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Chapter 2 – Philosophical & Scientific Antecedents of Psychology

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Chapter 2 – Philosophical & Scientific Antecedents of Psychology CHAPTER 2 – PHILOSOPHICAL & SCIENTIFIC ANTECEDENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY Dr. Nancy Alvarado The Dark and Middle Ages Images of the Dark Ages Why Were the Dark Ages Dark? The Roman Empire had preserved knowledge, but it collapsed and was overrun by Barbarians. Access to the accumulated knowledge was preserved in Muslim libraries but these were inaccessible because the West was mostly Christian. The Medieval Church discouraged literacy, free thought, and scientific inquiry beyond the revealed wisdom of clerics & church scholars (St. Augustine). With the Crusades, knowledge was rediscovered. Muslim Libraries were Rediscovered Black sea Launched by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the First Crusade was the most successful. Urban gave a dramatic speech urging Christians to swarm toward Jerusalem and make it safe for Christian pilgrims by taking it away from the Muslims. One View of the Dark Ages Science in the Dark Ages Hothersall – the historian Kemp asserts there was innovation and science during the Dark Ages: Stirrups used for the first time in war (600’s AD/CE). A biography of Charlemagne was published (800’s). Domesday Book (1086 survey done for King William I of England) recorded 6000 watermills in Britain. Windmill invented in 1180 (taxed by the Vatican). It would be odd if there were no progress at all, but this is not comparable to what was seen in Greece & Rome nor was learning cumulative. Medieval Period Population increased putting pressure on peasants. Landowners had the advantage, there was famine. th th 14 universities were established in 12 & 13 centuries, including Oxford & Cambridge. Civil war and wars between France, Italy & England disrupted the 14th century. Plague (Black Death, 1348-1350) killed 1/3 of the population of Europe. Gothic Architecture Gothic Cathedrals are intricately designed architectural features, which date back to 1144 and possibly even earlier. The architecture used to make these magnificent buildings took a very long time and it involved many different forms of talent, and skill as well as hard to find materials. Scenes of the Plague Years Plague-inspired art. Images of the grim reaper originate from this time. Psychology in the Middle Ages Psychological questions belonged to religion. th In “Confessions,” St. Augustine (4 century) disclosed psychological emotions, thoughts, motives, memories. God was the ultimate truth. Knowing God was the ultimate goal of the human mind. Truth dwells within every person – turn inward. St. Thomas Aquinas reinterpreted Aristotle and established scholasticism – reason as a complement to faith in the search for truth. The Renaissance (Rebirth) The invention of movable type made printing inexpensive, permitting the spread of ideas across Europe via books, including to scholars & others. Prescientific psychology books appeared: Psichiologia – Marcus Marulus (1520). Psychologia hoc est, de hominis perfectione (Psychology on the improvement of man) (1590) edited by Goeckel. Psychologia – John Broughton (1703) in English. No scientific study of human behavior was started. Early Cosmology Medieval conceptions of the firmament include a solid orb containing the planets with angels & heaven beyond it. Here, a traveler sticks his head through it. Renaissance Science The view of man’s place in the universe changed. Copernicus (1543) demoted humans from a central to a peripheral position – his system was called antireligious. Galileo (1610) confirmed his view that the Earth goes around the sun, not vice versa, as did Bruno. Galileo also developed a method of manipulating variables while controlling other factors in expts. Goaded by Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation, the Catholic church was unreceptive to Galileo’s new theory -- Bruno was burned at the stake. The Reformation Split the Church Protestants: Lutherans Anglicans Puritans Episcopalians Presbyterians Methodists Baptists etc. Eastern Orthodox A Plea for Freedom of Inquiry Galileo believed in the power of reason: “…in questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.” The next advances came from Protestant countries. Isaac Newton revolutionized physics by developing a new optics (theory of light) and laws of physics. Vesalius developed an anatomy of the human body. Harvey studied the movement of the heart and the motion of blood using experimental methods. Three Scientific Geniuses Issac Newton (1642-1727) William Harvey Andreas Vesalius (1578-1657) (1514-1564) Rene Descartes (1596-1650) At age 23, a dream revealed a “Spirit of Truth,” a vision of a new system of science and mathematics so he renounced idleness to search for truth. He first combined algebra & geometry into analytic geometry, published 18 years later as “La Geometrie”. He lived in 24 homes in 13 cities during 20 years in Spain-occupied Holland, hiding out from the Inquisition. Queen Christina of Sweden summoned him to tutor her on “How to live happily and still not annoy God.” He died of pneumonia 4 months later in her court. Contributions to Philosophy Descartes believed in applying logic rigorously to discover truth. Descartes was a devout Catholic but he sometimes doubted the existence of God, so he was heretical. Cogito ergo sum – I doubt, thus I think, therefore I exist. He considered the mind different than the body. Having different substance, different functions, bound by different laws. The body is nothing more than a complex self- regulating machine functioning without the mind. Ideas about the Body Hollow tubes of minute threads contain subtle fluids (animal spirits) distilled from the blood, flowing to the senses for sensation and movement. Reflexes operate as a hydraulic pathway between body and brain, pores are synapses. The body is infinitely more complex than a machine designed by humans because invented by God. Animals only have reflexes but humans can control the opening of pores to control reflex actions. The pineal gland is where mind and body meet. Rene Descartes Ideas about the Ideas & Passions Two major classes of ideas exist in the mind: Innate ideas – inborn, time, space, motion, God. Derived ideas – arising from experience, based on memories of past events (open pores stay open). Passions arise from the body and cause actions. 6 primary passions (wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, sadness) – other passions are mixtures of these. Animals do not possess minds so cannot think, be self-aware or have language – have no feelings. Julien de La Mettrie (1709-1751) La Mettrie published “L’homme Machine” (Man the Machine) in 1748, arguing that people are solely machines, explained through mechanistic principles. People are motivated by hedonistic drives (pleasure, pain) not reasoning. Degrees of thought are present in animals not just people – cognition is a continuum across organisms. His prediction that apes can use language has been confirmed by those studying chimpanzees. Post-Renaissance Philosophy Empiricism – emphasized the effects of experience on a passive mind. Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley. Associationism – the active mind forms associations. Hume, Hartley, James and John Stuart Mill Nativism – the contents of the mind are influenced by its inborn structure, not just experience. Leibniz, Kant (German philosophers) Timeline -- http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/1400-1800.html 17th Century British Empiricism Empiricists (British): Earlier Empiricists: Hobbes Aristotle Locke Berkeley Nativist counter-voice: Earlier Nativists: Leibniz (German) Socrates Plato Descartes (French) Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Hobbes’s views of mind were based on his social and political theories about people in groups. He believed we are basically aggressive animals banding together for protection from other people. The only way a group’s integrity can be protected is via a strong, centralized authority, such as a monarch. This thinking influences current sociobiologists. Barash (1977) says that because we cannot kill each other without weapons, we have no biological inhibition against aggression like animals do, leading to war, etc. John Locke (1632-1704) He was the first major British Empiricist, at Oxford. Locke rejected Descartes & emphasized scientific method & experimentation. Locke’s Puritanism rejected Descartes’ Catholicism. Political ideas – people have inalienable rights to personal liberty, equality before the law, religious equality – protected by checks & balances & overthrow Philosophy of education – people are born good and equal in potential, making education crucial. Access to education should be available to all children. Locke’s Views on Education Locke denied existence of innate tendencies, dispositions or fears in children. The only things we innately fear are loss of pleasure and pain. We avoid whatever has these consequences. He proposed that children dislike reading because of punishments associated with teaching them. Locke advanced ideas about the acquisition and treatment of fears similar to Watson, Mary Cover Jones and Wolpe (systematic desensitization). Locke’s “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690) This work was the beginning of British Empiricism. Locke sought a set of laws for the human mind, like Newton’s principles of physics. Locke’s system is atomistic and reductionistic. Basic elements of mind are ideas. Ideas come from experience (Locke rejected Descartes). The “blank slate, page of paper, tablet” comes from Aristotle, but characterized
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