Lesson 3 - Empiricism/Rationalism Flashcards
Describe empiricism and rationalism in a general manner
Empiricism
• All knowledge derives from experience
• Sensory experience constitutes the primary data of all knowledge
• The mind is a product of what the body experiences
Rationalism
• Knowledge only comes through reason
• Sensory experience is not real, not to be trusted
• Reification: treating the immaterial as material
Was Francis Bacon an empiricist or rationalist? Why?
A radical empiricist
• Believed that nature could only be understood by experiencing it directly
• Believed that following scripture or faith would be futile and hinder knowledge
What technique did Bacon use to find knowledge? What is the advantage of this method?
- Followed inductive reasoning:
- Observation > Pattern > Hypothesis > Theory
- (bottom-up method)Similar to Socrates method - focus only observations
- Avoids biases to influence the observations (which can be the case when someone forms a theory before making observations)
Explain how did Bacon find a middle ground in the debate between empiricism and rationalism
- Empiricists: ants (collect things and use them)
- Rationalists: spiders (make webs out of their own substance)
- Middle ground: bees (take pollen from flowers and digest it to make honey)
What did Bacon’s method lead to in our modern world?
The Scientific Method
What are Bacon’s four Idols? name them briefly
Possible errors that could creep into the world of science, specifically in scientific investigation
* Idols of the cave: personal biases that can influence how one perceives the world * Ex: an atheist and a Christian that observe the sunrise might perceive it differently * Idols of the tribe: biases due to human nature (our perception may be distorted) * Ex: when we anthropomorphise things or we give them human attributes (animism) we suggest that human nature is the basis for all things * Idols of the marketplace: overly influenced by the meaning assigned to words (the bias that comes from labels * Ex: Do we treat psychopaths the same as other people? * Idols of the theatre: blind allegiance to a viewpoint * Ex: being anti vaxxer and only consuming information that suits our opinion
What did Bacon believed was the role of science?
Believed that science should provide useful information and offer advances that could positively change the world
“Knowledge is power”
Explain why and how British Empiricism was developed in regards to Descartes’ perspective?
British Empiricism: developed as a response or reaction to Descartes’ perspective
• In opposition to his nativist position
• In agreement with his perspective of the body as a machine
• Attempted to explain the functioning of the mind in the same terms that Newton had used to explain the universe
• Questions asked; Are humans just machines within a bigger machine? Do they follow the laws of matter and motion?
Explain Hobbes’ materialist perspective
• Matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions
Hobbes was a physical monist, what is that?
• He was also a physical monist: the “mind” is not immaterial but a series of motions within the person - all mental phenomena could be explained by physical experiences that results from the motions of external bodies stimulating the sense receptors
Hobbes claimed that all psychological phenomena could be explained through sensory experiences. How does that apply to attention, imagination and dreams?
- Attention: as long as sense organs retain the motion caused by specific external stimuli, they cannot respond to others
- Imagination: sense impressions fade overtime, but can be recalled. We do not have an imagination in the sense that our minds can create anything that our sense have not experienced
- Dreams: can be vivid because there are not other sensory impressions to compete with the imagination
Explain Hobbes’ law of contiguity
Ø Complex thinking processes resulted form the law of contiguity: the only condition necessary for the association of stimuli and responses is that there be a close spatio-temporal relationship between them
• Ex: if your parents punished you after stealing something, you will associate the stealing with punishment and learn that it is wrong to steal
• In his book Leviathan (1651), he coined the phrase “Train of Thoughts”, which designated a succession of one thought after another
• Hobbes argued that complex thinking is really just us being able to pool from our resources of ideas that have been associated with a topic
Hobbes had a hedonistic theory of motivation. How was behaviour divided according to this?
- Appetitive: seeking/maintaining pleasure
- Aversive: avoidance/termination of pain
What was John Locke’s main belief about our minds? What are his arguments for that?
There are no innate ideas as Descartes proposed
• Believed in “Tabula Rasa” (Blank Slate)
His arguments:
• IF we have innate knowledge then there must be universally recognized principles (he believed there were none), and there would be no need for reason of morality (he believed that morality principles were not universally agreed upon)
• If we come into this world with no pre-existing knowledge, then who we become is based on the experiences we have
Define ideas, sensations and reflection according to Locke (as well as complex and simple ideas)
• Ideas: mental images while thinking that come from sensations or reflection
• Sensations: direct sensory simulation by something external to the mind
Reflection: internal operation of the mind, such as thinking back on past sensation
Simple ideas: Cannot be divided further
Complex ideas: composed of simple ideas and can be analyzed in smaller components
• Formed through combination of simple ideas or by taking simple ideas and putting them through operations of the mind such as:
• Comparing, judging, abstracting, remembering and reasoning
Pleasure and Pain accompany simple and complex ideas (all human emotions stem from these 2)
• Compatible with the law of contiguity
Locke did not believe that our knowledge was innate, but something else. What was it?
Locke did not believe in innate knowledge, but he believe in innate operations of the mind
• The mind was only able to re-configure ideas rather than generating new ones
Define the concept of qualities according to Locke
Quality: the ability for a physical object to produce an idea
• Primary qualities: create ideas in us that correspond to actual physical attributes of objects
• Ex: solidarity, extension, shape, motions, quantity
• Secondary qualities: produce ideas which do not correspond to the objects in the real world • Ex: colour, sound, temperature, taste **NOTE: these were properties of the physical object itself and not our minds Ex: the sensation of cold in our mind does not resemble the property in the physical object that caused us to have this idea.
Explain the paradox of the bassin, and which ideas of John Locke it illustrates
The paradox of the basins
To show that temperature is a secondary quality
• If you place one hand in basin A and then one in basin B, and after a while you place both hands in basin C, one hand will feel cold and one will feel hot, because the basis temperature for both was not the same
• Therefore, the experience of temperature depends on the person experiencing it
• Some ideas reflect the world as it is, and some are not
What happens when the law of contiguity leads us to faulty beliefs?
The law of contiguity may lead us to faulty beliefs, which were called “a degree of madness”
• Ex: eating too much honey makes you sick, and makes you avoid honey
• Honey is not bad, but a negative association was formed
How did Locke perceived the education of children?
If children are learning by experience, then nurture weighs more than nature
Important education takes place:
At home:
• Providing the necessities
• Exposure to some level of hardships to raise resilience
• Mild punishment was acceptable
At School:
• Teachers should praise accomplishments so that children would associate school and learning positively
What was George Berkeley’s main belief?
Was disappointed in the decline of scholasticism and religion so he sought out a radical perspective in opposition to materialism
Immaterialism: denial of material substance, fundamental belief for mentalism (idealism)
Mentalism: belief that the mind is all that exists
• The external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind
• Esse is percipi: “to be is to be perceived” - we do not exist if we are not perceived by others
• Only secondary qualities exist because they are the only ones to be perceived
• External reality was God’s perception, and we could only access God’s mind through perceptions
What was the take of Berkeley on the law of contiguity?
All sensations that are experienced together become associated due to the law of contiguity
Sensory modalities > distinct information about the object > experience > association
• Ex: thinking of an apple reminds us of its sensation in our hand, its smell, and its taste - the idea of an apple elicits all this information because they are associated
Explain Berkeley’s theory of distance perception
New theory of vision (1685)
• Contingent upon the senses and learning
• Argued that our retinas process a 2-dimensional world and it was the culmination of several sensory modalities coming together that allowed for processing the third
• The world of consciousness is three-dimensional: height, width and depth
• In infancy, we use our sensorimotor skills to understand the objects around us
David Hume developed 3 laws of association, what are they?
- Law of contiguity: Two-ideas co-occur in close proximity of time and/or space
- Law of resemblance: when 2 ideas resemble each other, they seem related
- Law of causation: when 2 ideas follow one another, it seems as thought they show cause and effect
Hume developed laws for association by causation, what are they?
• The cause and effect must be contiguous over time: they must occur in close temporal proximity
• The cause must be prior to the effect
• Constant union between cause and effect
• The same cause always produces the same effect, and the same effect never arises but from the same cause
Ex: when one moving ball hits a stationary ball, the movement following seems to have been caused by the impact
What was John Stuart Mills’ perspective on complex and simple ideas?
Proposed a mental chemistry in which complex ideas formed from simple ideas also took on new qualities
• The combination of mental elements creates something greater than/different from the individuals simple elements
• Ex: like oxygen and hydrogen come together to form water
**It is still a passive process, like everything we saw so far
How did Mills contribute to the development of Psychology as a science?
• Held a deterministic perspective that all behaviour had a knowable cause
• Suggested that the mind and body were subjected to the laws of nature, and therefore could be studied Primary laws • The mind and body • Associations
Secondary laws • Emotional state • Expectations • Past experiences *those are harder to study because we do not know how they are associated with the primary laws
How was called Mills’ “Science of the Character”?
Ethology
Describe the main ideas of rationalism
- Mind was immaterial and often akin to the soul
- Active mind
- Innate knowledge
- What is the cause of behaviours
- Are we different from animals?
- Can consciousness be studied?
- Only something material can act upon the material and immaterial can act upon the immaterial
Describe Baruch Spinoza’s perspective on the mind/body issue
God, nature and the mind were aspects of the same substance
Mind/body issue: double aspectism (a monist perspective)
• The mind and the body are 2 aspects of the same thing
Anything happening to the body also happens to the mind and vice versa
What was Spinoza’s take on passion/pleasure and pain?
Pleasure and pain were motivators (somewhat a hedonist)
Pleasure brought clarity of mind
When the mind entertains unclear ideas, it feels weak and vulnerable
Sensations are unclear, therefore the mind seeks to replace them with clear ideas
Emotions and passions:
• Emotions are associated with a particular thought
• Passion is not associated with a particular thought and is neither clear or adaptive
Passion should be harnessed by reason
Behaviours and thoughts that are guided by reason are conducive to survival
What was Spinoza’s influence on psychology?
Harnessing passion with reason
Possibly a steppingstone for Freudian Psychoanalysis
• Psychic Determinism: associated with Sigmund Freud. The position that mental (psychic) events do not occur by chance but always have an underlying cause that can be uncovered by analysis
Summarize Leibniz’s ideas
- German ploymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment
- On a quest to reconcile many of the scientific advances with God
- Independently developed integral calculus at the same time as Newton
- At age 13, developed a calculating machine
- Believed that no experience can cause a thought because when we interact with the world, it is done at a physical level, at a material level, so it cannot influence an immaterial mind
- Most of his work was in opposition to Locke
- Did not agree that there was an interaction between the material and the immaterial mind
Are ideas material according to Leibniz?
Ideas are immaterial and cannot be caused by material activity such as sense activity
• Ideas must be innate (for him, innate meant being able to have an idea, but similar to Locke’s operations of the mind)
• The universe was made up of infinite number of monads (small particles). Because of those, people were able to have ideas
Explain Leibniz’s perspective on the mind/body issue
Mind-body issue: psychophysical parallelism with a pre-established harmony
• The psychological and the physical work in parallel without influencing each other (internal and external events mirror each other)
Mind and body are always agreeing because that was the will of God
Explain Libniz’s concept of monads
Leibniz believed that everything was living (animism)
• Monads are small life units, like a living, conscious atom
• Monads were hierarchical with inert matter having monads that were not capable of clear thought (similar to Aristotle’s Scala Nature)
• Higher on the hierarchy, the organism has the monads from the lower level as well as the clearer ones (also similar to Aristotle)
• Monads seek to have clear thoughts
• Every organism has a dominant monad that controls the maximum level of clarity and knowledge they can achieve
• Because monads had a consciousness, they sought to achieve their final cause which depended on the organism
• Could not be created or destroyed
• They could not be influenced by anything external and could only develop with their own internal system: an entelechy
Explain Leibniz’s law of continuity
Leibniz suggested another level of consciousness
• There are perceptions which are conscious and some that are below consciousness (petites perceptions)
• Ex: we hear the sounds of waves but we do not hear all the sounds of the very small waves alone, they need to combine
• The slow transition is referred to as the law of continuity (nature doesn’t leap off, it combines in smaller degrees)
All differences in nature are characterized by small gradations
Who was able to combine rationalism and empiricism?
Immanuel Kant
Why did Kant claim that studying the mind was
impossible?
The science of psychology was impossible because:
• You cannot measure aspects of the mind in a mathematical manner
• It is not possible to isolate individual thoughts
• The only way to examine phenomena was through introspection, which is not consistent
Explain Kant’s theory of noumenal vs phenomenal world
Why would introspection be the only way to study the mind? - because our experiences are always and inescapably mediated through the activity of our mind and of our senses
Kant divided the world in 2:
The noumenal world: the external world, objects in a pure state that exists independent of human experience, can never be known directly, because nothing we experience is ever in its pure state
The Phenomenal world: our internal experience of the noumenal world, filtered through our mental and sensory apparatus
Not all knowledge arises out of experience, but all knowledge begins with experience
Did Kant suggest that the mind was passive or active? Explain
Kant proposed that the mind must add something to sensory data before knowledge can be attained (active mind)
• This is why we can never know the noumenal world because our perceptions of it are always altered by our categories of thought
Categories of thought • Unity • Totality • Time • Space • Cause and effect • Reality • Quality • Quantity • Negation • Possibility-impossibility • Existence-nonexistence *Similar to how the Gestalt psychologist will examine perception
How does Kant’s ideas differ from Locke’s ideas?
How is this different from Locke’s Idea of the Mind?
The mind adds the concept of time and space to sensory information
They are both provided by an a-priori category of thought or innate concepts
Locke believed that the mind had innate capabilities (inactive) - mind has no processing, it is inactive
Kant believed that the mind processes info to create something entirely different (active)
what is reification?
Treating the immaterial as material
