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