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72 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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How was the psychology of Aquinas different in general from that of Augustine?
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- Augustine – we have a separate magical soul, when we die the soul goes away to heaven
- Aquinas – when you die your body disintegrates and your active reason is gone but you still have potential |
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What was the medieval disputation and how was it conducted?
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- Medieval Disputation: a formal debate
- thesis presented and on that day all classes would be cancelled so everyone could attend. Master directed and his bachelor answered all of the questions. Answers were eventually given by the master for the arguments against his thesis. |
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What was Aquinas’ problem with Averroës and how did he deal with it?
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- Avveroes – used Aristotle’s teachings for afterlife proposing that nous was no more than
a part of the universal mind. And that we could not have sensation or memory in the afterlife. Aquinas deals w/it – uses Aristotle’s division of the souls – the rational soul is imperishable and is the soul that exists in the afterlife. |
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What were the main parts of Avicenna’s faculty psychology? How did Aquinas’ set of faculties differ? List Avicenna’s Interior Senses
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(representation of desires or “expansiveness”
- Faculty Psychology: Vegetative Soul (reproduction, maintenance, digestion, respiration, growth), Sensitive Soul (external and internal senses and appetites), Rational soul (practical and contemplative reason) - Aquinas - Vegetative Soul (same as Avicenna), Animal/sensitive soul (external and internal senses and animal appetites), and the rational soul (potential and active reason) |
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How did Aquinas adapt Aristotle’s ideas? How did he distinguish humans and animals?
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- there is no innate knowledge. Once you have enough sensation you know how the world works.
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How did he arrange for an attractive afterlife? What did Father Romano say about it?
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- Father Romano was asked if he had memory of his life on earth. Each level of the soul incorporates the one below it. Reason exists as potential and actual. After death the soul remains as potential and w/the resurrection of the body you can actually reason.
- attractive afterlife – rational soul is imperishable and it can be transferred and allow for memory and sensation in the afterlife. Used a different translation of Aristotle to counter Averroes. |
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What did he conclude from consideration of animals and embryos/babies?
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- embryo/baby – embryo only has a sensitive soul – at some point it is traded for a rational
and sensitive soul. Perishable = no afterlife for animals. |
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How did he use Aristotle’s `”higher/lower” principle to counter Averroës and give us a nice afterlife?
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- Aristotle is the law. Sensation is the interaction of a sense organ and an object. You must have a body to do everything. Averroes concluded that according to Aristotle when you die whatever is left as an afterlife is unimpressionable (does not experience sensation – then in the afterlife you are like a principle) a personality less thing part of the world soul. This is unappealing.
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What about the poor cannibals?
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- If someone is a cannibal it eats nothing but other human flesh, then their body is composed of human flesh. With the resurrection there is nothing left. It is a false probable.
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What was “Aristotelian” about the science of the early 17th century?
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- In the 17th century there was the Enlightenment: the people moved past Aristotle and
became scientists – there was a belief in a mechanical universe with no purpose, Aristotle’s universe had a purpose. Now everything was just masses so people turned to magic, superstition and astrology and this disturbed lots of people. |
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What did Galileo do to fight it? How did this affect psychology?
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- Galileo – against Aristotle – proposed that better predictions can be made by thinking of things as masses of particles blindly bumping into each other then by thinking of them as Aristotle’s animistically, teleologically, anthropomorphically
- also one can get a better handle on the universe by thinking of it as infinite and cold and comfortless than by thinking of it as finite, homey, planted and relevant to human concerns. |
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What were Hobbes’ views on artificial intelligence?
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- “all intelligence is artificial.” – All intelligence is a produce of art and art means human
doing. You are born but you are not intelligent; through human intervention you become intelligent so why shouldn’t a machine be intelligent? |
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How did he view the individual as parallel to the state in Leviathan?
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- The ideal government is a monarchy with an absolute ruler (whether hereditary or not) and there is a social contract between the subjects and the rules (subjects give loyalty and the rulers protect them) and without government life would be nasty brutish and short.
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How could he be both empiricist and rationalist?
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- no innate knowledge, once you have enough sensation then you know how the world
works (even if you are locked in a closet) |
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How did he describe the “train of thought,” and how was it organized (“not Casuall”)?
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- train sequence (reliques – remainders, copies and they don’t identically resemble the things that are copied), everything that we call a past is my presence in the sequence and my memory of reliques and everything comes next in the past (it will always be something that came before)
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How did he explain will and attention?
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- will – an appetite resulting from a precedent deliberation, the last appetite in
deliberation. = the last thought before action. |
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What comes next in Hobbes’ “Trayne?”
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- Course of Thought – guided or unguided (unguided – it is really not unguided it just seems to be unguided.)
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What were Francis Bacon’s two methods of gathering knowledge and which is always more popular? Why is that bad?
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a.) Experiment Lucifera (Lucifer’s Experiment) – Experiments that can’t fail (they cast light) there is no explicit hypothesis
b.) Experimenta Fructifera (Testing of Hypotheses) – usually done before you have enough data to test hypotheses. c.) B is more popular and it is bad because you leap from a few observations to the highest principles. It is almost always wrong |
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What are modern examples of the two methods?
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a.) Moerck – Univ. of S. California – he observed the development of language, you would go from observations up to some higher principles
b.) Chompsky/Skinner – used this method to anyone who refers to “everything is due to habit/instinct) |
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What were Bacon’s pissmires, spiders, and bees?
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a.) pismires – (ants) are like the simple empiricists (they wander around aimlessly with no plan gathering things haphazardly)
b.) spiders – are like rationalists (they are spinning aout of themselves like a spider spins a web out of itself) c.) bees – the bee is good because the bee gathers with a plan (or so it seems to the observer) |
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What were the four idols that he described?
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- Tribe – we assume that we lie in a world of colors
- Den – a set of predispositions that come from the family group or the immediate social group - Marketplace – biases that we have because of the loose use of words - Theatre – religions / philosophies that are presented to us like a play. |
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What of the misguided criticism that Bacon failed to consider that observations must always be guided by tentative hypotheses?
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- Bacon’s mainly inductive model was not really the model that succeeded. The hypothesis must be testable – Bcon did not always confine his hypothesis enough
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What was the Aristotelian biology that Descartes learned at La Flêche and how did that
explain “seeing?” (the “old” theory of vision) |
- Aristotle’s motion – the actualization of what exists in potentiality insofar as it is
potential!!! - “old theory of vision” – explained seeing size, form and distance - we have imaginary rods from eyes - plus the angle - dispersion of light rays effects how we see images - intensity – the farther away the light source the less intense it appears |
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What was the significance of his dreams near Ulm (to him)?
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- dreams near Ulm- the first 2 dreams concerned his past life and the 3rd was regarding the
future. Helped him to decide what was to become of his future. Reproached himself for having adores his solitude. Resolved to venture out and confer w/more people regarding mathematics and the way we understand |
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What are his four rules of investigation (of the original 36) and when/where did he publish them?
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- Doubting (mind is the only clear idea that I have)
- therefore the soul is clear and distinct and immortality is perceived as clear - a clear idea of perfection (God) - I have an idea of all the other stuff around and the other stuff must be brought to me by God. But god could be deceiving me. Deception is an imperfection and god is perfect; therefore, god is not deceiving me. Therefore, the world around me exists. |
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What did he mean by intuitions and what are “clear and distinct” ideas?
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- Intuitions – not the fluctuating testimony of the sense, the act that he exists, and that he thinks… intuitions are that by which we understand
- Things which are present to the attention are clear. Things that are not clear (sky, stars, external objects); Things that are clear (length, width, height). If you have some experience or some sensation and you ask yourself is this clear or distinct you should ask yourself if you can imagine it differently. If the answer is “yes” then it is not a clear idea. |
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What was the real justification for the mind/body distinction - why did Descartes need it?
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- justification for the mind/body distinction – cognito is clearly and distinctly perceived, while all that pertains to the body is uncertain. Mind cannot be doubted but matter can be. Needed the distinction to set us apart from animals.
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What was the relation of will, understanding, thought, innate ideas, and passions?
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- understanding is thought and requires innate ideas and the passions and will is the ability
to act on them. |
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According to Descartes, why do we make errors?
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- we make errors b/c as thought throws out ideas of sensation, and imagination, will freely
chooses to assent, dissent, attend or ignore. A wise person will choose to attend to clear ideas and will remain free of errors. A fool will attend to sensory ideas alone as if they were clear. |
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What was the gist of Hobbes’ criticisms in the Meditations?
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- Hobbes picked apart the meditations suggesting that part of them were regurgitated ideas
and that they were not feasible and unclear, especially regarding the perception of god. |
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In his Passions, what does the soul do? Can the body operate without it?
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- the passions allow the soul to experience wonder, love, hatred, etc. the body cannot
operate without it b/c it allows for sense and emotions |
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What was LaMettrie’s opinion of Descartes’ theory, particularly the role of the passions and soul?
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- What Descartes forgot what that the whole body is a living thing. Descartes promoted that the whole body is a machine and you have this little ghost thing, but the body is alive. Descarte’s mistake: he didn’t give life to the body –he forgot Aristotle.
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What alternative did he propose and what was some of his evidence? What Would Hobbes have said?
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- If youtreat the body as alive then you don’t need the separate mind anymore.
- Hobbes would say that Le Mettrie is wrong because the body is complete and total machine |
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What would Descartes have said to La Mettrie?
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- Descartes would say that Le Mettrie missed the point – that you must begin with certainty.
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What would Plato and Aristotle have said?
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- Plato and Aristotle would have said they were unwilling to posit a spiritual substance that was independent of matter – materialist perspective
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What was Locke’s evidence that all knowledge originates in experience?
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- evidence that all knowledge comes from experience:
- ideas of space and time are acquired through months and years of experience in a world that is laid out in time and space - Children and idiots lack innate ideas - Agreement on such matters does not require innate ideas - Can be observed in the reasoning of children. They gain reasoning and knowledge through their experience. |
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What are ideas, where do they come from, and what are primary and secondary qualities?
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- Ideas are anything to which we attend
- They come from objects’ qualities, no ideas are innate. A quality is the power of an object to produce ideas in us. - Primary Qualities – things that resemble the objects that produce them (i.e. substance, movement, number) We know them directly because of imperceptible particles - Secondary Qualities – are symbolic things produced in us but don’t correspond to the object. |
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Hey, how can we know those things?
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- Locke never answers this question.
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What did Locke mean by reflection and what was his position on the association of ideas?
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- Reflection – every conceivable power you can think of. A ton of faculties (memory, reason, touch, etc.) These things come from complex ideas.
- Association of ideas – There is no association except in abnormal cases |
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What did Berkeley do to Locke’s cherry and how did this alter Locke’s theory?
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- Berkeley – if you take a cherry and take away the sensory characteristics there is still
something left (Locke) - Berkeley says that all secondary qualities are matter and if you take away those qualities you take away the object, there is nothing left. |
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What was Berkeley’s New Theory of Vision and what was the “old theory” that it opposed?
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- Old Theory – Explained the “seeing” of size, form and distance. The notion that we have imaginary rods coming out from our eyes plus the angle (Descartes) plus you have dispersion of light rays plus intensity.
- New Theory – We judge by other sensations. We have feelings of accommodation and we have convergence (closer) and divergence (moving away) and it must be things we can sense. |
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What does it mean to say that we don’t see and touch the same thing?
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- We know only our experience, it depends on what our nerves are telling us and our history.
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What is universally believed in but unknowable by mind?
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- There is a substance that is universally believed in but unknowable by the mind and that is matter.
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What was the point of The Analyst?
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- How can a god who is timeless say that if you do certain things you won’t go to hell, he
already knows |
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Is what we perceive real or just mental? What?
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- Reality is our perception. And perception is reality. The Author of Nature is my guarantee that the world exists.
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What did Hume mean by impressions and ideas?
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- ideas – (memory) new ideas arise from imagination or reflection
- impressions – reliable and strong |
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What produces simple and complex ideas?
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- Simple – are good but most things that we think about are complex ideas.
- Complex - They come from complex impressions through relection, augmenting, combining, diminishing and association |
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How do we know that there is no certain rational basis for human knowledge?
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- We all accept Humean Causality – When A occurs B usually follows! There is no
impression for God – it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist it just means that there is no rational basis concluding that God exists as an individual with the powers that we give to him. |
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In what sense do we know that there is no self? What?
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- There is no impression for the SELF!!! Hume notes that if you take away all of the visual
sensations that you have now or have ever had – there is nothing left. I would be completely annialated. There is no soul. There is no impression for causality. |
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Yet, how can we be sure that there is a “real” reality outside of ourselves?
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- Reality is all auto-biographical – all reality is me and my experiences.
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How did Kant agree with Hume? How did he disagree with Hume?
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- Agree – Hume was correct (all we can know comes from experience) but what is
experience? - Disagree – The mind imposes itself in reality which means everything is real |
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What was Kant’s aim in attempting to “refute” Hume?
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- Hume believed we can have no knowledge of causality other than the reliable contiguity
of impressions and ideas – through experience. Kant used math and physics to refute Hume: velocity is defined with respect to distance and time. Being definitions, these are a priori true statements, known to be true in advance to any experience |
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How did he prove that we could have objective knowledge?
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- conceptions of time and space are objective. We can have this objective knowledge b/c
they are with respect to our sensibility, so they are real and objective. |
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What are phenomena and noumena?
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- phenomena – objects of empirical intuition. The intuition must have a form: the capacity
to see things in color - noumena – we infer noumena(the real things beyond appearances) |
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In what ways did Thomas Reid disagree with Hume? In what way was Reid really “gutsy?”
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- Opposed the theory of ideas and mediation. Everyone else believed that what we know is mediated. If you oppose this everyone thinks you are crazy. The people who oppose it are alled naieve realists.
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How did he distinguish sensation and perception?
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- perception – refers immediately to an outside quality in an object
- sensation – the recognition of an object using the senses - this is illustrated in smelling a rose, sensation is the scent and perception is connecting it to an object |
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What flaw of reasoning appears to lie in Reid’s “problems with children?” How did Dugald Stewart seem to misunderstand Reid?
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- Reid said that we can “always distinguish between real and imaginary” b/c that is what common sense is. Children must learn the concept of existence vs. non existence so the problem of what’s real and not is called source monitoring.
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What were the main faculties that were proposed by Dugald Stewart, who powerfully influenced education in America?
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Consciousness, external perception, attention, conception, abstraction, association
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Why was the Scottish Common Sense School so popular in America? What might Hume or Kant have thought of it?
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- so popular in American b/c it provided a safer way for philosophy. The idea that we have free will was readily acceptable to those in America. Clergy and professors also like the use of associationism
- Hume and Kant would not have liked this b/c they were not associationists. They were materialists and would believe that knowledge comes from experience and not innate ideas. |
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Why was Stewart wary of musical concerts, plays, and novels?
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- Moral danger of music, play, art: the notion that there are certain things that produce
emotions in people and you experience this emotion but you become accustomed to doing nothing |
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What was the 19th century contribution of Alexander Bain?
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- Law of Diffusion
- Habit – if you want to change a habit you must stop immediately, you must have support, and there is no tapering, and no exceptions - Law of Effect – Bain/Spencer Principle – Stick pins in babies and they will remove them. As you continue sticking pins in them they will get better and better at removing them. – Trial and Error Learning - Ideo-motor Action – the notion that the way we act (use will) follows a sequence o We move passively or reflexively. – The feelings (This is unconscious) o The feelings of making a movement are the ideas of that movement (This is conscious) Unconscious habit |
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In what way did Thomas Brown dispute Reid’s “peculiar power?”
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- the sensory has already deceloped the concept of existence of external objects. If one had never sensed a rose you would still have a sense of some kind through your senses, just would not be able to call it a rose.
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How does this apply to the scent of the rose and to Reid’s “problem with children?”
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- Reid said I (1) smell an odor (2) assign smell to a rose (3) immediately recognize
The problem is that this implies that we can always distinguish real vs. imagined. But there are many cases where children don’t do that. Reid said you must learn to distinguish existence vs. non existence |
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What particular ingredient did Brown add to give us “real?”
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- he gave us muscular resistance to attain “real”
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Why did he emphasize that his “secondary laws” were laws of suggestion and how do they reveal that he had wanted to be a poet, not a physician?
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- law: falling apples can be related to falling moons and planets, this is what lifets humankind from its original imbelicity. Implication: “trains of association” cannot be traced back to their origin.
- similarity is useful as a principle of association only as long as the dimension involved is clear |
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Frances Hutcheson
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The greatest good for the greatest number
o The goal of life is to maximize pleasures as much as possible o The principle of Utilitarianism o Redintegration – some present cue that calls up some complex – Certain acquired dislikes (i.e. the thought of dark woods call up bad thoughts |
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John Gay
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First described the Function Autonomy of Motives
o There are means (i.e. work, earn money) to ends (i.e. buy food, shelter) o We keep our workplace/living place neat because if it’s not neat we are constantly distracted so we are neat (means) so we can find things and not be distracted (end). BUT over time the means changes and becomes the end. |
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David Hartley
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Tried to apply physics to psychology
o Vibrations – various frequencies and stimulation affecting our skin, retinas, auditory nerve, etc. o These leave copies called vibratiates o The stimuli make copies (S1 – S1, S2 – S2) o We form compounds of associations. Some compounds are synchronous and some are successive. o Our life is a series of sync sensations - He formalized this into 100 postulates (things taken for granted as true but can’t be completely true) o Hartley was successful to get James Mill to follow him o He was the first person to apply association to everyone |
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What was the theory of “Mental Mechanics” of James Mill?
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mental mechanics: pieces associated together
- sensation – ideas - all ideas are composed of synchronous and successive associations - muscular resistance gives us the idea of reality |
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How did he explain experience and how were his laws of association odd?
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- All of our mind is nothing more than a bunch of pieces which are associated together
- - Important contribution was psychosomatic medicine – feelings from are viscera are important to the background of experience (even though unnoticed). There are certain things that produce changes (i.e. stomach agitation when we feel strong emotion like fear) |
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How does “weight” turn out to be complicated?
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The idea of weight
o Brings up muscular resistance o Force downward is motion o Motion includes ideas of time and space o The idea of muscular resistance give idea of will which gives idea of personal identity |
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What did he suggest regarding emotion and association?? What?
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- All of our mind is nothing more than a bunch of pieces which are associated together
o You have sensations (i.e. horse) and ideas o Sensations produce ideas (i.e. owner of horse) o All composed of synch and succ associations |
