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

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.

14 universities were established in 12th & 13th 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 possible 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. In “Confessions,” St. Augustine (4th 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 AnglicansPuritansEpiscopaliansPresbyteriansMethodistsBaptistsetc.

EasternOrthodox

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) Andreas

Vesalius(1514-1564)

William Harvey(1578-1657)

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): Hobbes Locke Berkeley

Nativist counter-voice: Leibniz (German)

Earlier Empiricists: Aristotle

Earlier Nativists: 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 empiricism. Ideas have two sources: sensation & reflection.

Locke & Ideas (Cont.)

Sensations can be illusory or misleading. Ideas are either simple or complex. Simples

ideas form a complex idea in several ways: By combining several simple ideas into a single

one. By seeing the relation between two simple ideas. By separating simple ideas from other ideas that

go with them – the process of abstraction. Locke’s idea about combination of ideas is

analogous to a chemical compound (from Boyle).

George Berkeley (1685-1753) Wrote three essays that radically extended

Locke’s philosophy into subject idealism (immaterialism).

Berkeley argued that because all knowledge of the world comes from experience, the very existence of the external world depends on perception. Matter exists because it is perceived – matter does not

exist without a mind. The permanence of the world is thus proof of God’s

existence. His book on vision was better regarded in his time.

Leibniz – A Nativist Counter-Voice Leibniz (1646-1716) – Germany’s leading

mathematician, wrote to Locke on politics. His “New Essays on Understanding” rebutted

Locke. He considered animals empirics but said humans

were only empirical in ¾ of their acts, not all. Necessary and inborn truths are ¼ of the mind, the

“innate intellect.” Intellect allows reason & science, gives us

knowledge of ourselves and God, is the essence of the human spirit.

Leibniz’s Monadology

In “The Monadology,” Leibniz described a system of monads. Monads are an infinite number of elements

composing all being and activity, with no parts, not decomposable.

Monads are indestructible, uncreatable, immutable. The physical and mental worlds are pluralisms of

independent monads that do not interact, in parallel

There is a continuum of consciousness-unconsciousness with different levels of activity, with a threshold for consciousness.

Two Empiricists and a Nativist

John Locke(1632-1704)

George Berkeley(1685-1753)

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

(1646-1716)

18 -19th Century British Associationism Transitional

Associationists: Hume Hartley

19th Century Associationists: James Mill John Stuart Mill Bain

Nativist Counter-Voice: Kant

David Hume (1711-1776)

Hume studied “pneumatic philosophy” (the name for the science of mental life).

People are part of nature so should be studied using the methods of studying nature.

He differentiated between impressions & ideas: When impressions & ideas occur together they

become associated with each other. 3 kinds of associations: resemblance, contiguity in time or space, cause-and-effect

relationship.

David Hartley (1705-1757)

Hartley said both mind and body are to be studied.

Localized mental faculties to the brain, citing the effects of alcohol, poisons & opiates, blows to the head, on thinking.

He described visual and auditory after-images as vibrations of medullary particules in nerves in the brain. Vibrations & ideas become associated by occurring

simultaneously a sufficient number of times. This is a kind of biological associationism.

Two Mills – Father and Son

James Mill (1773-1836) – wrote a History of British India and an Essay on Government. Believed his son’s mind was a blank slate and

dedicated himself to filling it with maximum knowledge John Stuart Mill regarded himself as a “dry, hard, logical

machine” and became depressed in early 20s. This led him to recognize the irrational as well as the

rational, see humans as more than unfeeling machines. John Stuart Mill rejected his father’s views on

women’s capacities & rights, introduced suffrage bill

James Mill (1773-1836)

James Mill wrote “Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind.” Mill added muscle (kinesthesis), tickling & itching,

digestive (alimentary) senses to Aristotle’s 5 senses. Described stream of consciousness associations.

Some associations stronger than others. Permanence, certainty & facility determine strength.

Proposed a model of concatenation (joining) of ideas later refined by his son.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

Wrote “System of Logic” about metascience – the study of scientific process and assumptions that underlie all sciences, including psychology.

J.S. Mill argued that there can be a science of the mind, but it must be inexact, not deterministic. If laws of psychology govern behavior will people’s

action be predictable, what happen to responsibility and free will?

Saw the need for Ethology – the study of the influence of external circumstances on behavior (not animal).

Alexander Bain (1818-1903)

Bain wrote “The Senses and the Intellect,” “The Emotions and the Will,” and “Mind and Body.” The standard British psychology textbooks for 50

years. Founded the journal “Mind,” establishing

psychology as a field distinct from philosophy. Developed the concept of habit derived from

consequences of random actions, leading directly to Thorndike’s behaviorism.

Stressed the importance of observation, sympathetic to experimental method.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

The leading German epistemologist, Kant was a subjectivist, nativist, rationalist successor to Descartes and Leibniz.

Kant wrote “A Critique of Pure Reason” saying that empiricists forgot to ask how experience is possible. Certain intuitions or categories of understanding

are inborn and frame our experiences. This knowledge is a priori, whereas experiential

knowledge is a posteriori (known afterward). 3 categories of mind: cognition, affection, conation.

Kant’s View of A Priori Knowledge Concepts of space and time. Other intuitions, including cause and effect,

reciprocity, reality, existence and necessity. Higher faculties of reasoning are

understanding, judgment, reason. True science must begin with concepts

established a priori by reason alone and deal with observable objects that can be located in time and space. Psychology lacks this so it cannot be a science.