Lecture 4 Flashcards
What discipline was psychology born out of?
Physiology!! (NOT philosophy)
In 18th and 19th century physiology, what were 2 areas where the boundary btw physiology and psychology was unclear?
- How does the activation of _____ produce _____?
- What causes ______ to ______ movement?
- How does the activation of sensory nerves produce sensations?
- What causes motor nerves to initiate movement?
What was different in the way Kant understood perception vs Descartes, Locke and Hume?
- proposed we are active participants in perception
- previous accounts said we were passive, objective observers of our ideas
What are Kant’s 2 a priori forms?
time and space (we need these to be able to perceive)
How many a priori categories did Kant define? What were the 4 sub categories?
- 12
- OF quantity
- of quality
- of relation
- of modality
Distinguish a priori forms and a priori categories
- forms: more basic, involved w perception (space + time)
- categories: more elaborate, tools that help us reflect on our perception
How did Kant reconcile Empiricism and Rationalism?
- established need for both sensation and a priori concepts to make sense of our world!
- need one to make sense of the other
What was Kant’s new “copercican revolution”?
- the mind participates actively in how we see the world
- named after theory that sun is center of universe, not earth
What did Enlightenment thinkers say about our role in perception? did Kant agree?
- spectator theory; objectivity in all perception and knowledge
- Kant disagrees! (mind is active participant)
Distinguish noumena and phenomena
noumena: thing in itself
phenomena: thing for me (how we perceive it, only thing we can actually know)
What did Kant think about psychology as a science?
- psychology can’t be a science
- natural science requires rational analysis, axioms and demonstrations written as mathematical laws
- psychology is at most a historical doctrine of nature
August Comte (1798-1857) was a French ____ and ____ who founded the doctrine of _____. He was also one of the founders of _______.
philosopher and writer; doctrine of positivism; founder of sociology
What is Positivism (Comte)
- info derived from sensory experience, interpreted through reason and logic, is only source of all certain knowledge
- valid knowledge is found only in this a posteriori knowledge
- society, like physical world, operated according to general laws (science can inform us about both!)
- rejects introspective/intuitive knowledge, metaphysics and theology bc can’t be verified by senses
Comte’s positivism is essentially proposing ____
a scientific utopia (science is the answer to everything)
What is a “positive truth”? (Comte)
something we can validly assert about the world (through senses)
What are the 3 stages of Comte’s Theory of Science?
- all human societies go through 3 stages
- Theological: gods and spirits dominate culture (3 substages: animism –> polytheism –> monotheism)
- Metaphysical (abstract): age of enlightenment; thinking based on abstract/unverified suppositions/speculations; explanations more rational/philosophical
- Positive (scientific): science based on observations dominates; social policies should aim at rational organization of society
How are the following subjects ordered in terms of complexity of instruments? (Comte, Theory of Science)
Astronomy, Sociology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics
- starts w very complex methods, ends w not great methods
Mathematics
Astronomy
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Sociology
How are the following subjects ordered in terms of complexity of phenomenones? (Comte, Theory of Science)
Astronomy, Sociology, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics
- starts w very simple phenomena, ends w very complex phenomena
Mathematics
Astronomy
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Sociology
Why does Comte say “this pretended psychological method is then radically null and void”?
- the thinker can’t divide himself in 2
- we can’t observe our thoughts objectively bc the organ observed and the organ observing are identical!
What was the prominent position before 18th/19th century physiology?
- late 17th/early 18th century dualism
- in humans, voluntary actions explained by soul
- in humans and animals, involuntary actions explained by inner mechanisms
What is Descartes’ geologism?
our body is like a machine/automaton
What is the Canard Digerateur?
- created to show that it’s possible to think of animals as little machines
- could eat and poop and walk around
- 17th/18th century dualism
What did 18th/19th century physiology want to change about the dualist approach?
- wanted to take immaterial soul out of equation
- explain workings of nervous system as if it were a machine
Explain the evolution of the concept of “stimulation”
- most pervasive category in 20th century physiology
- sensation + perception deal w external stimulation
- motivation + emotion as responses to internal stimulation
- behaviour as response to stimulation (S –> R; response within organism becomes stimulus for next response, chain continues until there is an external response)
Distinguish mechanistic and vitalistic physiology
- Mechanistic: the whole is the sum of its parts; all processes of CNS can be explained in terms of basic properties of its constituent parts
- Vitalistic: living organisms are different bc they contain some non-physical element (think Aristotle scale of nature)
Distinguish Reductionism and Emergentism
Reductionism:
- similar to mechanistic physiology
- intellectual/philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts
Emergentism:
- a property of a system is emergent if it is a new outcome of some other properties of the system and their interaction
- whole is different than sum of its parts
- ex consciousness in the brain
What would Reductionism and Emergentism answer to the following question?
Can we explain complex meteorological phenomena using atoms?
Reductionism: yes!
Emergentism: no, there are principles that govern meteorology that are beyond atoms
Emergentism and reductionism are (distinct/a continuum)
a continuum!!!
How can Aristotle’s ship example be explained in terms of Reductionism/Emergentism?
- reductionism would say its a different ship
- BUT formal cause remains
- form is emergent property of matter!!!
What is the typical position of hardcore material determinists about free will?
usually skeptics ab free will (incompatibilists)
Compatibilism is more similar to (reductionism/emergentism)
emergentism
Incompatibilism is more similar to (reductionism/emergentism)
reductionism
What is the strongest form of libertarianism (incompatibilism)?
Descartes’ dualism (we are free, causal determinism is false)
What is “qualia”? What is this similar to?
- instances of subjective, conscious experience
- comes from latin word for “of what kind”
- eg redness of red can’t be reduced to anything material
- similar to what Locke said about primary/secondary categories
Haller was a (vitalistic/mechanistic) physiologist. He argued that ____ is a unique property of living things, and animate motion depends on _______. This is similar to _____
vitalistic
SENSIBILITY is a unique property of living things
animate motion depends on A SPECIAL IRRITABILITY OF CERTAIN NERVES
- similar to Aristotle’s scale of nature
What is Mueller’s law of specific nerve energies?
- each sensory nerve in the body is made to convey only one kind of sensation
What did vitalistic physiology add to the stimulus-response equation (S –> R)
S –> O –> R
- organism isn’t automaton
- only responses that preserve the integrity of the organism are emitted
What example was given for the vitalistic roots of stimulation?
- vomiting! can be triggered by ingesting poison or observing/thinking about vomiting
- causes of responses can be mental or physical
- responses can be considered to be at diff degrees of voluntary vs involuntary