Test 1

Question 1

Why is it important to study the history of psychology?

Answer 1

• Avoid repeating mistakes
• Expand on prior knowledge
• Source for valuable ideas
• Fads and fashion

Question 2

Rationalism

Answer 2

-Validity/invalidity of certain propositions are determined by applying logic

Question 3

Empiricism

Answer 3

-Knowledge is based upon sensory experiences

Question 4

What is science?

Answer 4

-Combination of rationalism and empiricism

Question 5

Determinism

Answer 5

-All behavior is caused

• Physical determinism
  
  • biological (emphasizes physiology, genetics)
  • environmental (emphasizes physical, e.g., climate)
  • sociocultural (emphasizes cultural/societal rules/expectations)
• Psychical determinism
  
  • emphasizes cognitive and emotional experience

-Assume behavior is measurable

• Indeterminism
  
  • behavior is determined
  • causes cannot be accurately measured
  • there’s always uncertainty (Hesenberg’s principle)

-*scientific side

Question 6

Nondeterminism

Answer 6

• Libertarian free will and personal responsibility
• View from a humanistic or existential perspective
• Behavior is freely chosen
• Humans are responsible for their actions

Question 7

Determinism vs. Nondeterminism Example (Youtube video)

Answer 7

• Oedipus example
• Determinism: there is no escaping fate
• Free Will: could’ve done otherwise
• Agent (physical force) and event causation
• Libertarians are free will (not good evidence)
• Reductionism: reduced to one thing

Question 8

Mind-Body Connection

Answer 8

Materialism vs. Idealism

Question 9

Materialism

Answer 9

• Define everything in physical terms
• Matter precedes ideas (reality defines ideas)
• Matter is all that matters
• Reality is what determines your ideas

Question 10

Idealism

Answer 10

-The physical reality results from perceived ideas (mental events)

• Ideas precede matter
  
  • Ideas define reality

-Reality is defined by the way you think about it

Question 11

Dualists

Answer 11

• Believe there are physical and mental events

- Both dualists and interactionists reflect monism - an attempt to explain everything in terms of one principle

Question 12

Interactionism

Answer 12

• Claims that the mind and body interact

- Both dualists and interactionists reflect monism - an attempt to explain everything in terms of one principle

Question 13

Emergentism

Answer 13

• Mental states emerge from the physical states of the brain
• Once mental events “emerge” from the brain, they can influence subsequent brain activity and behavior
• Ex: Perceive something as frightening, you light up one part of the brain, then another, then tells you to fight or flight
• *Opposite of epiphenomenalism

Question 14

Epiphenomenalism

Answer 14

• Brain causes mental events
• Mental events cannot cause behavior
• Behavior is caused by muscular action based upon neural impulses
• Break it back down to the physiological
• *Opposite of emergentism

Question 15

Psychophysical Parallelism

Answer 15

• Environmental experiences cause mental and bodily events simultaneously
• Mental and bodily events are independent
• Think about something one way, but do another thing (that doesn’t match with your thoughts)

Question 16

Occasionalism

Answer 16

• Mind and body events are coordinated through God’s intervention
• Everything in mind and body is determined by higher deity

Question 17

Nature vs. Nurture

Answer 17

• Nativists emphasize the role of nature

- Empiricists emphasize the role of nurture

Question 18

Neolithic Revolution

Answer 18

-Transition from nomadic lifestyle to a stationary lifestyle

• Attempts to understand the world
  
  • Animism
  • Anthropomorphism
• Myth and magic
  
  • Persuading spirits with rituals to change a situation
  • Magic
  • They would’ve thought seizures meant a person was possessed

Question 19

Animism

Answer 19

-Looking at nature as if it is alive

Question 20

Anthropomorphism

Answer 20

• Assigning human attributes to nature/inanimate object
• Ex: rain cloud means sad/mad
• Ex: seas were rough because Poseidon was angry

Question 21

Magic

Answer 21

-Words, objects, ceremonies, human actions designed to influence spirits

Question 22

The First Philosophers

Answer 22

• Shift away from explaining the world via mythos to the use of logos
• Ex: Thales denounced the gods’ role; the universe is made of natural substances that are governed by natural law and principles
• Ex: Pythagoras used math to explain and predict nature/world
  
  • Harmony related to physiological well-being
  • Universe exists in mathematical harmony and everything in it is interrelated
  • Dualist: along with the body, humans have the power to reason
  • Influence in medicine: illness caused by disequilibrium of body systems
• Ex: Democritus broke everything down to an atomic level; atoms break down and build again in brain (encoding)
  
  • Ex: sensations and perceptions are the result of atoms (not tiny replicas as previously believed) emanate from the object and enter the body through senses
  • Deterministic: atoms abide by lawful principles
  • Reductionist: explain the universe in its simplest level

Question 23

Temple Medicine

Answer 23

• Healing rituals conducted by priests
• More supernatural perspective
• More spiritual

Question 24

Alcmaeon

Answer 24

-First to move away from temple medicine

• Ailments
  
  • caused by disequilibrium (e.g., too hot, too cold, too dry, etc.); balance problem; ex: person too hot? Have to cool them down
  • physician’s job is to regain equilibrium
• First to dissect a human body for study
• Concluded mental functions were a product of the brain (not the heart as previously believed)

Question 25

Hippocrates

Answer 25

• Earlier Empedocles proposed body is made of four elements
  
  • Earth: solid parts of body
  • Water: liquids in body
  • Air: breath of life
  • Fire: reasoning
• Hippocrates expanded that to include four humors
  
  • Earth/Black Bile (normal sediment of blood)
  • Water/Phlegm (all other liquids in body)
  • Air/Blood
  • Fire/Yellow Bile (produced in liver)
• Ailments have a natural (not supernatural) cause; imbalance in humors
• Physician’s job is to facilitate (not interfere with) body’s natural ability to self-heal (i.e., rest, proper diet, exercise, fresh air, massage, baths)
• Emphasize treating the patient, not a disease
• The Hippocratic Oath
  
  • Modern view: a promise and guideline
  • Other oaths do exist
  • Tied into current psychology (ex: don’t talk about patients to other people; don’t turn people away because they’re poor or you don’t like them)
  • An oath sets the standard for an ethical code

Question 26

Galen

Answer 26

• Associated the four humors with four temperaments
• Beginnings of a personality theory
• Connection to Psychology:
  
  • Black bile (melancholic) makes one pensive, melancholic and withdrawn; promotes realism, pessimism, etc.
  • Phlegm (phlegmatic) induces passivity, lethargy, subjectivity devotion, sensitivity, emotionality
  • Blood (sanguine) promotes feelings of joy, optimism, enthusiasm, affection, wellbeing
  • Yellow bile (choleric) provokes passions (e.g., anger, boldness, jealousy, courage)

Question 27

Sophists

Answer 27

• Professional teachers of rhetoric and logic
• Focus on nature of truth
• Saw truth as “relative”; in other words, subjective, so no single truth exists
• Connection to modern psych: differences in perception of reality
  
  • Ex: son feels he gets no attention, but parents say they give him tons of attention; both are right, just different perceptions
• Ex: Protagoras
  
  • truth depends upon perceiver
  • perceptions vary from person-to-person and is influenced by culture
  • you have to understand person to understand his/her beliefs
  • nothing is, therefore, false
• Ex: Gorgias
  
  • knowledge (truth) is subjective so all things are false
  • since you only know your perceptions, there’s no basis for determining truth
• Ex: Xenophanes
  
  • truth and religion
  • humans create “truth” and humans create religion, therefore, moral codes are not divinely inspired
  • evidence: Olympian gods were suspiciously human in form, behavior, and emotion

Question 28

Sophists: Socrates

Answer 28

• Believed truth exists beyond personal opinion
• ”Essence” is the ideal
• Promoted the use of the inductive definition in defining the essence of such things as beauty, justice, and truth (What is the universal ideal of a concept?)
  
  • Searching for the commonality in all examples of a concept
    
    • examine instances of a concept
    • ask the question: What is it that all instances have in common?
    • Find the essence of the instances of the concept
  • Essence is its true nature – a universally accepted definition of a concept; enduring, identifiable characteristics
  • For Socrates, essences constitute knowledge
• Assumption that one knows nothing → ask challenging questions in the discovery of knowledge/truth
• Oracle story: Who’s wisest man? Socrates. He didn’t believe it, so he went to ask everybody what they knew. They knew nothing, but he was the only one to say he didn’t know anything, so he figured that’s why he was chosen.

Question 29

The Socratic Method

Answer 29

• Socratic Method/Socratic Dialogue
• Form of cooperative, argumentative dialogue between individuals
• Asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions
• Allows one to think about concepts in a new light and critically evaluate his/her own thinking and the thinking of others
• Therapist’s job is to guide client using Socratic questioning

Question 30

Socratic Method and Psychotherapy

Answer 30

• Technique: Socratic Questioning
  
  • used in cognitive restructuring, mindfulness training, etc.
    
    • cognitive reconstructing: helping person look at their thinking and helping them alter the way they’re thinking
    • mindfulness training: increases awareness of mind
  • can be used as part of therapeutic dialogue
  • can be used as homework assignment

Question 31

Plato: Theory of Forms (IDEAS)

Answer 31

• Influenced by Pythagoreans
  
  • Pythagorean theory is true (perfect) in the ideal, but it isn’t completely true in the real world (textbook example of triangles)
• Plate tried to address that with the Theory of Forms
  
  • Everything in the real world is a manifestation of a pure form (idea) that exists in the abstract
    
    • Sound like essence? He corresponded forms as things that exist independent of nature and can only be arrived at through introspection

-Forms (ideas) actually exist and are the reality (being) of which the observed and material world (becoming) is simply a shadowy copy

• Therefore, universe is divided into two different realms
  
  • intelligible world of ideas and forms (being)
  • perceptual world we see around us (becoming)
• Perceptual world, and all things in it, are imperfect copies of intelligible forms that exist in an ideal world
• Forms/ideas are unchangeable and perfect, and are only known by the use of intellect (via introspection)
• Attain true knowledge (truth)
• Ignore sensory experiences
• Focus on content of mind
  
  • Introspection (looking within)
  • Reminiscence (remembering experiences of the soul before it entered body)
    
    • Prior to coming to body, the soul dwlt in pure, complete knowledge

-Therefore, truth is innate

Question 32

Allegory of the Cave

Answer 32

• Demonstrates how difficult it is to deliver humans from ignorance
• ”Ignorance is bliss”

Question 33

Aristotle

Answer 33

-Contrary to Plato, essences can be best known by studying nature

• To understand any thing, one must understand four aspects of it (its causes)
  
  • Material cause: matter in which it is made
  • Formal cause: force that transforms matter (what is it?)
  • Efficient cause: force that transforms matter (who made it?)
  • Final cause: purpose (why it exists)
• Entelechy: everything has a purpose (function) built into it
  
  • This keeps an object moving and developing in its prescribed direction to full attention
  • Doesn’t equate into evolution, more similar to destiny

Question 34

Aristotle: Acquiring Knowledge

Answer 34

-Sensation and reason vs. memory and recall

Question 35

Sensation and Reason

Answer 35

• Emphasized the importance of the senses
  
  • They provide information
• Common sense
  
  • Coordinates and synthesizes information from the senses into something meaningful
• Passive reason
  
  • uses synthesized experience to function in everyday life
  • more like automatic processing
• Active reason
  
  • uses synthesized experience to abstract principle and essences (highest form of thinking)
  • used to achieve purpose (entelechy)
  • more like effortful memory

Question 36

Memory and Recall

Answer 36

• Remembering
  
  • Spontaneous recollection
• Recall
  
  • Mental search for past events
• Laws of Association (talks a lot about explicit memory)
  
  • Law of contiguity (tend to think of things that were experiences along with it)
  • Law of similarity (tend to think of similar things)
  • Law of contrast (tend to think of opposite things)
  • Law of frequency (associations strongest when experiences occur together)

Question 37

Historical Context of Rome and the Middle Ages (Ch. 3)

Answer 37

-Greek divided into city-states – Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Corinth

• Fall into decline during Hellenistic period
  
  • Different governments and shifting alliances
  • Some warring between city-states
  • Poorer classes rebelled against the aristocracy and the wealthy
  • In a word, Greece became fragmented
• Rome becomes stronger and invades Greek territory
• Move away from Greek focus on philosophy
• Philosophy now driven by the situation this time
  
  • Shift from abstract, but to the practical
  • How can one live a good life now?
• Resulted in:
  
  • Skeptics
  • Cynics
  • Epicureans
  • Stoics
  • Christians

Question 38

Skepticism

Answer 38

• Not thrilled with dogmatists (anymore claiming to have arrived at an indisputable truth)
• Proposed that there are equally compelling arguments for and against any philosophical doctrine
• Can pretty much prove anything is false; just don’t believe in anything
• Whatever one believed, it could turn out to be false
  
  • Avoid frustration by not believing in anything
• Life guided not by truth, but by
  
  • Appearances (sensations and feelings) – not interested in the essence
  • Convention (traditions, laws, customs)

Question 39

Cynicism

Answer 39

• Diogenes
  
  • Non-human animals are best model for human conduct
  • All needs are natural, making their satisfaction straightforward
  • Do not have religion
    
    • Felt religion was an obstacle to happiness
• Nature, not social conventions, should guide human behavior
  
  • People are a citizen of the world, not a country
  • Focus on individualism
  • Social conventions are human inventions that can cause greed, guilt, shame, etc.

Question 40

Epicureanism

Answer 40

-Philosophy of materialism, free will, no supernatural influences in the world, and no afterlife

• Goal of life is individual happiness, but not pure hedonism
  
  • Strive for tranquility that comes from balance between a lack or an excess of anything; life of moderation
  • Freedom from pain, worry, fear, confusion, etc., not necessarily chase after pleasures
• The good life was free, simple, rational, and moderate and to be lived now because there was nothing else after death
• Can sound like hedonism (maximize pleasure; selfish), but it’s more like pleasure in moderation and seeking to live good life

Question 41

Stoicism

Answer 41

• Zeno of Citium and Marcus Aurelius
• Stoicism: bravery in the face of adversity; have control over your own way to deal with external issues (external issues we can’t control)
• The good life means accepting one’s fate with indifference even if suffering is involved
  
  • Must accept one’s circumstances, etc.
  • One doesn’t have control over the events
  • BUT one can control the approach to the events

-Aiming for tranquility of mind, virtue, tolerance, and self-control

Question 42

Stoicism Youtube Video

Answer 42

• Cardinal virtues:
  
  • practical wisdom
  • temperance
  • justice
  • courage
• Not a self-centered philosophy
• Related to REBT

Question 43

Stoicism Video by Ryan Holiday

Answer 43

• Ex: stoic optimism: you are presenting, and you mess up. You can get embarrassed and upset, or use it as a time to realize and practice humility
• Look at bad occurrences as opportunities (to grow, to learn, etc.)

Question 44

Stoicism: Modern Day Application

Answer 44

• Stoic philosophy is one of the roots of several psychotherapeutic techniques
  
  • Earlier Ted-ED video mentioned specific avenues:
    
    • REBT (CBT)
    • Frankl’s Logotherapy (Humanist)
  • Ties to positive psychology
    
    • Remember characteristics we discussed
• Julian Rotter’s Locus of Control
  
  • External locus of control
    
    • Belief that behavior is guided by fate, luck, or other external factors
  • Internal locus of control
    
    • Belief that behavior is guided by personal decisions and efforts

Question 45

Middle Ages

Answer 45

• ”Dark Age”
  
  • Only applies to Western world (Europe?)
  • Simultaneously, Islam became powerful force
    
    • Islamic philosophers studied Greek and Roman texts
• In the west, Greek and Roman books/knowledge were lost
  
  • Little or no progress in science, philosophy, and literature
• Europe became dominated by mysticism, superstition, and anti-intellectualism; faith based
• Church dogma became very powerful because it was no longer challenged
• Crusades (end of Dark Ages) resulted in “rediscovery” of Aristotle’s writings, which are preserved by Arab, Muslim thinkers
• Shift would come back to a focus of inquiry and reemergence of science not in the service of theology

Question 46

Religious Alternative (Middle Ages?)

Answer 46

• Several influences from India and Persia on Roman culture during the time of Roman Empire
  
  • Vendatism: perfection could be approximated by entering into semi-ecstatic trances (seems like tribe)
  • Zoroastrianism: individuals are caught in an eternal struggle between wisdom/correctness and ignorance/evil
  • Judaism: one God with an interest in human affairs and a strict code of behavior for which one could be rewarded or punished
• As Roman Empire began to crumble, Roman people looked to a new way to define the “good life”
  
  • A look toward the heavens

Question 47

Influential Individuals: Christianity (Middle Ages?)

Answer 47

-Jesus taught that the knowledge of good and evil is revealed by God and should guide human conduct

• St. Paul - first to proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah
  
  • Valued faith above reason
  • Mind is caught between the body and the spirit; conflict is the natural consequence
  • READ ABOUT HIM

-Emperor Constantine - made Christianity a tolerated religion in Roman Empire

• St. Augustine - combined stoicism, neoplatonism, Judaism, and Christianity into a powerful Christian world view that lasted until 13th century
  
  • Goal of human existence is to enter into a personal, emotional, union with God

Question 48

Neoplatonism

Answer 48

-Purified, passive mind receives true knowledge through divine illumination

Question 49

St. Augustine

Answer 49

• Proposed a dualistic nature of man, with body similar to animals and spirit close to or part of God
  
  • This became the struggle between God and Satan for human souls

-Humans have ability to choose between good and evil (The Will) – today, this is morality

• All people have an internal sense that provides an awareness of truth, error, personal obligation, and moral right
  
  • Behavior is under internal control, not a consequence of external events and consequences

Question 50

Scholasticism

Answer 50

• Discovery of Aristotle’s work and reconciliation of faith and reason
• Scholasticism: synthesis of Aristotle’s work (reason) and Christian theology
• St. Thomas Aquinas
  
  • Brought Aristotle’s work into church dogma
  • Reason and faith are separate entities, but can lead to the same thing – God and His glory
  • Influential thinking, but it backfired
    
    • His goal: strengthen position of church through reason
    • Instead, gave philosophers support that faith and reason could be studied separately
    • Reason could be studied without considering theological implications
  • Why’d it backfire? We can take that out, and study it seperately
  • Philosophy without religious overtones became mainstay
  • Opened the framework for scientific inquiry

Question 51

Occam’s Razor

Answer 51

-William of Occam

• Razor: a guiding principle that helps philosophers shave away unlikely or useless explanations for a phenomena
  
  • In philosophy, ideas is to use the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions
• Explanations should always be kept parsimonious (simple); philosophical take that simplest explanation is best
• We can trust our senses directly in understanding our world
• Doesn’t claim which theories are true, but it is a rule of thumb when decide which theory to use
• Also used by earlier figures (Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas)
• Still influential today. Makes phenomena more testable. Important contribution to philosophy and science
• Parceloni

Question 52

Challenges to Church Authority

Answer 52

• End of “The Dark Age”
• Acceptance of reason and examination of nature as ways of knowing God
• Humanist philosophy
  
  • Renaissance shift from God-centered to human-centered
• Exploration
  
  • Marco Polo’s exploration of central Asia and China
  • Discovery of the New World by Columbus
  • Magellan’s circumnavigation of the gloe
• Invention of moveable type of Gutenberg
  
  • Considered the greatest invention because:
  • Without it, literacy cannot grow, knowledge slow to spread, allowed for mass production in a wider scope, etc.

Question 53

Ptolemy

Answer 53

• Geocentric system of the universe
  
  • Earth is at center of everything
• Belief lasted for many centuries because:
  
  • It matched what senses perceived
  • It allowed for reasonable astronomical predictions
  • It coincided with Christian theology with man as center of universe

-However, Aristarchus of Samos concluded that earth rotates on its own axis and revolves around sun along with rest of plants, and by about 1700 years, this idea pre-dates that of…

Question 54

Nicolaus Copernicus

Answer 54

-Proposed heliocentric universe

• Contradicted church dogma
  
  • Interesting because he was a Christian monk

-He wasn’t popular because he/it went against church/religion/God

Question 55

Johannes Kepler

Answer 55

• Proved that mathematical details of Copernican system; mapped out planetary elliptical orbits
• Predicted Newton’s concept of gravity through observing planetary velocities

Question 56

Isaac Newton

Answer 56

• Universe is a complex, lawful machine created by God who then set it in motion, after which He ceased involvement (deism)
• Used mathematics to develop universal law of gravitation (Einstein later revised it)
• Material world is governed by natural laws, that are absolute

Question 57

Galileo Galilei

Answer 57

• Used scientific observation and mathematical deduction to describe the laws of the universe
  
  • Develops a hypothesis and then tests it
• Caused people to consider human experiences as inferior to natural world
• Influence on modern science

Question 58

Galileo – Reality vs. Conscious Experience

Answer 58

Reality

• Objective
  
  • Exists independent of individual’s perception
  • Includes what later would be called primary qualities (e.g., quantity, shape, size, position, motion)
  • Can be measured objectively
• Subjective
  
  • Psychological experiences via sensing organs
    
    • Subjective, relative, and fluctuating
  • Later called secondary qualities (e.g., color, sound, temperature, taste)
    
    • Names used to describe subjective qualities
    • Secondary qualities because we all have different experiences
  • Cannot be measured objectively

Conscious Experience

• Can’t be studied by objective methods
  
  • It’s a secondary quality
• What is real is the world outside of man, not the conscious experience
  
  • Perceptions (sensory experiences) are “deceitful”
  • Mathematical laws are necessary for knowledge
• Can only be measured if tangible
• Hard sciences: natural sciences (bio, chem, etc.)
• Soft sciences: liberal arts (psychology, sociology, poli sci., etc.)

Question 59

Francis Bacon: Baconian Science

Answer 59

• Demanded that science be based on induction rather than deduction, as Galileo proposed
  
  • Make careful, systematic observations to produce facts
  • Generalize them to axioms (a statement regarded as truth)
• Science should only include direct observations of nature
  
  • No theories, no hypotheses, or deductive methods
  • Thought these would lead to biases in observations
  • Beginnings of scientific method

Question 60

Four Sources of Scientific Error

Answer 60

• Idols of the cave
  
  • Personal biases (e.g., likes, dislikes)
• Idols of the tribe
  
  • Human nature biases (e.g., exaggeration, distortion)
  • Perceive more order than actually exists
  • False notions that we do everyday because it is inherited by our nature and our mind
• Idols of the marketplace
  
  • Biases based upon the use of words/language
  • Misinterpreting words leads to misunderstanding and confusion
• Idols of the theater
  
  • Biases from blind allegiance to any viewepoint; blind bias based on predetermined notions of the world
  • False learning from scientific beliefs, theories, religion, etc.
  • False teachings create false beliefs
• Bacon looked at bias! Where does it come from? Etc.
  
  • Bacon took a big step with looking at bias

Question 61

Francis Bacon: Modern Connection

Answer 61

• Science should provide useful information
  
  • Applied Research: directed toward solving practical problems
  • Basic Research: involves studies that are intended to solve theoretical issues
• Science should improve the world for the betterment of mankind (humankind)
  
  • What do these mean to you?
  • basic research: you can do it to improve humanity to make it better
• Skinner and behavior analysis
  
  • Adopted Baconian inductive methods
  • Adopted the view that science’s main goals is to improve the human condition

-Bacon was ahead of his time in insisting scientists should avoid bias (next slide)

Question 62

Bacon: Modern Connection - Non Scientific Approaches and Sources of Scientific Error

Answer 62

Non Scientific Approaches

• Method of Tenacity
  
  • relies on info accepted as true because it has always been believed or because superstition supports it (ex: you can’t teach old dog new tricks)
  • Limits: potential inaccuracies; no method for correcting erroneous ideas
• Method of Intuition
  
  • Relies on info based upon a hunch (ex: a gut feeling)
  • Limits: no method for separating accurate from inaccurate knowledge
• Method of Authority
  
  • Relies on info or answers from an expert in the field
  • Limits: information not always accurate (personal biases); no all “experts” are experts
  • May accept statement as fact (method of faith)

Sources of Scientific Error

• The researcher (bias)
• The subjects (bias; being dishonest; not cooperative)
• The environment (lighting, smell, etc.)
• the instruments

Question 63

Rene Descartes

Answer 63

• Engaged in self-exploration to find philosophical truth
  
  • using system of doubts to determine certainties (truths)
  • only certain thing is doubt, but doubting was thinking and that needs a thinker – “I think, therefore, I am” Cogito, ergo sum)

-Concept of innate ideas (from his own deep reflection)
-some thoughts are so clear and distinct in absence of personal experience – they must be true and natural components of mind
-in response to perfect idea: “The only hypothesis left was that this idea
was put in my mind by a nature that was really more perfect than I was,
which had all the perfections that I could imagine, and which was, in a
word, God.”

• Reality and the Senses
  
  • info from the senses can be accepted because “God would not deceive us” but sensory info should be rationally analyzed in order to determine its validity
• Descartes was a rationalist, a nativist (innate ideas), and phenomenologist (introspectively study nature of intact, conscious experience)
• You can kinda rely on your senses, but you can rationally examine your senses

Question 64

Descartes: Reflexes

Answer 64

• Believed the nervous system was a set of hollow tubes (threads) connecting sense receptors with cavities in brain (ventricles)
• Ventricles filled with animal spirits (actually filled with cerebrospinal fluid)
• When threads were tightened by external events, the animal spirits flowed into nerves and to muscles causing them to react (a reflex)
• Determined human and animal interactions with environment are reflexive
• Used animal dissection to study humans; did a lot of dissection work
  
  • Many processes are mechanical (e.g., heart as a pump)

Question 65

Descartes: Mind-Body Interaction

Answer 65

• Also concluded that unlike animals, only humans have a mind
  
  • Thought animals couldn’t feel pain; thought everything was like a machine
• Mind provides consciousness, free will, and rationality
  
  • Mind was nonphysical
    
    • Influences body via pineal gland
  • Body was physical
• Dualism/Interactionism
  
  • Nonphysical mind and physical body can influence each other
    
    • He felt this distinguished animals and automaton from humans
  • Paved way for scientific study of consciousness

Question 66

Descartes: Contribution to Psychology

Answer 66

• Stimulus-response and behavioral psychology come from his analysis of reflexive behavior (Pavlov)
• Physiological and comparative psychology stem from his study of animals in relation to humans
• Phenomenology was influenced by his use of introspection to find clear and distinct ideas

Question 67

The Beginning of Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism

Answer 67

• British French, and German philosophers rejected Descartes’s claim that some ideas are innate
  
  • Shift to thinking that ideas come from experience
  • Resulted in:
• Empiricism
• Sensationalism
• Positivism

Question 68

Empiricism

Answer 68

-Belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, especially sensory experience

Question 69

Sensationalism

Answer 69

-Form of empiricism that limits experience as a source of knowledge

Question 70

Positivism

Answer 70

• The contention that science should study only that which can be directly experienced
• Speculation about abstract entities should be avoided

Question 71

Thomas Hobbes

Answer 71

-(British Empiricism)

• In relation to Galileo:
• Universe consists of matter and motion and both are understood with mechanical principles
• Should be applicable to humans, who are also machines consisting of matter and motions
  
  • Forces acting on an object explain behavior
  • Inner states, essences, etc. do not explain behavior
• In relation to Descartes:
• Like Descartes, preferred deductive methods in the study of the sensory experience
• Unlike Descartes, ideas come from sensory experiences
• Government and human instincts:
• Fear of death motivates humans to create social order
  
  • Humans are naturally aggressive, selfish, and greedy
  • Actually favored the idea of a monarchy
• Civilization is created as a matter of survival
  
  • Without it, human behavior would be selfish and self-destructive (Leviathan: if we didn’t have constructs, civilization would be chaotic)
  • Contractarianism: ethics, morality, and social psychology (people just have unsaid agreement to behave; no contract to sign)

-External forces are what explain your behavior

Question 72

Thomas Hobbes: Cognition and Action

Answer 72

• Attention: when sensory organs are focused on something, they cannot respond to other things
  
  • sounds a lot like selective attention

-Memory: faces over time, just like sensory impressions

• Motivation (a hedonistic theory):
  
  • Appetite (seeking/maintaining pleasurable experiences)
  • Aversion (avoidance/termination of painful experiences)
• Law of contiguity (Aristotle)
  
  • Connected this to “train of thought” (one thought follows another thought, follows another thought, etc.)
  • Coherent following of one thought after another
  • Things experiences together are experienced together
  • Sounds a lot like episodic memory
• Will: action that prevails when a number of choices exist
  
  • Free will is an illusion; choice/will is a label used to describe attractions and aversions

Question 73

John Locke

Answer 73

-(British Empiricism)

• Disagreed that ideas are innate (if they were innate, we’d all think the same things)
• Ideas are:
  
  • Mental images employed when thinking
  • Come from sensation (sensory experience) or reflection (thinking about the sensory experience)
  • ”Once the ideas furnished by sensation are in the mind they can be actively transformed by the mental operations involved in reflection”
  • Simple (cannot be analyzed into further ideas)
  • Complex (composites of simple ideas; formed by reflection (e.g., comparing, abstracting, discriminating, combining, reasoning))
• Associations (associative learning) explain faulty beliefs, which are learned by chance, custom, or mistake (ties into Pavlov; ex: of faulty beliefs: child has a nanny and says something scary is in dark, so he associates darkness with scariness)
• Emotions stem from ideas (pleasure and pain)
• Primary and Secondary Qualities:
• Distinction between what is physically present and what is psychologically experienced
• Primary: actual attributes of an objects, events, etc.
  
  • Creates ideas of the physical attributes
• Secondary: psychological experience
  
  • Creates ideas with no physical counterpart (e.g., taste, color)

Question 74

John Locke on Education

Answer 74

• Insisted that nurture (experience) was more important than nature (innate ability); your environment (parents, teachers, etc.) are what make or break you
  
  • Argued tabula rasa
  • Impact of experience on learning and foundation of the self
  • Importance of parenting
• Parents:
  
  • Increase the child’s stress tolerance (aka hardening)
  • Sleep on hard beds, moderate exposure to the elements (e.g., cold, wet)
  • Discourage crying with physical punishment
  • Provide sufficient sleep, food, fresh air, and exercise
• Teachers:
  
  • ”If learning occurs under aversive conditions, it will be avoided both in school and beyond”
  • Sounds a lot like behavioral theory
  • Advocated for practical learning – science, math, etc. rather Latin and Greek languages, etc.
  • Environment:
    
    • Advocated for mild physical punishment
    • Make the learning experience pleasant, provide praise for accomplishments
  • Methods:
    
    • Stepwise/sequential teaching of complex topics
    • Excessive, overly rigorous assignments should be avoided

Question 75

George Berkeley and Existence

Answer 75

• (British Empiricism)
• Esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived)
• We exist only in being perceived by another
• Reality consists only of our perceptions; matter is an unknown
• Locke vs. Berkeley

Question 76

George Berkeley and the Mind

Associations:

Answer 76

• Senses provide different information about an object
• Through experience, we learn that those ideas are always associated with a specific object
• Reminiscent of the Law of Contiguity
  
  • All sensations experienced together are associated together
  • Sensory experiences that go together define an object

Theory of Distance Perception

• Debate about perception and a blind individual who gains sight
  
  • Argued that many sensations must be associated to “see”
  • Prior, Descartes argued it was all related to the geometry of optics
• At First Sight based upon the essay “To See and Not See” in An Anthropologist on Mars by Dr. Oliver Sacks
  
  • Subject: Shirl Jennings
  • Retinitis: Pigmentosa – disease of the retina that causes blindness
  • Removal of dense cataracts restored some vision
  • But can he see?

Question 77

David Hume

Answer 77

• (British Empiricism)
• Content of the mind comes from experience
• Emotions (Passions) and behavior
  
  • Passions that are associated with ideas cause behavior
  • In other words, we are more influenced by our feelings than by reason
  • Our passions differ out level of passion differs, hence our reactions to situations differ from person to person
  • Understanding emotions is the key to a happy life
• Modern connection: Emotional Intelligence (David Goleman)
  
  • The capacity for understanding our own feelings and the feelings of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing our emotions effectively in relationships
  • Aka “People Smarts”
  • Includes: Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills

Question 78

James Mills

Answer 78

• (British Empiricism)
• When ideas are continuously experienced together the association may become so strong that they appear as one idea
• Strength of associations is determined by:
  
  • Vividness of the sensations or ideas
  • By the frequency of the associations

Question 79

John Stuart Mills (James’ Son)

Answer 79

-(British Empiricism)

• Argued for the development of a “science of the formation of character”
  
  • You can study thoughts, feelings, etc.

-Psychology as a science

Question 80

Julien do La Mettrie and Claude Helvetius

Answer 80

-(French Sensationalism)

Julien do La Mettrie:

• Man is a machine
• Sensation and thoughts are movements of particles in the brain
• Intelligence is influenced by
  
  • Brain size
  • Brain complexity
  • Education
• Humans and animals differ only in degree of intelligence
  
  • Bigger brains
  • More complex brains
  • Better educated

Claude Helvetius

• If you control experience you can control the mind of the person
• Social skills, moral behavior, genius, etc. can be taught by controlling experience
• Can be linked to William Lutz: people in power can control the way we perceive the world; control language = control perception; manipulation

Question 81

General Tenet of Positivism

Answer 81

• Science, not religion, is the only valid knowledge
• Science provides the only information one can believe
• Also known as “Scientism”
• All about science

Question 82

Auguste Comte

Answer 82

• The only thing we can be sure of is that which is publicly observable
  
  • Sense experiences that can be perceived by others
  • Knowledge through empirical observation
• Evolution of Scientific Thought via The Law of Three Stages:
• Stage 1: Theological
  
  • Explanations based upon superstition and mysticism
• Stage 2: Metaphysical
  
  • Explanations based on unseen essences, principles, etc.
• Stage 3: Scientific
  
  • Explanations based upon description, prediction, and control over natural phenomena (scientific method)
• Used as a means of comparison between societies
• Utopian Society: Religion of Humanity
  
  • Humanity replaces God
  • Scientists and philosophers replace priests, etc.