Discussion: History of Psychology

Unit 5A: Chapter 9 Notes

Adapted from History of Psychology: The Making of a Science (Edward P. Kardas, 2014)

Susanne Nishino, Ph.D. 2013

 

Chapter 9: Modern Philosophy

Dutch Republic Zeitgeist

• 1648 independence from Spain Peace of Westphalia ending Thirty Years War

• Destination for religious refugees, very tolerant for Europe in its time

• Descartes rationalist philosophy inspired criticism from British empiricists, also inspired criticism among Continental rationalist

• Continental rationalist philosopher’s reason for criticism was interactive dualism and personalistic approach required by cognitio, ergo sum required the personal experience of others to agree with Descartes

Continental Rationalists

• Role of god in philosophy also an issue, rationalists used wide variety of approaches to deal with God

– Spinoza adopted pantheistic approach claiming nature was god

– Leibniz invoked separate but simultaneous representations of nature

– Malebranche allowed the possibility of divine intervention at times

– Kant believed in god but kept philosophy confined to real world, declared god unknowable through methods of philosophy

• Continental rationalists disagreed with British empiricists over question of origin of knowledge

• Argued some portion of human knowledge already existed in mind, did not require experience

• Fundamental difference still seen in contemporary theories

• Nurture-Nature question

Nature vs. Nurture Question

• Nature-Nurture = philosophical problem regarding the sources of knowledge

 

 

• Ascribes source of knowledge to innate, biological factors (nature) or learned, experiential factors (nurture

• Still remain unresolved

• Basic differences in approach between empiricists & rationalists evident throughout history of psychology to now

Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677): Determinism

• Philosophical system sought knowledge of god outside of traditional ways

• Rationalist but did not accept much of Descartes’ philosophy, rejected Descartes’ approach to dualism, belief in free will, and compartmentalization of nature

• Spinoza made god source of everything, successfully replaced Descartes’ 1st person philosophy with one that applied to all people at all times

• Spinoza Determinism Philosophy radical for his time

• Convinced that road to truth was mathematical & did not rely on perception of the real world, Euclid’s geometric axioms model for his philosophy

• Presented philosophical ideas as axioms, postulates, and proofs

• Philosophy equate god and the natural world as one substance, 1st step to prove god’s existence ontologically, relied upon logically demonstrating that two propositions are self-contradictory

• God was the cause of everything = determinist

• Determinism = doctrine that all events are caused by other antecedent events

Spinoza: Double-Aspectism

• Saw god as nature itself, one and same, determined to consider god and nature as single entity, everything from god down was nature

• God was knowable

• Philosophy & religion were separate & independent domains

• Path to god, thus truth, could only be found in philosophy, religion led to superstitious behavior

• Provided monistic solution, mind and body two separate views of same substance, one view God & nature as ideas, the other view saw as things = double-aspectism

• Double Aspectism = solution to the mind-body problem in which the mental & physical parts are considered separate representations of the same substance

 

 

• Philosophy then the study of god & nature

• From Descartes took criterion of “clear & distinct ideas”

• Ideas revealed underlying, axiomatic, & rational composition of natural world, Spinoza called those ideas adequate because revealed necessary truth

• Instead observation could only provide partial understandings and inadequate ideas

• Human nature part of nature, could be studied

• Spinoza studied emotions, divided emotions into actions and passions, actions from within product of mind acting on adequate ideas, passions from without had power to affect behavior or thinking

• Passions always directed people outward attracting or repelling them to people or objects

• Believed rational thought could moderate effects of passion

• Kant philosophy revived in 19th century by Romantic Movement, Marxism and psychoanalysis

Nicolas Malebranche (1638 – 1715): Occasionalism

• Inspired by Descartes, revived strict occasionalism to explain how mind could affect body and vice versa

• Occasionalism = ancient doctrine, all varieties from mild to absolute invoke god as causal agent, some religions require occasionalism to justify reality of miracles

• Proposed God was the only causal agent in universe, humans & beasts merely provide the occasion for god to manifest his power, on rare occasions god might cause miracle, event unexplainable by ordinary philosophy

• Occasionalism example of attempt to maintain ancient link between theology & philosophy

Gottfried Leibniz (1646 – 1716): Pre-Established Harmony

• Independently discovered the calculus

• Invented binary notation system for numbers

• Developed earliest mechanical calculators improving on Pascal’s design

• Freud & Einstein receptive to his thinking & theorizing

• Contemporary cognitive scientists find his views on representation helpful

 

 

• Rationalist tradition because he argues against Locke’s tabula rasa, believe that the discovery of knowledge proceed from universal truths (axioms) and the axioms derived from them, & holds that innate ideas exist

• Opposed Descartes’ materialism and his interactionist-mind body solution

• Leibniz proposed monistic amalgam of materialism & idealism connected by mind-body solution called pre-established harmony. Discussion: History of Psychology

• Pre-Established Harmony = the mind body solution in which mental events affect other mental events & physical events affect other physical events, but each cannot affect the other. God willed the apparent coordination between mind & body at the time of creation

• Leibniz believed god had created two independent worlds, one mental and one physical

• Two worlds never affected each other, since beginning of time each world coordinated itself to reflect the other but without one causing the other

Leibniz: Monad

• Explained workings of his mind-body solution using entity called the monad

• Monads were constituents of mental world, unitary (not divided), infinite (like mathematical points did not occupy space)

• Each person’s soul (mind) was a monad, animal minds too were monads but did not achieve rational thought

• Infinity of monads hierarchically arranged, each could perceive entire universe, but majority perception was confused

Leibniz: Perception & Apperception

• God top monad, could perceive everything clearly

• Memory & self awareness contributed to hierarchy of perception

• Bare perception involved neither memory nor self awareness, accounted for simply sensory input

• Perceptions involved memory, explained how animal minds works, did not believe like Descartes that animals were automata

• Apperception = being conscious of one’s own perceptions

• Apperception occurred in humans when aware of their own thoughts, apperception = self- consciousness

 

 

Leibniz: Idealism

• Monads combined to create physical world, none of the things in physical world substances, physical things all composites of monads

• Doctrine of pre-established harmony meant mental world & physical world were representations of same thing from different points of view

• Science explained physical world via efficient causes, philosophy explained the mental world & preserved Aristotle’s final causes

• Held that mental & physical worlds were simultaneously coordinated representations of each other

• Idealist because put reality itself in mental world, what perceived as real world just infinite number of monads, some monad imperceptible (petites perceptions), although subliminal they could affect mind

• Freud later used Leibniz petites perceptions in discussion of unconscious motivation

• Important contributions to mathematics

• Anticipated many developments in modern logic

• Main contribution to rationalism was that he inspired Immanuel Kant, greatest of modern philosophers

• Kant interrupted “dogmatic slumber” to correct what he saw as excesses of Leibniz’s pure reason & Hume’s skepticism

Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804): Critique of Pure Reason

• Kant’s critical philosophy integrated rationalist & empiricist approaches to knowledge, provided an alternative to hedonistic interpretations of human behavior

• 1st to propose nebular hypothesis for formation of solar system

• Book Critique of Pure Reason directed at Leibniz’s rationalist philosophy, also attacked Hume’s skeptical version of empirical philosophy

• Against Leibniz, argued reason alone could not yield cogent rationalist philosophy

• Kant believed ordinary objects of experience existed, occupied space, endured through time

• Against Hume, argued empirical observations alone could not account for complexity of human behavior

Kant: Transcendental Idealism

 

 

• Believed human mind came provided with a prior innate organizing principles, enabled it to make sense of experience

• Proposed Transcendental Idealism – an a priori synthetic approach to knowledge about physical world, meant the a priori categories of mind combined with sensory observations to reveal truths of physical world

• Categories analytic (already present in mind), did not depend on experience

• Proposed 12 categories: quantity (unity, plurality, totality), quality (reality, negation, limitation), relation (inherence & subsistence, cause & effect, community), and modality (possibility- impossibility, existence-nonexistence, necessity & contingency)

• Categories bottom level of conceptual organization

• Proposed two innate intuitions: space & time

• Against empiricists argued humans when born already knew about space and time & 12 categories, did not learn them through experience. Discussion: History of Psychology

• Held that scientific facts resulted from combination of observations of physical world made by prepared & already organized mind

• Logic dictated that some things impossible to know (god, immortality, freedom)

Kant: Crisis of the Enlightenment

• Solved “crisis of the Enlightenment,” long duration, revolved around relationship between philosophy & theology, more acute since Middle Ages

• Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, & Leibniz compelled to place god in their philosophical systems

• Locke & Berkeley also role for god

• Hume eventually separated god from his philosophies but in manner intolerable to contemporaries

• Kant’s synthetic approach removed necessity for a place for god in philosophy but kept place for worship, reverence, & belief in god

• God’s place outside of speculative philosophy

Kant: Categorical Imperative

• Attention to practical reason, wished to discover similar synthetic a priori principles of action based upon reason and not on passions

 

 

• Reason, not passions, autonomous & free human agents

• Aim to make moral decisions independent of empirical world, wanted to provide basic for moral behavior free of relativism of hedonistic impulses

• Reason could provide hypothetical or categorical imperatives

– Hypothetical = “if”

– Categorical = “ought”

• Posited top-level categorical imperative that applied to rational humans

• Believed all people ought to keep promises

• Convinced that he had proven existence of categorical imperatives without having to cross into empirical world, shown moral behavior innate & universal, individuals still had to choose to act morally, had free will

• Argued that humans free only when they were not subject to outside forces

Kant: Consciousness & Cognition

• Kant’s philosophy major breakthrough in history of philosophy

• Showed necessary connection between rationalism & empiricism, separated philosophy from theology, provided innate role for reason in making of moral decisions

• By arguing against Leibniz version of rationalism showed pure reason led to illusory & false conclusions

• By adding categories of mind to sensory observations of the empiricists, created wide arena for development of modern science

• Influenced psychology’s future, topics such as consciousness & cognition derive directly from Kant

• Ultimately correct about futility of introspective methods in psychology

Other 19th Century Philosophies

• Romanticism arose from Rationalism, dominated by German speaking world

– Proponents mainly German-speaking philosophers who came after Kant, attempted to solve philosophical problems identified by Kant but left unsolved for them

• Sensationalism emerged from Empiricism

• Utilitarianism emerged from Empiricism, Discussion: History of Psychology

 

 

– Primarily British heirs of empiricist tradition back to Locke, Berkeley, & Hume

Utilitarianism

• Long history going back to Hobbes importance of hedonism in human behavior

• Distinguished between things that caused pleasure to an individual and things that maximized pleasure for an entire group

• Definition of Utilitarianism based on moral philosophy and held that morally correct actions were those that produced most overall good

• Became distinctly secular

• Held that pleasure was good and pain bad, later forms of Utilitarianism differentiated pleasure into higher & lower categories

• Chief problem of Utilitarianism was conflict between individual & group good

• Jeremy Bentham

• John Stuart Mill

Jeremy Bentham (1748 – 1832)

• Supplied list of parameters by which to judge whether consequence of an action contributed to betterment of a group, included stronger intensity, longer duration, higher degree of certainty, extent of purity, extent of people affects

• Tried to provide objective means of measuring the improvement of goodness

• Argued there were no intrinsically moral behaviors, every action judged by its utility (benefit) to the group in question

• Social reformer

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

• Most influential British philosopher of 19th century, follower of Bentham’s

• 1st differentiated Bentham’s pleasure into categories of higher or lower, intellectual pleasures best

• Argued for importance of internal constraints on morality such as guilt

• Internal constraints important to psychology later because combined with concepts such as unconscious & anxiety, would lead to founding of psychoanalysis, later clinical & counseling psychology

 

 

• When combined with Darwin’s theory of evolution, British Utilitarianism produced way of thinking that led later scientists to search for answers to questions about the utility of almost everything. Discussion: History of Psychology

Romanticism

• On Continent, German-speaking regions Kant’s legacy large but problematical, Kant identified but did not solve two major philosophical problems: skepticism & materialism

• Romanticism complex response to simultaneous & competing social changes at end of 18th century, response against Enlightenment & its movement toward materialism or toward skepticism

• Romanticism reacted against reason, reveled in the sensual, & refocused on the individual

• Affected all intellectual aspects of life including literature, art, music, & philosophy

• Peace of Westphalia legitimized Catholicism, Lutheranism, & Calvinism but excluded rights for other religions (especially Judaism)

• Early roots in Kant’s transcendental idealism, his attempt to solve crisis of enlightenment by separating topics into knowable or unknowable, left in place traces of Cartesian dualism

• Large scale historical events additional burden on crisis, eventually French Revolution erased hopes of sustaining progress of Enlightenment, Germans believed new philosophy needed

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762 – 1814): Ethical Idealism

• One of 1st solutions to culminate in romanticism

• Ethical idealism, argued that moral law was the only type of revelation compatible with Kant’s transcendental idealism

• Attempted to cure problems of Kant’s TI by proposing ethical idealism, combined Kant’s dualisms, understanding, & sensibility into one idea = the absolute ego

• Human striving for knowledge about the world provided him/her with mechanism for explaining history and accounting for how human action could shape future, both important goals of later romanticists

Friedrich Schelling (1775 – 1854) & Georg Hegel (1770 – 1831): Absolute Idealism

• Georg Hegel & Friedrich Schelling two German philosophers who quickly seized on Fichte’s ideas as starting point for their own

• Believed that Fichte had not eliminated Kant’s dualism

• Propose new radical solution = Absolute Idealism

 

 

• Took cue from Leibniz, redefined matter itself

• Mind & body one living Absolute with the human mind & consciousness on one end & simplest animal bodies on the other end

• All living things differentiated only by degree of complexity, Discussion: History of Psychology

Hegel: Dialectic

• One of most influential philosophers

• “Virtually every major philosophical movement of the 20th century – existentialism, Marxism, pragmatism, phenomenology, & analytic philosophy = grew out of reaction against Hegel” (Beiser, 2005 quoted on p. 204)

• Kept German idealist’s Absolute in place as unitary goal of all knowledge, preserved historical nature of knowledge

• Dialectic = the belief that every proposition (the thesis) contains its own negation (antithesis), and that their resolution produced an advance in knowledge (synthesis), which in turn becomes a new thesis, causing the process to repeat itself, but at a new level of knowledge

• Hegel’s long lasting contribution = dialectic, helped explain nature of historical change & provisional status of “truths” within philosophy

Hegel: Alienation

• Hegel made alienation a central concept in philosophy

• Alienation = the feeling of being an outsider or of being isolated even while living inside of society or a social group

• Alienation prominent role in psychology and other social sciences since defined by Hegel

• Utilitarianism & German ideal each played prominent role in eventual emergence & development of psychology

Social Sciences

• At the same time new branches of science, the social sciences, emerging: earliest social science = sociology

• Variety of psychologies emerging latter half of 19th century, not at first seeking to define a common ground that might successfully integrate information from parent disciplines to new, independent field of study

• Psychology’s origins in social science

 

 

• Sociology earliest modern science, founding fathers Auguste Comte, Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx, Max Weber

• Writings helped to define sociology, issues uncovered and studied legitimized the use of scientific methods in social sciences, many of those methods later used by early psychologists

Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857)

• Coined word “sociology” and sought to create scientific approach to study society based on positivism

• Positivism = Comte’s anti-metaphysical and anti-theology view that argued that knowledge can only be sought through empirical means verifiable by the senses. Discussion: History of Psychology

Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917)

• Subscribed to positivistic outlook

• Published rules for collecting sociological data objectively and analyzing them mathematically

• Pointed sociology toward study of suicide, crime, law, & religion

Karl Marx (1864 – 1920)

• Wanted to create secular approach to study of society

• Rejected positivism

• Argued Hegelian philosophy disregarded people while glorifying state

• Believed philosophy should be about action not words

• Hoped writings would lead to actual social change

Max Weber (1864 – 1920)

• Disagreed with Comte, Marx, & Durkheim over goals & methods of sociology

• Believe in anti-positivistic approach to social science

• Contributions affected sociology, history, & economics

• Attempted to analyze changing historical relationships between individuals, sense of freedom, religion, rise of increasingly rational depersonalized and controlling bureaucracies

• Work of social scientists focused attention on the individual human being affected by the changes

Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903)

 

 

• More interested in individuals, closer to becoming psychologist

• Believed everything progressed in one direction only: simple to complex

• Texts on psychology, biology, sociology, ethics, education

• Idea that all of natural world evolved to become more and more complex

• His psychology followed same path progressing from simple reflexes and perception culminating in rational behavior. Discussion: History of Psychology

• Sought to explain links between psychology & physiology

• Lamarckian, difference from Darwin, assumption of gain or loss of acquired characteristics

• “Survival of the fittest”

• Social Darwinism not really his own idea, one of results of 19th century European progress & expansion was creation of colonial empires

• Social Darwinism = misapplication of Darwinian principles of evolution to explain observed differences between societies or human groups, especially to justify status quo

• Social Darwinists justified vast differences in technology, weaponry, and standards of living between themselves & subjugated peoples as result of evolutionary progress, used Spencer’s writing as support for their views

Alexander Bain (1818-1903): Psychophysical Parallelism

• 1st psychologist, 1842 wrote 1st textbook followed closely by 2nd, became standard texts for teaching psychology for 50 years in Britain & U. S. until William James textbook 1890

• Early chapter linking psychology to psychology

• Interested in relationship of mind & body

• Adopted psychophysical parallelism as mind-body solution

• Psychophysical Parallelism = mind-body solution that allows for two separate systems – one for physical events and the other for mental events, but prohibits them from affecting each other

• Psychophysical Parallelism modification of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony

Bain: Associationism

• Bain influenced by John Stuart Mill, firmly within British associationist tradition

• Psychology grew from philosophical background roots to Locke, Berkeley, & Hume

 

 

• Adopted their philosophically derived principles

– Contiguity

– Similarity

– Repetition (frequency)

• Added new = compound association, helped explain complexity behind association, most ideas not linked one to one with specific stimulus, instead linked by many stimuli

• Also added constructive association to explain how ideas arose in the mind

Bain: Border with Biology

• Contemporary psychology texts today all include at least one chapter of physiological psychology & other chapters related to border between psychology & biology, border between psychology & biology now well defined

• Most original contribution to early psychology concerned movement, differentiated between spontaneous activity and reflexive movements

• Attempted to explain spontaneous activities through feelings of pleasure & pain, 1st statement of trial-and-error learning, later important to behavioral theories of Pavlov, Thorndike & Skinner

• Argued spontaneous behaviors arose, then associated with positive or negative consequences that followed behaviors

• Before Bain, few thought to observe & measure movement and use them as psychological data to understand workings of mind

• Bain’s work represents beginning of fissure that eventually separated philosophy from psychology

Johann Herbart (1776 – 1841): Threshold Limen

• Opposed Fichte’s idealism & Kant’s contention that science of psychology impossible

• Did agree with Kant that experiments on mind could not be performed

• Threshold Limen = Herbart’s conception of a limit below which an idea will be out of consciousness, and conversely, in consciousness when above it

Herbart: Border with Educational Psychology

• Worked as child tutor, also visited Swiss educational reformer, Pestalozzi, led him to think about psychology of education. Discussion: History of Psychology

 

 

• 1st to look at applied area: educational psychology

• Among the first to think closely about how children learned & how teachers should teach, set up demonstration school, five rules for teaching

– Topics & materials to grab children’s interest

– Teach topic clearly

– Ask inductive questions afterwards

– Link new knowledge to already knew

– Apply new knowledge in concrete manner

Herbart: Psychophysics

• Argued that his psychology was mathematical, empirical, & scientific

• Bordered close to philosophy but ignored biology & not experimental

• Influenced by Newton & Leibniz, substituted ideas for monads, proposed mathematical rules, static & dynamic, for describing how ideas affected each others

• Argued ideas preserve themselves, inhibited or promoted other ideas

• Ideas never died, some remained in consciousness, some dropped into unconscious

• Threshold limen most original contribution

• Ernst Weber & Gustav Fechner made good use of threshold limen in psychophysical research

Herbart: Apperceptive Mass

• Also borrowed Leibniz’s notion of apperception, made integral part of his psychology through new related construct = apperceptive mass

• Apperceptive Mass = described sum total of competing ideas at any given time, some ideas coalesced into readily apperceptible collections of compatible ideas

• Reluctance to test theories experimentally doomed his approach, his mathematics no problem, problem was his reluctance to compare his introspectively derived results to reality

• 1st to point out possibility of mathematical treatment, 1st to make attempt to carry out

Mathematical Psychology: Border with Computational Science

• Mathematical psychologists few today. Discussion: History of Psychology

 

 

• Long association between mathematics & psychology

• Unlike Herbart, today’s mathematical psychologists apply expertise to theorizing & collection of data

• Signal detection theory, mathematical learning theory, scaling, decision theory, psychophysics, neural modeling active areas today

• Today heavy component of education in practical statistics & methodology

• Herbart’s original vision of importance of mathematics has been expanded in modern psychology, concern few new students choosing to become mathematical psychologists

Hermann Lotze (1817 – 1881)

• Book Medical Psychology 1852, 1st book published linking physiology & psychology

• Wrote account of Weber’s Law, also own account of how mind perceived physical space

• Theory held that mind constructed three dimensions of physical space out of variables that did not provide spatial data

• Posited three variables, intensity, quality, & movement, in some innate way the mind combined them to yield perception of space

• One of 1st to adopt modern view of scientists as disinterested observers who weigh all sides of a question

• One of 1st to realize importance of newly founded scientific journals

• Instrumental in creating two psychology’s border, made border with philosophy clearer, situated psychology between philosophy & biology. Discussion: History of Psychology

Ideas

• Interactionism

• Mind-Body Problem

• Double-aspectism

• Occasionalism – only one to retain direct link to god as causative agent, others separated causal connections between mind & body

• Pre-established Harmony

• Psychophysical Parallelism

• Determinism

 

 

• Nature-Nurture Problem, at heart of conflict between rationalists & empiricists, remains issue in modern psychology

• Representation, still of interest in cognitive psychology, how information represented in mind still unknown

• Apperception, in modern psychology replaced by perception

• Utilitarianism

• Romanticism

• Dialectic,

• Alienation

• Positivism

• Social Darwinism

• Threshold Limen, important historical role in development of psychophysics, still fundamental topic in psychology

• Summary

• Continental rationalists, disagreed with British empiricism, also among themselves

• Spinoza disagreed with Descartes over nature of god & dualism

– Leibniz altered Descartes interactionism using own dualistic solution, pre-established harmony, posited universe made up of infinitesimals (monads), monads both physical & mental viewpoints simultaneously & independently

– Kant argued against Hume’s British empiricism & Leibniz’s monads, proposed complex solution that separated philosophy from theology forever, questions about god were out of bounds, Kant also revived moral philosophy through categorical imperative

• In German-speaking, Romanticism flourish culminating in Hegel’s dialectic

• Utilitarianism arose after writings of Bentham & John Stuart Mill

• Social science 1st appearance with emergence of sociology, founded by Comte, Durkheim, Marx, & Weber

• Spencer & Bain, 1st proto-psychologists, both wrote textbooks on psychology, neither wears mantle of founder because approach not experimental

 

 

• Herbart early proto-psychologist, approach also not experimental, 1st to look at applied area, educational psychology, work with thresholds opened door to psychophysics, instrumental as psychological pioneer, 1st to publish Weber’s law, instrumental in preparing way for more scientific approach to psychology. Discussion: History of Psychology