History Of Psychology Ch. 6 Rationalism

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The Absolute

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according to Hegel, the totality of the universe. A knowledge of The Absolute constitutes the only true knowledge, and separate aspects of the universe can be understood only in terms of their relationship to The Absolute. Through the dialectic process, human history and the human intellect progress toward The Absolute.

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Active mind

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a mind equipped with categories or operations that are used to analyze, organize, or modify sensory information and to discover abstract concepts or principles not contained within sensory experience. The rationalists postulated such a mind.

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Anthropology

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Kant's proposed study of human behavior. Such a study could yield practical information that could be used to predict and control behavior.

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Apperception

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Conscious experience.

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Apperceptive mass

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According to Herbart, the cluster of interrelated ideas of which we are conscious at any given moment.

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Categorical imperative

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according to Kant, the moral directive that we should always act in such a way that the maxims governing our moral decisions could be used as a guide for everyone else's moral behavior.

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Categories of thought

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Those innate attributes of the mind that Kant postulated to explain subjective experiences we have that cannot be explained in terms of sensory experience alone--for example, the experiences of time causality, and space.

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Commonsense philosophy

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the position, first proposed by Reid, that we can assume the existence of the physical world and of human reasoning powers because it makes common sense to do so.

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Dialectic process

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according to Hegel, the process involving an original idea, the negation of the original idea, and a synthesis of the new idea and its negation. The synthesis then becomes the starting point (the idea) of the next cycle of the developmental process.

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Dialectic realism

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the belief that sensory experience represents physical reality exactly as it is. Also called naive realism.

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Double aspectism

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Spinoza's contention that material substance and consciousness are two inseparable aspects of everything in the universe, including humans. Also called psychophysical double aspectism and double-aspect monism.

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Faculty psychology

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the belief that the mind consists of several powers or faculties.

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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like Spinoza, believed the universe to be an interrelated unity. Hegel called this unity The Absolute, and he thought that human history and the human intellect progress via the dialectic process toward The Absolute.

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Johann Friedrich Herbart

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likened ideas to Leibniz's monads by saying that they had energy and a consciousness of their own. Also, according to Herbart, ideas strive for consciousness. Those ideas compatible with a person's apperceptive mass are given conscious expression, whereas those that are not remain below the limen in the unconscious mind. Herbart is considered to be one of the first mathematical and educational psychologists.

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Immanuel Kant

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believed that experiences such as those of unity, causation, time, and space could not be derived from sensory experience and therefore must be attributable to innate categories of thought. He also believed that morality is governed by the innate categorical imperative. He did not believe psychology could become a science because subjective experience could not be quantified mathematically.

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Law of continuity

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Leibniz's contention that there are no major gaps or leaps in nature. Rather, all differences in nature are characterized by small gradations.

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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

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believed that the universe consists of indivisible units called monads. God had created the arrangement of the monads, and therefore this was the best of all possible worlds. If only a few minute monads were experienced, petites perceptions resulted, which were unconscious. If enough minute monads were experienced at the same time, apperception occurred, which was a conscious experience.

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Limen

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for Leibniz and Herbart, the border between the conscious and the unconscious mind. Also called threshold.

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Nicolas de Malebranche

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contended that the mind and body were separate but that God coordinated their activities.

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Monads

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according to Leibniz, the indivisible units that comprise everything in the universe. All monads are characterized by consciousness but some more so than others. Inert matter processes only dim consciousness, and then with increased ability to think clearly come plants, animals, humans, and, finally, God. The goal of each monad is to think as clearly as it is capable of doing. Because humans share monads with matter, plants, and animals, sometimes out thoughts are less clear.

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Occasionalism

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the belief that bodily events and mental events are coordinated by God's intervention.

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Pantheism

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the belief that God is present everywhere and in everything.

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Passive mind

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a mind whose contents are determined by sensory experience. It contains a few mechanistic principles that organize, store, and generalize sensory experiences. The British empiricism and the French sensationalists tended to postulate such a mind.

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Petites perceptions

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according to Leibniz, a perception that occurs below the level of awareness because only a few monads are involved.

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Preestablished harmony

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Leibniz's contention that God had created the monads comprising the universe in such a way that a continuous harmony existed among them. This explained why mental and bodily events were coordinated.

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Psychic mechanics

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the term used by Herbart to describe how ideas struggle with each other to gain conscious expression.

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Psychophysical parallelism

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the contention that bodily and mental events are correlated but that there is no interaction between them.

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Rationalism

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the philosophical position postulating an active mind that transforms sensory information and is capable of understanding abstract principles or concepts not attainable from sensory information alone.

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Thomas Reid

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believed that we could trust our sensory impressions to accurately reflect physical reality because it makes common sense to do so. Reid attributed several rational faculties to the mind and was therefore a faculty psychologist.

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Baruch Spinoza

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equated God with nature and said that everything in nature, including humans, consisted of both matter and consciousness. Spinoza's proposed solution to the mind-body problem is called double aspectism. The most pleasurable life, according to Spinoza, is on lived in accordance with the laws of nature. Emotional experience is desirable because it is controlled by reason; passionate experience is undesirable because it is not. Spinoza's deterministic view of human cognition, activity, and emotion did much to facilitate the development of scientific psychology.