History Of Psychology Ch. 5 Empiricism, Sensationalism, And Positivism

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Associationism

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the belief that the laws of association provide the fundamental principles by which all mental phenomena can be explained.

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Alexander Bain

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the first to attempt to relate known physiological facts to psychological phenomena. He also wrote the first psychology texts, and he founded psychology's first journal, Mind (1876). Bain explained voluntary behavior in much the same way that modern learning theorists later explained trial-and-error behavior. Finally, Bain added the law of compound association and the law of constructive association to the older, traditional laws of association.

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Jeremy Bentham

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Said that the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain governed most human behavior. Bentham also said that the best society was one that did the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

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George Berkeley

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Said that the only thing we experience directly is our own perceptions, or secondary qualities. Berkeley offered an empirical explanation of the perception of distance, saying that we learn to associate the sensations caused by the convergence and dive5rgence of the eyes with different distances. Berkeley denied materialism, saying instead that reality exists because
God perceives it. We can trust our senses to reflect God's perceptions because God would not create a sensory system that would deceive us.

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Complex ideas

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Composites of simple ideas

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August Comte

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The founder of positivism and coiner of the term sociology. He felt that cultures passed through three stages in the way they explained phenomena: the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific.

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Etienne Bonnot de Condillac

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Maintained that all human mental attributes could be explained using only the concept of sensation and that it was therefore unnecessary to postulate an autonomous mind.

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Empiricism

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The belief that all knowledge is derived from experience, especially sensory experience.

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Ethnology

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J.S. Mill's proposed study of how specific individuals act under specific circumstances. In other words, it is the study of how the primary laws governing human behavior interact with secondary laws to produce an individual's behavior in a situation.

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Pierre Gassendi

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Saw humans as nothing but complex, physical machines, and he saw no need to assume a nonphysical mind. Gassendi had much in common with Hobbes.

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David Hartley

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Combined empiricism and associationism with rudimentary physiological notions.

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Claude Helvetius

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Elaborated the implications of empiricism and sensationalism for education. That is, a person's intellectual development can be determined by controlling his or her experiences.

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Thomas Hobbes

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Believed that the primary motive in human behavior is the seeking of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. For Hobbes, the function of government is to satisfy as many human needs as possible and to prevent humans from fighting with each other. Hobbes believed that all human activity, including mental activity, could be reduced to atoms in motion; therefore, he was a materialist.

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David Hume

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Agreed with Berkeley that we could experience only our own subjective reality but disagreed with Berkeley's contention that we could assume that our perceptions accurately reflect the physical world because God would not deceive us. For Hume, we can be sure of nothing. Even the notion of cause and effect, which is so important to Newtonian physics, is nothing more than a habit of thought. Hume distinguished between impressions, which are vivid, and ideas, which are faint copies of impressions.

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Idea

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A mental event that lingers after impressions or sensations have ceased.

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Imagination

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According to Hume, the power of the mind to arrange and rearrange ideas into countless configurations.

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Impressions

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According to Hume, the relatively strong mental experiences caused by sensory stimulation. For Hume, impression is essentially the same thing as what others called sensation.

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Julien de La Mettrie

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Believed humans were machines that differed from other animals only in complexity. La Mettrie believed that so-called mental experiences are nothing bu movements of particles in the brain. He also believed that accepting materialism would result in a better, more humane world.

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Law of cause and effect

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According to Hume, if in our experience one event always precedes the occurrence of another event, we tend to believe that the former event is the cause of the latter.

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Law of compound association

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According to Bain, contiguous or similar events form compound ideas and are remembered together. If one or a few elements of the compound idea are experienced, they may elicit the memory of the entire compound.

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Law of constructive association

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According to Bain, the mind can rearrange the memories of various experiences so that the creative associations formed are different from the experiences that gave rise to the associations.

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Law of contiguity

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The tendency for events that are experienced together to be remembered together.

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Law of resemblance

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According to Hume, the tendency for our thoughts to run from one event to similar events--the same as what others call the law, or principle, of similarity.

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John Locke

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An empiricist who denied the existence of innate ideas but who assumed many nativistically determined powers of the mind. Locke distinguished between primary qualities, which cause sensations that correspond to actual attributes of physical bodies, and secondary qualities, which causes sensations that have no counterparts in the physical world. The types of ideas postulated by Locke included those caused by sensory stimulation those caused by reflection, simple ideas, and complex ideas, which were composites of simple ideas.

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Ernst Mach

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Proposed a brand of positivism based on the phenomenological experiences of scientists. Because scientists, or anyone else, never experience the physical world directly, the scientist's job is to precisely describe the relationships among mental phenomena, and to do so without the aid of metaphysical speculation.

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Mental chemistry

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The process by which individual sensations can combine to form a new idea or sensation that is different from any of the individual sensations that constitute it.

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James Mill

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Maintained that all mental events consisted of sensations and ideas (copies of sensations) held together by association. No matter how complex an idea was, Mill felt that it could be reduced to simple ideas.

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John Stuart Mill

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Disagreed with his father James that all complex ideas could be reduced to simple ideas. J.S. Mill proposed a process of mental chemistry according to which complex ideas could be distinctly different from the simple ideas (elements) that constituted them. J.S. Mill believed strongly that a science of human nature could be and should be developed.

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Paradox of the basins

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Locke's observation that warm water will feel either hot or cold depending on whether a hand is first placed in hot water or cold water. Because water cannot be hot and cold at the same time, temperature must be a secondary, not a primary, quality.

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Positivism

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The contention that science should study only that which can be directly experienced. For Comte, that was publicly observed events or overt behavior. For Mach, it was the sensations of the scientist.

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Primary laws

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According to J.S. Mill, the general laws that determine the overall behavior of events within a system.

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Primary qualities

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According to many, the attributes of physical objects. According to Locke, those attributes of physical objects that can produce in us ideas that correspond to those attributes.

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Quality

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According to Locke, that aspect of a physical object that has the power to produce an idea.

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Reflection

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According to Locke, the ability to use the powers of the mind to creatively rearrange ideas derived from sensory experience.

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Scientism

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The almost religious belief that science can answer all questions and solve all problems.

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Secondary laws

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According to J.S. Mill, the laws that interact with primary laws and determine the nature of individual events under specific circumstances.

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Secondary qualities

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According to many, sensations that have no counterparts in the physical world. According to Locke, those attributes of physical objects or events that cause sensations that do not resemble those attributes. That is, for Locke, secondary qualities are attributes of physical objects or events that cause psychological experiences that have no counterparts in the physical world.

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Sensation

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The rudimentary mental experience that results from the stimulation of one or more sense receptors.

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Simple ideas

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The mental remnants of sensations.

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Sociology

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For Comte, a study of the types of explanations various societies accepted for natural phenomena. He believed that, as societies progressed, they go from theological explanations, to metaphysical, to positivistic. By sociology, Comte also meant the study of the overt behavior of humans, especially social behavior.

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Spontaneous

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According to Bain, behavior that is simply emitted by an organism rather than being elicited by external stimulation.

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Utilitarianism

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The belief that the best society or government is one that provides the greatest good (happiness) for the greatest number of individuals. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were all utilitarians.

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Vibratiuncles

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According to Hartley, the vibrations that linger in the brain after the initial vibrations caused by external stimulation ceased.

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Voluntary behavior

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According to Bain, under some circumstances, an organism's spontaneous activity leads to pleasurable consequences. After several such occurrences, the organism will come to voluntarily engage in the behavior that was originally spontaneous.