Lecture 2 - Philosophy

Question 1

What is Locke’s epistemology and what did he believe regarding the mind body problem?

Answer 1

> Empiricism
Dualism

Question 2

What is Leibniz epistemology and what did he believe regarding the mind body problem?

Answer 2

> Rationalism
Dualism + Psychophysical parallelism

Question 3

What is Descartes epistemology and what did he believe regarding the mind body problem?

Answer 3

> Nativism + Rationalism
Dualism + Interactionalism

Question 4

Provide a general breakdown of Locke’s description to the mind body problem and what he thought about experience

Answer 4

> No souls
White paper/Blank Slate
No innate ideas
Truth from experience
Narrowed things down to simple ideas
Experience is critical to knowledge
Animals (and humans) pure empirics
Mechanistic body

Question 5

Provide a general breakdown of Leibniz’s description to the mind body problem and what he thought about experience

Answer 5

> People have souls
Veined marble
Innate ideas, like reason
Truth from reason
Small pieces can be further developed
Experience is critical to knowledge
Animals can be pure empirics
Mechanistic body

Question 6

Provide a general breakdown of Descartes description to the mind body problem and what he thought about experience

Answer 6

> People have souls
Both with knowledge
Innate ideas
Innate truth (from God)
Narrowed things down to simple ideas
Experience not critical to knowledge
Animals do not have souls (empirics)
Mechanistic body

Question 7

What is epistemology?

Answer 7

> A branch of philosophy concerned with theories of knowledge.i.e., theories about how we acquire knowledge

> addresses where knowledge comes from

Question 8

What is nativism?

Answer 8

= notion that (some) knowledge is innate
* i.e., framework exists from birth

> Contrasted with empiricism

Question 9

What is empiricism?

Answer 9

= knowledge is acquired via experience.
* i.e., from observation and learning

> we have observed it, and we interact with it.
Contrasted with nativism

Question 10

What is rationalism?

Answer 10

> Rationalism = reason is the source of knowledge.
* The mind has an innate capacity to organize info from the senses.
* senses are insufficient for knowledge.
* The mind is active, it interprets information from the senses.
* reasons and discerns meaning

> We know through reason.
We organize what the senses provide through reason (just the senses are insufficient, we need to organize and interact with it)

Question 11

How is authority related to rationalism?

Answer 11

> Another way we get knowledge
Kings, Queens, Parents, authoritative figure (bestow knowledge onto us)

Question 12

What is the mind-body problem? What are the theories?

Answer 12

> is the mind separate from the brain?

Three theories on this question:
> monism, dualism, pluralism

Question 13

What is monism?

Answer 13

> one fundamental reality
* perfectly interconnected world
* problem? Which reality is the real one?!
Monists can’t agree on what reality is the most dominant/real .

Question 14

What is materialism?

Answer 14

• materialism = all real things are composed of matter
• hence, “mental activity” is reduced to physical, chemical or physiological processes
• (Pavlov, Helmholtz, Watson)

> Everything is reduced to a physical thing. (Only a physical reality).

Question 15

What is idealism?

Answer 15

> mental experience is all that matters
* The only reality we have access to is our mental reality
* (Plato, Berkeley, Fechner)
Think about the matrix
The mental experience is the “only” experience

Question 16

What is dualism?

Answer 16

= two realities
* mind and body
> Mind reality
> Body reality
> How are they related? (theories - interactionism, psychophysical parallelism)

Question 17

What is interactionism?

Answer 17

• mental and physical events are real
• mental events influence other mental events and body events
• body events influence other body events and mental events
  > Everything influences and interacts

Question 18

What is psychophysical parallelism and how is it under to dualism?

Answer 18

• mental events and physical events are real
• mental events influence other mental events
• physical events influence other physical events
• do not influence each other

> Also called dualism because there are two influences
Think of them as two clocks, they’re on the same time but they don’t interact or influence one another.

Question 19

Rene Descartes [prof notes]

Answer 19

• founder of psychology?
• Aristotle’s vegetative soul, animal soul, and rational soul
  > would have learnt about Aristotle’s philosophy.
• “I think therefore I am, or exist”

Question 20

John Locke [prof notes]

Answer 20

empiricism-learning from scene experience (this was the preface to watson’s behaviorism), blank slate-tabula rasa

Question 21

Gottfried Leibniz [prof notes]

Answer 21

“New Essays on Human Understanding”(published posthumously, 1765)
> Rationalist

Question 22

Context for these (some euro) philosophical roots

Answer 22

• Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries)
• rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek texts
• significant advances in the arts
• advances in technology and science printing press (created by Johannes Gutenberg, this changes the way we communicate information),

Question 23

More contextual factors affecting (some euro) philosophical roots

Answer 23

• religion (main role = tells you what you should do, dictates life).
• nation-states, war
• uncertainty (Europe during this time)
• assassination of Henri IV (tolerant of religious diversity - which was not common at the time therefore assassinated)
  > Things are influx at this time (new advancements, people questioning)

Question 24

Descartes’ discourse on method

Answer 24

• apply principles of geometry to other areas of knowledge
• “Never accept anything as true unless I recognized it to be certainly and evidently as such …” (so clearly and distinctly in his mind he could not doubt it)
  > he knew he was existing because he was thinking.
• axioms = self-evidence and certainly true features (smaller units)
• simple nature properties: extension and motion
  > Truth can only be arrived at through reason.

Question 25

Nativist and Rationalist differences:

Answer 25

• innate ideas, from God.
• nativist ~ innate ideas exist pre-experience
• rationalist

> Descartes was both.

Question 26

Descartes on the mind-body question

Answer 26

• saw the body as a machine
• interactionist

Question 27

The body as machine

Answer 27

• not a new idea
• animals - mechanistic, no souls
  > (animals are just machines, not equal)
• humans are different from animals

Question 28

Mind-body interactionism

Answer 28

1-separate mind (soul) and body
2-human body & physical things - same rules-mind - own rules that are from God
3-know self via introspection; only know others

> Central to Western philosophy and psychology.
We can look inwards (introspect) we can know our own mind. (opposite to Freud)
We can’t know other people’s minds.

Question 29

Philosophy of Mind

Answer 29

• soul in the brain
• soul as rational, unified
• yet brain so divided!
• where do they meet? (pineal/pituitary gland)

Question 30

John Locke (1632-1704) - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)

Answer 30

“let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, devoid of all characters, without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience; in that, all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself”

> Knowledge comes from experience, therefore and empiricist.

Question 31

Mind is not a “blank slate”

Answer 31

• mind like veined marble
  > limits to what the mind can learn, due to its development.
• mind innate properties, like reason
• “Necessary truths”
• “Except the intellect itself!”

> Also thought experience was critical, but he thought that Locke was missing out on things.
agree about animals being machines without souls, mechanist,
disagrees with the interactionist model (Descartes)

Question 32

What is parallelism

Answer 32

> psycho-physical parallelism
* two clocks
* hence, study the mind separate from the body
* philosophical basis for psychology as separate from physiology
god has put them in perfect harmony

Question 33

Leibniz’s theory: monadology

Answer 33

1-monads are dynamic, not static
> Monads makeup mental and physical reality, infinite in number, like energy forces, arranged in a hierarchy
2-mind is always active

Order: (top-down) Rational, sentient, simple
1) Rational monads - form the essence of the human mind, responsible for consciousness.
2) Sentient monads - found in all living things that are not human
3) simple monads - make up physical reality

Question 34

Levels of awareness

Answer 34

1. apperception ( highest level of awareness - fully attending to something, drawing meaning)
2. perception (next level of awareness - still perceiving, not as sharp, aware of what is happening but not attending)
3. petites perceptions (below the level of awareness, they make the higher levels possible,

• thresholds (continuum and then you get to something)

> Continuum of awareness (we could have a level of unawareness (i.e., central to Freud’s theory)

> Waterfall analogy: petite perceptions are created by the individual drops of water, but we never hear those individual drops of water, but when you put it together, it is necessary to perceive that waterfall.

Question 35

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Answer 35

• agrees with elements of empiricism and rationalism, also a naticist (innate expericene)
  > created the basis for experimental psychology
• agrees knowledge from experience is important.
• But! need a priori knowledge (how the process of knowledge happens- we need prior knowledge).

Question 36

Kant’s domains of reality

Answer 36

• Hume, the skeptic
• noumenal world: external world, “things-in-themselves,” existing in a “pure” state
• phenomenal world: internal world, subjective
  > both are independent of the human experience/world.
  > We as humans never interact with the noumenal world.
• psychology would never be a science (see your text) - because we can’t observe it, can’t measure it, it is not a thing.

> Hume: if we cannot know cause and effect, we cannot be sure of the science, therefore we cannot know anything (a skeptic!). - Kant believes casualty cannot be experienced in the real world, therefore two different realities because it is inescapable.