Renaissance Changing Times in Psychology PDF

RENAISSAN CE Changing Times in Psychology  BEFORE RENAISSANCE: Till 14th and 15th century, philosophy served religion Two classes: believers and nonbelievers Nonbelievers were physically punished, imprisoned or killed (stupid and evil) Astrology, su...

RENAISSAN CE Changing Times in Psychology  BEFORE RENAISSANCE: Till 14th and 15th century, philosophy served religion Two classes: believers and nonbelievers Nonbelievers were physically punished, imprisoned or killed (stupid and evil) Astrology, superstition and magic became extremely popular. Not a time for open inquiry. Philosophers engaged in ‘normal philosophy’ Church authority was on a decline. Little philosophical, theological or scientific growth. For progress to occur, Church authority had to be broken. Zia’s Regime??  BEGINNING OF MODERN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY: Renaissance means ‘rebirth’ Going back to the more open-minded inquiry – Greek philosophers’ method. Europe – from God-centered to human-centered. God existed in nature so studying nature is studying God. There was more to humans that their souls. Reliable sensory system- why not use them? Reasoning powers- why not exercise them? Enjoyment- why not ENJOY? From heavens to living in the world. (From Living for Afterlife to Living for Life)  The Renaissance was a period of time from the 14th to the 17th century in Europe. This era bridged the time between the Middle Ages and modern times. The word "Renaissance" means "rebirth". The Renaissance was a time of "coming out of the dark". It was a rebirth of education, science, art, literature, music, and a better life for people in general. The term Renaissance is used to describe the development  The Renaissance is best known for its art as this was the age of geniuses as Leonardo da Vinci, Petrarch, Dante, and Michelangelo. Where the medieval period of art was looked upon as an age of beliefs and religious faiths (It was laden with work that depicted fears and superstitions). The Renaissance period of art was also looked upon as a rebirth period. It was regarded as an age of hope. People were beginning to think more logically without accepting everything that church said during this time. This change in the thought pattern was illustrated as paintings too.  The term Renaissance Man refers to a person that is an expert and talented in many areas. Under this new way of thinking, knowledge was seen as one of the primary raisons d'être for life itself – and there followed a passion to seek out forgotten books among the monasteries and libraries of Europe. With every “lost” classic rediscovered, the influence of these texts grew. It was an intellectual movement which originated in the thirteenth century, and came to dominate Europe through out the Renaissance. Humanism was using the study of classical texts to alter contemporary thinking, breaking away from the medieval mind-sets and creating something new. Humanism denotes an intense interest in human beings, as if we were discovering ourselves for the first time. During this time, interest was focused on a wide range of human activities. How do we think, behave, and feel? Of what are we capable? RENAISSANCE  Four major themes: 2. Personal religion – 1. Individualism – Great Religion to be more personal and less ritualistic, concern with human religion to be more potential and achievement, personally experienced than power of individualism. The imposed on people by belief in the power of the church. individual to make a positive difference in the world created a spirit of RENAISSANCE HUMANISM optimism. Humanism- interest in human beings (as discovering ourselves for the first time).How do we think, behave and feel? What are we capable of? 4. Anti-Aristotelianism – Aristotle’s philosophy as Bible 3. Intense interest in past – Interest in the work of Greek and Roman philosophers, Humanists were against it as and poets Aristotle was a human and capable of Interest in Plato as he was re-found making errors an re-studied Marsilio Ficino- founded Platonic Unfortunately, Aristotle’s philosophy academy in Florence had to be accepted to be a Christian Old Eastern religions were re- discovered. Accepting church dogma became more important than one’s personal relationship with God; therefore, the FRENCESCO PETRARCH (1304–1374) Petrarch (1304 - 1374) has been called the Father of Italian Humanism. He argued that each person should study the ancients and create their own style to reflect themselves. Had Petrarch not lived, Humanism would have been seen as more threatening to Christianity. Influential- his writings mark the beginning of Renaissance All the themes discussed previously are found in his work Concerned with freeing human spirit from medieval traditions Target of attack- Scholasticism- said ‘Like those who have no notion of architecture, they make it their profession to whitewash walls’ Urged a return to personal religion like described by St. Augustine Scholasticism made religion too intellectual to compete it with Aristotelian rationalism God wanted humans to use their vast capabilities and not inhibit them. By actualizing human potential we can change the world for the better Did not create anything new philosophically. His scepticism towards all forms of dogma helped pave the way  MARTIN LUTHER: (1483–1546) https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=FhGGjR jvq7w  MARTIN LUTHER: Augustinian priest and biblical scholar, disgusted by present Christianity Human intentions are inspired either by God or by Satan: former results in God’s work, latter is sin If people have sinned, they should suffer the consequences Intensely personal religion: everyone is answerable to God Reformation (1517)- Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg Opposed the idea of sinner paying a fees to reduce the retribution for their sins Jesus preached the glory of simple life, devoid of luxury and privilege Major reason for the downfall of Catholicism was its assimilation of Aristotle’s philosophy Due to all the arguments he had with Erasmus on free will, Luther’s protest against church gave birth to a new religion Protestantism insisting that every individual has the right to interpret the Bible in his or her own way Dispute over which version of Christianity was correct soon divided Europe  The decline in the church’s authority was directly related to the rise of a new spirit of inquiry that took as its ultimate authority empirical observation instead of the scriptures, faith, or revelation. Gradually, church dogma was replaced by the very thing it had opposed the most—the direct observation of nature without the intervention of theological considerations. But the transition, although steady, was slow and painful. Many Renaissance scholars were caught between theology and science because of either personal beliefs or fear of retaliation by the church. They reported their The work of a few astronomer-physicists was most detrimental to church dogma and most influential in creating a new way of examining nature’s secrets. That new way was called science. GALELIO (1564–1642)  Brilliant Mathematician Set out to correct a number of misconceptions about the world and about heavenly bodies Challenged Aristotle’s contention that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5vezYaOpC4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maqhxq_LEMQ  Modified the newly invented telescope and discovered 4 of Jupiter’s moons  Which meant that there were at LEAST 11 bodies in the solar system and not 7 like the church had said  People refused to look through his telescope  heresy (blasphemy)  “If God meant man to use such a contrivance in acquiring knowledge, He would have endowed men with telescopic eyes”  Objective and Subjective Reality  Objective Reality  exists independently of anyone’s perception of it  Physical reality  quantity, shape, size, position, and motion or rest.  Subjective Reality  exists through our senses  purely psychological experiences  purely relative, subjective, and fluctuating  Conscious experiences cannot be scientific Conscious experiences are inferior to the “real world” Thus, for Galileo, what we study in Psychology today could never be quantified and thus should never be a science Secondary qualities  UNRELIABLE  A man named Ronald Cotton went on trial He was accused of brutally raping a university student named Jennifer Thompson 1986 Case Jennifer testified that during the ordeal, which happened at night in the darkness of her apartment bedroom, she intently studied the rapists face  1986 Case Jennifer  15 years later: “‘I looked at his hairline; I looked for scars, for tattoos, for anything that would help me identify him.” STRONG MEMORY Identified Mr. Cotton  Rapist  1986 Case “I knew this was the man. I was completely confident. I was sure.... If there was the possibility of a death sentence, I wanted him to die. I wanted to flip the switch” Mr. Cotton was sentenced to serve life + 54 years  1986 Case Mr. Cotton consistently appealed his conviction  maintaining his innocence Another man  Prison inmate Bobby Poole  discovered to have boasted to his cellmates about having committed the rape for which Mr. Cotton had been convicted. Ms. Thompson was shown Mr. Poole  “I have never seen this man in my life, I have no idea who he is”  1986 Case AFTER SERVING 11 YEARS IN PRISON  Mr. Cotton was EXONERATED of the crime DNA EVIDENCE  confirmed Bobby Poole was the rapist Jennifer Thompson  became a strong advocate of EXTREME caution when convicting a defendant solely on the basis of someone’s memory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubuXSiv0wtw FRANCIS BACON (1561–1626)  RADICAL EMPIRICIST Who believed that nature could be understood only by studying it directly and objectively. Accounts of how nature How Many Teeth should be based on scripture, faith, or any philosophical or theological Does A Horse authority would only hamper one’s Have? efforts to learn how the world Actually Functions. In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse. For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this region was made manifest. At the beginning of the fourteenth day, a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard-of and to look in the open mouth of a horse and find answer to their questionings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed exceeding wroth; and, joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith. For, said they, surely Satan hath tempted this bold neophyte to declare unholy and unheard-of ways of finding truth, contrary to all the teachings of the fathers. After many days more of grievous strife, the dove of peace sat on the assembly, and they as one man declaring the problem to be an everlasting mystery because of a grievous dearth of historical and theological evidence thereof, so ordered the same writ down. —Francis Bacon, 1592  Galileo vs Bacon Galileo  sought general principles that governed the physical world  Science should be based on deduction (Theory  prediction  testing  conclusion) Baconian (Deduction: involves predicting a particular event science from a general principle) Bacon  science should only involve facts of observation  should be based on induction (Observation  testing  prediction  conclusion) (Induction: Specific to General)  Deduction  pre-conceived notions (Aristotle’s Final Causes) Accepting a theory  create a bias in one’s observations Baconian science No authority, no theory, no words, no mathematical formulation, no belief, and no fantasy could displace empirical observation as the basis of factual knowledge. Today  Positivism  In Baconian science, one proceeds from observation to generalization (induction); in Galilean science, and later in Newtonian science, one proceeds from a general law to the prediction of specific, empirical events (deduction). Bacon did not deny the importance of the Baconian rational powers of the mind, but he believed that science those powers should be used to understand the facts of nature rather than the figments of the human imagination. What Bacon (1620/1994) proposed was a position intermediate between traditional empiricism (simply fact gathering) and rationalism (the creation of abstract principles)  “Empiricists, like ants, merely collect things and use them. The Rationalists, like spiders, spin webs out of themselves. The middle way is that of the bee, which gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and field, but then Baconian transforms and digests it by a power of its own. And the true business of philosophy is much the science same, for it does not rely only or chiefly on the powers of the mind, nor does it store the material supplied by natural history and practical experiments untouched in its memory, but lays it up in the understanding changed and refined. Thus from a closer and purer alliance of the two faculties—the experimental and the rational, such as has never yet been made—we have good reason for hope. “  Science should provide useful information Science should change the world for the better Baconian “Human knowledge and human power come to the same thing, for where the cause is not known the science effect cannot be produced. We can only command Nature by obeying her” By “understanding nature,” Bacon meant knowing how things are causally related; once these relationships are known, their practical implications could be explored. Hence the Famous “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER” QUOTE  Baconian science Ahead of his time  scientists should purge their minds of their biases Currently it is agreed that observations of ALL SCIENTISTS are ”theory-laden” One’s acceptance of a theory influences what one observes and how one interprets what one observes  Does this happen? Does one’s acceptance of a theory influence what one observes and how one interprets "Right Now” what one observes? Discussion Examples? Cognitive Dissonance and Self-fulfilling Prophesies RENE DESCARTE (1596–1650)  Went through an intellectual crises  everything he had ever learnt was useless (especially philosophy) Philosophers had been seeking the truth for centuries  never found it or agreed on anything  hence everything in philosophy was uncertain This realization  deep depression He decided that he would be better off learning things for himself instead of from the “experts”: “I resolved to seek no other knowledge than that which I might find within myself, or perhaps in the great book of nature” 4 RULES FOR CERTAINTY 1. Never accept anything as true unless I recognize it to be evidently as such (avoid prejudices) carefully to avoid all precipitation and prejudgment, and to include nothing in my conclusions unless it presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that there was no reason or occasion to doubt it. 2. Divide each of the difficulties encountered into as many parts as possible 3. Think in an orderly fashion beginning with the simplest and gradually moving towards the more complex knowledge 4. Always make enumerations complete, and reviews so general, that I would be certain that nothing was omitted  Resigned himself to doubt everything that could be doubted Thus began Descartes’s search for philosophical truth. He resigned himself to doubt everything that could be doubted and to use whatever was certain.  After a painful search, Descartes concluded that the only thing of which he could be certain was the fact that he was doubting; but doubting was thinking, and thinking necessitated a thinker. Thus, he arrived at his celebrated conclusion: “Cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am). Descartes established the certainty of his own thought processes, a certainty that, for him, made the introspective search for knowledge valid. It was the end of the search Descartes conducted for a statement that could not be doubted. He found that he could not doubt that he himself existed, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place! https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/descartes-i-think-therefore-i- am/ INNATE IDEAS Natural components of the mind. I am imperfect  but some ideas I have are perfect  Since perfect cannot come from imperfect  must be innate “The only hypothesis left was that this idea was put in my mind by a nature that was really more perfect than I was, which had all the perfections that I could imagine, and which was, in a word, God”  Because God exists and is perfect  he would not deceive humans  thus we can trust the information provided by our senses Sensory information must be clear and distinct  to be accepted as valid. Clear means that the information is represented clearly in consciousness, and distinct means that the conscious experience cannot be doubted or divided for further analysis Seeing a stick partially submerged in water  concluding that it is bent Descartes concluded (1) that rational processes were valid and that knowledge of the physical world gained through the senses could be accepted because God would not deceive us, but (2) that even sensory information had to be analysed rationally in order to determine its validity.  Descartes method  Intuition + Deduction Intuition  unbiased and attentive mind arrives at a clear distinct idea such that it’s validity cannot be doubted Once the idea is discovered  One can deduce many other valid ideas Example: God exists (intuition)  We can trust sensory information because God will not deceive us (Deduction) It is important to note that Descartes’s method restored the dignity to purely subjective experience, which had been lost because of Galileo’s philosophy. In fact, Descartes found that he could doubt the existence of everything physical (including his own body) but could not doubt the existence of himself as a thinking being!  Descartes was a rationalist  Logic above all else He was a nativist  innate ideas But he was also a phenomenologist  studied the nature of conscious experience  Reflexes were explained in terms of “animal spirit” Believing that the presence of animal spirits distinguished the living from the nonliving,. Descartes described animal spirits as a gentle wind or a subtle flame. Descartes thought of the nerves as hollow tubes containing “delicate threads” that connected the sense receptors to the brain. These threads were connected to the cavities or ventricles of the brain, which were filled with animal spirits Animals were purely reflexive  they could not ACTUALLY feel  The mind-body interaction The human body operates on physical principles but the mind does not However, they still INTERACT with each other. How? The mind  Consciousness, free choice, rationality, etc.  Contribution to Psychology Offered a mechanistic explanation of bodily functions and behavior After him, philosophers often either talked about human beings as machines or stressed upon the importance of cognition (consciousness) Thus, in one way or the other they were all reactions to Descartes’s theory  Despite Descartes’s efforts to appease the church, his books were placed on the Catholic index of forbidden books  lead to atheism Died of Pneumonia REST.IN.PIECES Descartes Body was exhumed 16 years later to be shifted to France Finger was cut off and head removed