History & Systems Exam 3 British Persons to Know Flashcards
Who are the Philosophers to know?
Early Empiricists:
Hobbes,Locke,Berkeley,Hume,Hartley
Scottish Common Sense:
Reid, Brown
Utilitarianism:
Bentham
Later Empiricists:
James Mill, J.S. Mill, Bain
Thomas Hobbes
British Empiricist Philosopher
“The Leviathon”
Materialism: Matter and motion are all that exist.
Man is a machine
No ideas are innate but all comes through the sense experiences.
Contiguity: relationship between events in time or place is what forms ideas.
Motivation: Desire, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
No free will.
John Locke
British Empiricist Philosopher & Physician
Political: Individual views determined by environment and experience.
“Essay concerning human understanding”
-“Tabula Rasa”: Man is blank slate and gets ideas only from experience.
Two sources of ideas: Sensations (Physical) and Perceptions (Reflections of sensations)
-Sensations lead to reflections which lead to ideas (units of mind).
-There are objects and there are our reflections of the objects. They have primary (Length, number) and secondary qualities (color, sound).
-Mind is necessary, but passive.
-Mind knows through association through sense experiences through either Logical Position (Like Contingency principle) or through Chance (Supersticious, reflection produces a new idea).
George Berkeley
“To be is to be perceived”
“An essay towards a new theory of vision”
Mind creates matter
We can only be certain that the mind senses and perceives.
SImple ideas combine to make complex ideas.
Goes farther than Locke by pointing out that we cannot even know primary qualities.
2d: Retina physiology
3d: association bt eye sensation and experiences.
God provides sensations.
MInd generates matter, not Locke’s other way around
Hume
Atheistic Philosopher - Passive Empiricism
Skepticism and Reductionism
Said not only matter is denied, but we cannot prove mind either!
Impression (sensations) Cause ideas (mental images)
No such thing as reflection
Any spiritual mind is unnecessary because it is only defined by its functions of perceiving, etc, and the mind is only the collection of the impressions.
Freedom is an illusion to him.
David Hartley
Physiological Basis of Hume’s observations
British Physician
“Observations on Man”
all human activity, emotions, reason, come from association.
Vibrations of brain fibers form ideas
Vibrati-uncles: external things cause us to shake which cause us to think. Physical -> mental.
Contiguity gets strengthened by repetition.
Every physical activity is connected with a mental activity
Scottish Common Sense
Reid & Brown
Against skepticism of matter and mind.
Reid: Primary qualities justify belief. We do not perceive the sensations. Said it’s common sense to know objects are present and we need a mind.
Brown: Student.
Said mental chemistry rather than mental compounding.
Later Empiricists
Principles of association, emphasis on learning and memory
Bentham
Utilitarianism:
Seek pleasure, avoid pain
Measure of right and wrong: Greatest amount of happiness for the most people
James Mill
Scottish Philosopher - Reductionism
“analysis of the phenomena of the human mind”
Influenced by Bentham
Ideas come from when our sensations of objects are removed.
contiguity gives rise to associations, mind does not do work in that.
John Stuart Mill
“System of Logic”
Empiricism, but with using induction
Influenced by Bentham, Comte.
Experience has a corresponding idea: Contiguity, similarity, frequency.
Mind generates complex out of the simple.
Imageless thought?
Alexander Bain
Scottish Philosopher
“The senses and the intellect” & “the emotions and the will”
Psychophysical Parallelism: Any given event has a psychological side and a physical side
Reflexology is a bodily response to events
