Psyc 375: Chapter 2 Textbook Notes PDF

lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Psyc 375: Chapter 2 Textbook Notes History of Psychology (Athabasca University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Chapter 2 Notes  Plato (ca. 427-347...

lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Psyc 375: Chapter 2 Textbook Notes History of Psychology (Athabasca University) Scan to open on Studocu Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Chapter 2 Notes  Plato (ca. 427-347 B.C) o Writings can be divided into two different periods.  First period, reported the thoughts and methods of his teacher, Socrates  Second period was him writing and teaching his own beliefs that combined the writings of Socrates and the Pythagoreans. o Tried to find something permanent that could be the object of knowledge o The Theory of Forms or Ideas  Pythagoreans believed that numbers and numerical relationships were unable to be experienced but are still real. o o o Plato’s Theory of forms goes a step further.  Everything in the natural world is a manifestation of a pure form (or idea) that exists in the abstract. Everything on earth is an imperfect manifestation of a form.  Form had an existence separate from its individual manifestations.  Believed knowledge could only be attained through reason. Analogy of the Divided Line  The only true knowledge is understanding of the forms themselves.  Imagining is the lowest form of understanding, so are reflections because they are a step removed from the real object.  Beliefs and opinions don’t constitute knowledge and are of little value.  Mathematical knowledge is not the highest type of knowledge because the relationships are assumed to be true, but could conceivably be false.  Thinking about mathematics in the abstract is better than with images or empirical objects.  Highest form of thinking involves embracing forms themselves.  True knowledge only comes from an understanding of abstract forms Allegory of the Cave  Prisoners have lived their entire lives in a dark cave, facing the wall with a path behind them that is in front of a fire. Their only understanding of the world is of shadows. That pass between them and the fire. o This is the lowest form of understanding  If one escaped, their eyes would hurt seeing the direct light for the first time.  They can either adjust their eyes or go back to the cave,  Eventually their eyes would adjust and they would finally be enlightened as to what the shadows truly were. Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509  He may try to enlighten others, but others don’t want to be enlightened. o After finally seeing the light, it is hard to go back to your old ways of ignorance. o All of this above is a metaphor for people who take their physical reality as truth and at face value. Senses are misleading. The escaped prisoner comes to understand forms and gains true knowledge. You cannot always free people from the chains of ignorance. o The Reminiscence Theory of Knowledge  One comes to know forms by focusing on the mind and it’s contents. Introspection: searching one’s inner understanding.  The soul is a part of the perfect realm of the abstract world, but it is in the body, so it is our access to this knowledge.  This shows that Plato was a nativist. And rationalist  Mental thinking is how we arrive at truth (rationalism)  The truth is inborn in us (nativism)  Ultimate reality consisted of ideas (Idealism) o The nature of the Soul  Believed the soul was immortal and consists of the:  Courageous component (emotional or spirited)  Appetitive component (hunger, thirst, sex)  Rational component  Humans are almost always in conflict between these aspects. To gain knowledge, a person has to quiet the two parts that are not rational.  Delayed gratification  Supreme goal in life is to be freed from the wants of the flesh.  Not everyone is capable of intense rational thought  Each person differs in which part of their soul is stronger  Discussed a utopian society in which each type of soul would have a different job. o Courage: soldiers o Appetitive: workers and slaves o Reason: Philosopher kings  The kind of a personality theory  Didn’t believe in education for children with low aptitude  Not only a nativist in terms of knowledge, but in character and intelligence. Sleep and Dreams  People are better able to control appetites when awake than asleep.  Very Freudian when it comes to these ideas o Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Plato’s Legacy  Roots of cognitive psychology in Plato  Nativism and rationalism  Created a dualism that divided the mind and body.  Writings were warped by future religions  Aristotle o Background  Received training in medicine  Became Plato’s most brilliant student at 17, plato was 60  Then did alchemy until plato died, left to do biology and medicine, then came back and tutored the son of King Philip the II, future Alexander the great, for four years  Took over a famed school called the Lyceum and it became like a modern university  After Alexander the great died, Aristotle fled and died a year later  Had to flee because the Macedonia associated him with Alexander who had conquered the area. o  Wrote De Anima (On the soul), which is considered the first psychology book.  Added substantially to almost every field though. The Basic Difference between Plato and Aristotle  Both were focused on the essence of truth, but he believed that forms could be discovered by looking outward, not inward (Eg. Studying nature)  Viewed sensory information in a much more positive light.  Aristotle embraced both rationalism and empiricism.  The mind must be used to gather knowledge, but that the object of rationalism is the information of the senses (empiricism)  Both saw that essences or universals could not be discovered by only looking at 1 case.  For plato, all knowledge exists independently of nature. But Aristotle saw them as inseparable.  The body is not a hinderance to understanding  Did not value math as much as plato  o    o Complied an encyclopedia of Sought to explain many psychological things with nature  One of the first physiological psychologists While plato followed more Pythagorean philosophy, Aristotle was more Hippocratic, biological in tradition. Causation and Teleology  To know any thing, we must understand four aspects of it. Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 The material cause: what it is made of Th formal cause: The pattern or chape of something The Efficient Cause: the force that transforms the material thing into a certain form (the sculpter of a statue)  The Final Cause: The purpose for which a thing exists.  Teleology: everything in nature exists for a reason  Does not mean conscious intention though, but that everything has a function built into it.  Built in Function or purpose is called Entelechy o Keeps an object moving or developing until full potential is reached – Acorn has the potential to become an oak tree, but cannot become a frog o Saw the final forms of things in nature as a sort of essence, like how plato saw forms.  Nature itself has a grand design and purpose o Scala Naturae: nature is arranged in a hierarchy ranging from neutral matter to the unmoved mover, whish is pure actuality and is the cause for everything in nature.  Humans are the closest to the unmoved mover  Theory makes it reasonable to study animals in order to understand ourselves, but understood its limited value.  The hierarchy of Souls o A soul is that which gives life. All living things posses a soul which allows them to live. But there are different types of souls.  Vegetative (or nutritive soul): Possessed by plants. Only allows growth, the assimilation of food, and reproduction.  A sensitive soul: possessed by animals, but not plants. Can respond to the environment, experience pleasure, pain and have a memory in addition to the traits of plant souls.  Rational Souls: all the functions of the other two souls, but with the ability to think and have rational thought. Sensation and Reason  Senses provide information about the environment.  Did not believe that objects sent off tiny copies of themselves  Thought instead that perception was explained y the motion of objects that stimulates the senses.    o Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 Eg. Seeing results form the movement o light caused by an object in relation to the sensory abilities of the eye. Believed we could trust our senses. Common sense and reason  Sensor information is necessary, but not sufficient to attain knowledge. It is the combined information from all of our senses that gives us information. o Common sense was believed to be the mechanism that coordinated the information from these sources.  Thought it happened in the heart  Passive reason is the utilization of synthesized experience for getting along effectively in everyday life.  Active reason: the highest form of thinking. The abstraction of principles or essences, from synthesized experiences.  Sensory information: isolated experiences. o   The ultimate goal of humans is to engage in active reason and is a person’s greatest pleasure. o People have inner potential that they may or may not make. Thought that each person’s purpose was the same. o The active reason part of people is immortal but it has no memory so after a person dies there are no recollections. o Did not believe in god or anything.  The unmoved mover was logic itself, not a deity, but it became that after religion got a hold of it. Logica gave everything meaning. Memory and recall  Remembering for Aristotle was a spontaneous recollection of something that had previously bee experienced.  Recall is the actual mental search for a past experience.  Laws of Association o Low of contiguity: when we think of something, we also tend to think of things that were experienced with it o Law of similarity: when we think of something, we tend to think of things similar to it. o Law of contrast: When we think of something, we also think of things that are the opposite.  o Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 The more that things are experienced together, the stronger the association. o Law Of frequency: The more experiences occur together, the stronger the association will be.  May be associated naturally (lightning and thunder) or through learning o The basis of learning theory for the next 2000 years.  Associationism: How complex ideas are formed from simple ones. Imagination and Dreaming  Experiences create images that outlast the actual event that caused them.  These images create the important link between sensation and rational thought because they can be pondered by passive and active intellect.  Imagination: the lingering effect od sensory experiences. o Questioned the reliability of imagination. Said sensations are free of error.  Dreaming: uses images of the past may be stimulated by events inside or outside the body. o During sleep, images are not organised by reason and are not grounded by the images of previous experience. o Was very skeptical about dreams ability to provide information about the future. May inspire action though once awake. o Most cases of prophecy in dreams is just coincidence.  Cicero agreed with him on this  Thought it could potentially be informative about bodily health though and oncoming disease. Motivation and emotion  Happiness is doing what is natural because it fills ones purpose. But we are also motivated by appetites.  Action is always directed at the satisfaction of an appetite.  Appetites cause discomfort and we want to remove discomfort.  We can use out rational powers to inhibit appetites.  Using these rational abilities leads to the greatest fulfillment.  The best life is lived in moderation.  The golden Mean: a perfect balance.  o o Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected]) lOMoARcPSD|37523509 All people however are capable of acting hedonistically.  The lives of the irrational are lives of pleasure and pain.  Described approach-approach conflicts.  Emotions provide a motive for acting.  But may influence how people perceive things and cause selective perception. The Importance of Early Greek Philosophy o Popperian Science consists of specifying a problem, proposing solutions to the problem and attempting to refute those solution  This was the beginning of a very important tradition o Aristotle’s death marked the end of the golden age of Greece.   Downloaded by JENESAH HANKE ([email protected])