Task 3

Question 1

Descartes’ Philosophy of Man

Answer 1

• René Descartes (1596-1650)
  
  • included heliocentric model of universe
• (Cartesian) Dualism: clear distinction between soul (divine, cannot be studied) and rest of universe (including body, can be studied)

Question 2

Formulation of First Laws of PHysics

Answer 2

• Newton —> why planets orbit Sun and moons orbit planets

- first laws of physics (1687)

Question 3

Changes in Society as result of Scientific Revolution

- positive reactions

Answer 3

• Age of Enlightenment (18th century) —> autonomous thinking
• Positivism: science is motor of progress and true knowledge
• scientific knowledge is always true knowledge

Question 4

Changes in Society as result of Scientific Revolution

- negative reactions

Answer 4

• Roman Catholic Church: scientific knowledge is second-rank and dangerous if not guided by religious morals
• Protestant Churches: no inherent contradiction between science and religion, but science stil had to be guided by religion
• Humanities: traditional world order and education have proven their use; dangerous to overhaul it all with rationality and science
• Romanticists: mechanistic world view relied on by scientists is wrong; universe is a living, changing organism

Question 5

Individualizations in Western Societies - Factors hypothesized to play a rol

Answer 5

• increased complexity of society —> urbanization; industrialization
• increased control by state —> more information gathered and stored about people
• individuality promoted by Christianity —> emphasis on individual
• increased availability of mirrors, books and letters —> more awareness of self; letters: intimate experiences

Question 6

Rationalism

Answer 6

• deductive reasoning
• existence of innate knowledge (nativism)
• reason as source of knowledge
• Plato, Descartes, Leibniz

Question 7

Empiricism

Answer 7

• inductive reasoning
• no innate knowledge (blank slate)
• perception as source of knowledge
• natural philosophers, Locke, Berkeley, Hume

Question 8

Idealism vs. Realism

Answer 8

• idealism: extreme form of empiricism; human knowledge as construction of mind, which need not correspond to an outside world
  
  • Berkeley and Hume

Question 9

Philosophical Studies of the Mind

- Epistemology

Answer 9

• Locke: rise of empiricism
• Kant: time space, cause & effect
• Scottish common sense: (1710), Thomas Reid; philosophy should return to Aristotelian view of perception

Question 10

Philosophical Studies of the Mind

- Rational and empirical psychology

Answer 10

• psychology as fourth part of metaphysics
• Wolff: distinction rational psychology (axioms and deductions) and empirical psychology (based on introspection, “study own mind”)
• Kant: psychology could not be proper natural science —> introspection
• Comte: 1798 —> human mind only studied by biologists and sociologists
  
  • hierarchy of six sciences

Question 11

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

- Spirit of Mechanism

Answer 11

• mechanism = universe as a great machine
  
  • everything composed of particles of matter in motion
  • every physical effect follows from a direct cause

Question 12

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

- Clockwork Universe

Answer 12

• clock as “mother of machines”
• life more regularized and orderly —> also more predictable
• Determinism (acts determined by past events)
• Reductionism (explains phenomenon on one level in terms of phenomena on another level)
• Automata
• people as machines
• Babbage —> calculated (first successful attempt to externalize a faculty of thought in an inanimate machine)

Question 13

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

- Beginning of Modern Science —> Descartes

Answer 13

• 17th century: empiricism
• Descartes:
  
  • resolved to doubt everything

Question 14

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

- Contributions of Descartes —> mechanism and mind-body problem

Answer 14

• mind-body problem: question of distinction between entail and physical qualities
• Descartes:
  
  • dualism
    
    • mind: single function of thought
    • body: matter, therefore characteristics of matter
  • reflex action theory = idea that an external object can bring about an involuntary response
  • kind of ideas:
    
    • derived ideas —> product of experiences and senses
    • innate ideas —> independent of sensory experiences

Question 15

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • Auguste Compte

Answer 15

• 1798-1857

- positivism = doctrine that recognized only natural phenomena or facts that are objectively observable

Question 16

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • John Locke

Answer 16

• 1632-1704
• rejected existence of innate ideas (“tabula rasa”)
• simple ideas (=elemental ideas that arise from sensation and reflection) and complex ideas (=derived ideas that are compounded of simple ideas and thus can be analyzed or reduced to their simpler components)
• theory of association ( = knowledge: simple+complex ideas)
• primary qualities (=characteristics in object itself, e.g. shape) and secondary qualities (=characteristics we perceive, e.g. color)

Question 17

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • George Berkeley

Answer 17

• mentalism = all knowledge is a function of mental phenomena and depend on perceiving or experiencing person
• God perceives it all

Question 18

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • David Hartley

Answer 18

• repetition of sensations and ideas are necessary for associations to be formed
• theory of association to explain all types of mental activity

Question 19

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • James Mill

Answer 19

• mind nothing more than a machine –> no free will

- mind no creative function because association is a totally automatic, passive process

Question 20

Philosophical Influences on Psychology

• Philosophical Foundations of New Psychology
  
  • John Stuart Mill

Answer 20

• “mental chemistry”
• mind plays active role in association of ideas
• creative synthesis

Question 21

Leahey - Psychology Invented

Answer 21

• new scientific attitude to experience: senses as deceptive and reason as best guide to understanding the world
  
  • distinction between primary and secondary senses (physically objective vs. subjective)
• Descartes –> definition of consciousness that ruled philosophical and scientific thought for centuries

Question 22

Leahey - The Enlightenment

Answer 22

• 1700-1815
• mission of Enlightenment: apply reason and scientific knowledge to human life and replace traditional view of society, with dynamic, progressive vision of history

Question 23

Leahey - The Enlightenment

- Industrial Enlightenment

Answer 23

• industrial revolution created wealth and personal possibilities
• technologically driven innovation

Question 24

Leahey - The Enlightenment

- Skepticism: David Hume

Answer 24

• known as “great skeptic” –> showed us that we can know nothing at all with certainty
• contents of mind as “perceptions”, two types:
  
  1. impressions (today: sensations)
  2. ideas (less vivid copies of impressions)

Question 25

Leahey - The Enlightenment | - Association: The Gravity of the Mind (Hume)

Answer 25

- "association of ideas": coined by Locke - for Hume: term was chief theoretical tool of his new science - Hume: association is king of attraction which in the mental world will be found to have as extraordinary effects as in the natural