an attempt to account for something after it has occurred
preestablished harmony
Leibniz’s contention that God had created the monads composing the universe in such a way that a continuous harmony existed among them.
Preparadigmatic stage
first stage in the development of a science. This stage is characterized by warring factions vying to define the subject matter and methodology of a discipline.
presentism
Interpreting and evaluating historical events in terms of contemporary knowledge and standards.
Principle of falsifiability
Popper’s contention that for a theory to be considered scientific it must specify the observations that, if made, would refute the theory.
Psychical determinism
stresses mental causes of behavior.
psychophysical parallelism
The contention that bodily and mental events are correlated but that there is no interaction between them.
Public observation
The stipulation that scientific laws must be available for any interested person to observe.
puzzle solving
According to Kuhn, normal science is like puzzle solving in that the problems worked on are specified by a paradigm, the problems have guaranteed solutions, and certain rules must be followed in arriving at those solutions.
rationalism
knowledge can be attained only by engaging in some type of systematic mental activity
reification
The belief that abstractions for which we have names have an existence independent of their names.
Relativism
The belief that because all experience must be filtered through individual and group perspectives, the search for universal truths that exist independently of human experience must be in vain.
Revolutionary stage
stage of scientific development during which an existing paradigm is displaced by a new one.
Risky prediction
predictions derived from a scientific theory that run a real chance of showing the theory to be false.
science
the systematic attempt to rationally categorize or explain empirical observations.
scientific laws
consistently observed relationship between classes of empirical events.
vitalism
The belief that life cannot be explained in terms of inanimate processes. For the vitalist, life requires a force that is more than the material objects or inanimate processes in which it manifests itself.
active reason
the faculty of the soul that searches for the essences or abstract concepts that manifest themselves in the empirical world
zeitgeist
spirit of the times
Analogy of the divided line
Plato’s illustration of his contention that there is a hierarchy of understanding. The lowest type of understanding is based on images of empirical objects. Next highest is an understanding of empirical objects themselves, which results only in opinion. Next is an understanding of abstract mathematical principles. Then comes an understanding of the forms. The highest understanding (true knowledge) is an understanding of the form of the good that includes a knowledge of all forms and their organization.
Anaxagoras
Postulated an infinite number of elements (seeds) from which everything is made.
Animisn
everything in nature is alive
Aristotle
Believed sensory experience to be the basis of all knowledge
Associationism
The philosophical belief that mental phenomena can be explained in terms of the laws of association.
apperception
conscious experience
Apperceptive mass
the cluster of interrelated ideas of which we are conscious at any given moment.
Categorical imperative
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
innate attributes of the mind that Kant postulated to explain subjective experiences we have that cannot be explained in terms of sensory experience alone
dialectic process
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 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.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Like Spinoza, believed the universe to be an interrelated unity. Hegel called this unity the Absolute,
Kant, Immanuel
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
