Lecture 4: The birth of psychology - 1650-1900 Flashcards
We ought never to allow ourselves
to be persuaded of the truth of
anything unless on the evidence of
our reason. And it must be noted that
I say of our reason, and not of our
imagination or of our senses: thus,
for example, although we very clearly
see the sun, we ought not therefore
to determine that it is only of the size
which our sense of sight presents;
and we may very distinctly imagine
the head of a lion joined to the body
of a goat, without being therefore
shut up to the conclusion that a
chimaera exists
descartes
Thus we remember, to have seen that species of object we call flame, and to have felt that species of sensation we call heat. We likewise call to mind their constant conjunction in all past instances. Without any farther ceremony, we call the one cause and the other effect, and infer the existence of the one from that of the other.”
Hume
wat was de grootste vraag gedurende deze tijd
does man fall within or outside the scope of science?
who published the first book with psychology in the title and when
christian wolff: 1732 -> Psychologia Rationalis
wat was het boek van christian wolff…
- de eerste presentatie van psychologie als eigen science
- launches the idea of introspection als methode
- wanted to describe the results of introspection mathematically
introspection is the study of …
the mind, by the mind.
(to learn about the mind, we have to look inside)
who was kant impressed with
newton
who was the first to consider the possibility of a scientific psychology
Kant (maar… hij dacht dat psychology at most could describe, but will have no explanatory laws such as physics)
in welke twee categorieen deelde kant science op
- proper science: lawful, quantitative description in the language of mathematics
- improper science: describing cases in normal language, categorisation, merely empirical, Kant called this systemic art
“A rational doctrine of nature thus deserves the name of a natural science, only in case the fundamental natural laws therein are cognized a priori, and are not mere laws of experience…
…in any special doctrine of nature, there can only be as much proper science as there is mathematics therein… …proper natural science requires a pure part lying at the basis of the empirical part, and resting on a priori cognition of natural things”
wie zei dit en wat bedoelde hij er mee
Kant: chemistry is not a proper science, and psychology certainly not!
Kant; introspection is problematic because….
- mental states are not quantitative
- therefore no mathematical description
- consciousness never stands still
- observing the mind changes the mind
Comte: introspection is problematic because….
- no distinction between investigator and investigated
- objectivity is impossible: you cant check it
- evidence is therefore not public (and therefore not scientific)
waarom liep psychologie rond 1700 dus een beetje vast
omdat ze alleen introspectie hadden om mee te meten, en dat was dus niet scientific.
wat was toen het wereldbeeld over mensen en psychologie (3 misconcepties)
- humans cannot be described in maths
- humans are different from animals
- the mind is immaterial
(= non scientific psychology)
waardoor veranderde het beeld
door de uitvinding van de stopwatch in 1816. toen kon Donders in 1868 de ‘duration of mental processes’ meten dmv mental chronometry.
-> toen mathematical description of mental processes
jack the ripper en freud waren tegelijkertijd
oke
Cognitive psychology: it turns out man
can be described mathematically!
oke
Fechner
difference in weight is easier to noice when the objects are similar (twee telefoons) than when they are different (mok vs telefoon)
dus wie kan ook gezien worden als de eerste cognitieve psycholoog
fechner, omdat reaction time van Donders zo subjectief gezien wordt
wie was de eerste die statistiek toepaste op menselijk gedrag
Quetelet
wat introduceerde Quetelet
l’homme moyenne
(the average human: when individuals cannot be described lawfully, the average person can!)
Galton kenmerken
- cousin of darwin
- fascinated by genius ppl
- human qualities are just as heritable as natural qualities
- eugenetics
eugenetics =
intelligence should be leading in who gets to procreate and who does not
wat zeiden statistics
humans are stochastic (eigenschappen die goed beschreven worden door random probability distributions) and noisy
Kant had underestimated…
the potential of descibing humans mathematically
wat was darwins evolutie theorie
- Charles Darwin dethrones man as king of the animal kingdom
- Suggests an explanation for the origin of species based on evolution with two simple principles: accidental mutation and natural selection
- Animals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more than animal less adapted.
- Human beings developed certain advantageous traits (like bipedalism), passed those on, and evolved as a separate species from apes.