Eureka!The Roots of Philosophy

in PsychologyPSYC540

History and Systems of Psychology

The Game of Philosophy

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The Physicists

• Thales of Miletus (620-546 BCE):– Water– Critical Tradition

• “Question Everything”

• Anaximander (610-546 BCE)– “Question Thales”– Boundless– Evolution and

Cannibalism• Don’t eat fish

More Physics• Empedocles (490-430 BCE)

– The four elements– Eidola perception theory

• Heraclitus (535-475 BCE)– The only constant is change– Fire– No man steps in the same

river twice– No stability = no knowlege

• Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BCE) – All movement is an illusion

(Zeno’s paradox)• Democritus (460-370 BCE)

– Atoms

Hippocrates (Ca. 460BCE, Khios,

Greece)• Attacked the

conventional ideas of illness

• Empedocles'’ 4-element idea with humors in the body– Earth: Black bile– Air: Yellow bile– Water: Phlegm– Fire: Blood

• The body’s natural healing process– Rest, diet, exercise, fresh

air, baths, massages

Galen ( Ca. 140CE Rome)

• Hippocrates’ 4-humor idea extends to personalities– Blood: Sanguine– Phlegm:

Phlegmatic– Black bile:

Melancholic– Yellow bile:

Choleric

Sophists

• Truth is in the mind of the beholder• Rhetoric and logic teachers• Protagoras (481-411 BCE)

– No single truth exists– In order to understand a person’s actions

or beliefs, one must understand the person

• Changes focus of philosophy from what is it all made up, to what can we know and how can we know it.

Socrates(Ca. 469-399 BCE)

• Not really a sophist• There was an

actual truth in there somewhere

• The purpose of life is to gain knowledge– The unexamined life

is not worth living

• Inductive definition

In the Psyche Corner, Wearing Red Robes: PLATO! (Ca. 429–347

BCE)• Everything in the everyday world is a manifestation of a pure form

• Interact with imperfect matter to make poor shadow

• The allegory of the cave

• Nothing is learned from experience; only remembered

Levels of Knowledge

• Physicality is an impediment to true understanding

“All those who attempt to gain knowledge by examining the physical world are doomed to ignorance, or at best, opinion.”

Plato’s Tripartite Soul

• The Rational Soul (Reason) is immortal; all others are corruptible

• Must suppress bodily needs for the good of Reason

• Created a dualistic theory of the soul, which resulted in a very powerful religious dogma

And in the Soma corner, in blue robes and wielding a heavy book, ARISTOTLE!

(Ca. 384-322 BCE)• Rational thought is important

• Essences exist within nature, not apart from it

• In order to infer these essences, one must study their manifestations

• Therefore, the body is not a hindrance to enlightenment

Aristotle’s Tripartite Soul

• Vegetative (nutritive): Plants– Growth, reproduction, feeding

• Sensitive: Nonhuman animals– Above plus response to environment– Pleasure, pain, memory

• Rational: Human only– Above plus ability to engage in rational

thought

Motivation, Emotion, and Memory

• We are happiest when doing that which comes naturally– Rational thought for humans

• Emotion serves to amplify existing tendencies

• Remembering is a spontaneous recollection of something previously experienced– Differs from Plato in that it is the result of

sensory experience– Not nativisitic

Aristotle's Principles of Memory

• Contiguity• Frequency• Similarity• Contrast

Now, Let’s Jump to 17th Century Europe!

The Spirit of Mechanism

• The idea that natural processes are mechanically determined and capable of explanation by laws of physics and chemistry

• Julien de La Mettrie– Fever-induced

hallucination– People are “enlightened

machines”– Human body is “nothing

more than a watch that winds itself.”

– Died of an overdose of truffles and pheasant

Doctrines du Jour

• Determinism: Acts are determined by past events– Set a clock in motion, and it becomes

predictable

• Reductionism: Phenomena on one level (e.g., complex ideas) can be explained in terms of phenomena on another level (simple ideas)– A clock is explained in terms of gears and

springs

Renee Descartes(aka Cartius)

1596-1650• Born wealthy

enough to pursue intellectual pursuits and travel– “He who lives well,

lives well hidden.”

• Exceptional pupil at a Jesuit school– Mathematical

prodigy

It’s Good to be a Wealthy, Well-

Connected Student• Got special consideration from school

director to arrange classes so that he could sleep until noon– “Health reasons”– Kept this habit up for most of his life

• Parisian Playboy– Exceptional gambler– Heavy drinker– Expert swordsman– One lasting romantic affiliation

• 3-year affair with an unknown Dutch woman• Produced a daughter (?) who died at 5• “The greatest sorrow of my life”

One too many gambling debts,

hangovers, or jealous others later…• At around 21, served

as “gentleman volunteer”– Holland– Bavaria– Hungary

• Spirit of Truth– Fever-induced dream– Devote his life to

apply math to all of the sciences and produce certainty of knowledge

Application to Practical Concerns

• Returned to Paris, sold Dad’s property– Used the funds to live in comfort and solitude– Lived in 13 towns, 24 houses, kept his address

secret– Always near a Roman Catholic church

• Used geometry (Cartesian) to improve maneuverability of wheelchairs

• Experiments to find ways to keep hair from going grey

• Prolific writer and questionable experimenter– “I think therefore I lamb.”

Descartes and the Mind-Body Problem

• Dualism vs Monism– The puppet with

nothing to offer

• Versailles Gardens• The soul (mind) and

the pineal gland– Animal spirits– Hollow nerves

• Two-way interaction• Reflex action

– “no mind involvement”

Native Rene• Nativism vs Empiricism

– Plato vs Aristotle• Descartes: Derived and Innate ideas

– Break with plato• Derived: Ideas that arise from external stimulus• Innate: Ideas that develop of the mind alone

– God– Self– Perfection– Infinity

• Will be inlfuential in the development of other theories (e.g., Gestalt) and will provide a springboard against others to rebel– John Locke

Perhaps Sleeping In is Good for the

Health• Got attention from 20-

year-old Queen Christina of Sweden– Asked him to be personal

tutor of philosophy– Declined, but she

eventually won him over in 1649

• Needed tutoring at 5:00 am

• Drafty castle, cold environment

• Descartes of pneumonia died within a year

A Problem With Mind/Body Dualism

• Too tall to fit in a coffin• Cut off head to ship

separately• Ship with his body and

skull sank just before docking

• Took 17 years to restore his notes

• Skull disappeared and resurfaced in private collections for years afterward

John Locke(1632-1704)

• Will initiate “British Empiricism”

• Rejects any innate ideas• “Let us suppose the mind

to be, as we say, white paper.”

• Primary vs Secondary qualities– Primary: exist in an object

independent of perception (e.g., size)

– Secondary exist in perception (e.g., tickle of the feather)

• The Shaftesbury rebellion

Bishop George Berkeley

(1685-1753)• Initiated Mentalism

– Mental monist

• Taking Locke a step further– If there are two realities,

one on the world and one in the mind…what is the difference?

– We can only be sure of our perceptions

– How, then can there be stability in the universe?

• Also 3D vision theorist– Accommodation

Berkeley and the Permanent Perceiver

There was a young man who said "God, I find it exceedingly odd

That this very tree Should continue to be

When there is no one about in the quad.“

The Answer:

"Young man, your question is odd. I am always about in the quad.

And that's why this tree Continues to be"

Signed by, yours faithfully, God.

David Hume(1711-1776)

• Another Mental Monist

• Takes God from Berkeley

• If there is no permanent perceiver, we can only be sure of our own minds

• Solipsism– Nothing exists but the

mind

Hume Anticipating the Functionalists

• Impressions– Basic elements of mental life (similar to

perceptions)

• Ideas– Mental experiences in the absence of a

stimulating object• Very careful to leave out physiology or external stimuli

• Early associationism:– Similarity– Contiguity– Clear Aristotle influence!

David Hartley(1705-1757)

• Added repetition to Hume’s laws of association

• As kids grow, a variety of sensory experiences and trains of associations of increasing complexity are established

• Thus, higher levels of thought can be reduced to simpler sensations

• First to apply laws of association to all types of mental activity

• Doctrine of specific vibrations

James Mill(1775-1836)

• Ex-clergyman from Scotland

• No one could understand his sermons

• The Anti-Berkeley– Attempted to apply

mechanism and destroy subjectivity

• Machines are no longer a metaphor for the mind– The mind IS a machine– A passive entity that

automatically responds to stimuli

What If He Had a Son?

• Fill his head at an early age• 5-h daily drills:

– Classic languages– Mathematics– History– Politics

• Read Plato at 3• 1st scholarly paper at 11• Mastered standard

univeristy curriculum at 12• “Nervous Breakdown”

(Severe depression) at 21– So analytical, “I could not

feel.”– Poetry of Wordsworh

helped

John Stewart Mill(1806-1873)

• Mental chemistry• Based on the discovery

of H2O– Adding H and O to get

water, something completely new

– Mixing colored lights to get white, something completely new

• Creative synthesis– Complex ideas form from

simple ones– Takes on new qualities

not present in its pieces– The whole is greater

than the sum of the parts?

Mechanism and Reductionism in the

19th Century

Mary Shelly

Frankenstein (1818)

Tik Tok

Frank Baum (1914)

Charles Babbage

1791-1871

Babbage’s Brain

(Harvested 1871)

Analytical

Engine

(Babbage, 1833)

Philosophy is NOT for Everyone

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