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Chapter 2:
Philosophical Influences on Psychology
The Defecating Duck
17th to 19th century
Automata Industrial machinery Clocks
Reflex action theory
Human behavior is predictable if inputs are known
René Descartes (1596-1650)
Diverted attention from the soul to the scientific study of mind.
Shifted the methods of intellectuals: metaphysical analysis objective
observation and experimentation
René Descartes
The mind-body problem Pre-Descartes
mind influences body, but not vice versa; the puppeteer and puppet
Descartes: a mutual interaction Mind and body both influence each other Pineal gland
The site of the mind-body interaction
René Descartes
Support of Christian thought Animals do not possess souls, feelings,
immortality, thought processes, or free will
Animal behavior: explained totally in mechanistic terms
René Decartes
Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century
Mechanism: the universe viewed as an enormous
machine Matter made up of small parts
(atoms), that interacted in a predictable manner (i.e., they were mechanical )
Therefore, natural processes can be measured and explained logically
If it is possible to measure every aspect of the natural universe
and If scientists could grasp the laws by which the
world functioned,
They would be able to determine its future course
Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century
Reductionism: We can reduce a clock to its components, such as
springs and wheels, to understand its functioning Implies that analyzing or reducing the universe to
its simplest parts will produce understanding of it Characteristic of every science
Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century
Determinism: every act is caused by past event(s) no free will
As with a clock, the universe… has parts that function with order and regularity once clock is set in motion, events will continue
in a predictable manner without outside influence
The calculating engine
Created by Charles Babbage (19th c.) Machine did basic math, had memory,
played games
First successful attempt to duplicate human cognitive processes
Empiricism: the pursuit of knowledge through
observation
Zeitgeist of 17th to 19th century
Review of Zeitgeist
Mechanism Reductionism Determinism Empiricism
The doctrine of ideas Derived ideas
Products of the experiences of the senses
Innate ideas Develop from within the mind rather than
through the senses
René Descartes
John Locke (1632-1704)
An essay concerning human understanding (1690) “Marks the formal beginning of British
empiricism”
Locke (continued)
How does the mind acquire knowledge?
Rejected existence of innate ideas
Any apparent innateness due to early learning and habit
All knowledge is empirically derived: mind as a tabula rasa or blank slate
Locke (continued)
Two kinds of experiences Sensations: input from external physical objects
experienced as sense impressions, which operate on the mind
Reflections: mind operates on the sense impressions to produce ideas
Sensations always precede reflections
Locke’s Theory of association
Simple ideas (atoms of the mental world)
Complex ideas
Association = learning Linking of simple ideas/elements into
complex ones
James Mill
Believed in only derived (experiential) ideas
John Stuart Mill
Believed in both innate and derived ideas
Creative synthesis