History of Psychology - Session 2: Pre-Psychology PDF

History of Psychology Session 2: Pre-Psychology Rui Mata, Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences September 30, 2024 Learning Objectives for Today Recognise that main questions in psychological science today have long traditions dating back (at least) to classical antiquity Ident...

History of Psychology Session 2: Pre-Psychology Rui Mata, Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences September 30, 2024 Learning Objectives for Today Recognise that main questions in psychological science today have long traditions dating back (at least) to classical antiquity Identify key issues already raised by thinkers from classic antiquity (Plato, Aristotle) and discuss their relation to more recent ideas in psychology Identify the origins of the scienti c revolution in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and discuss main points of contention between the rationalist and empiricist views that arose from this era as well as their relation to more recent ideas in psychology Identify the origins of “psychology” as part of philosophical inquiry 3 fi  GREEK LATIN psukhē psyche breath, life, soul mid 17th century 4 PSYCH BEFORE PSYCH! What past (pre 19th century) concepts or discussions, could be relevant to our understanding and thinking about psychology today? 5 6  The School of Athens (1509-1511), Raphael, Apostolic Palace, Vatican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens Plato Aristotle (holding Timaeus) (holding Ethics) 7  “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.” Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) Gardner, H. (1985). The mind's new science: A history of the cognitive revolution. New York: Basic Books. 8 Plato Socrate’s disciple, founded the Academy for Philosophy in 385 BC in Athens (at Academus, an olive and plane grove near Athens) Idealism and Theory of Forms the idea that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental or mentally constructed; senses do not necessarily deliver a true picture Plato (427-347 BC) of the physical world (cf. analogy of the cave) Dualist Views (separation of body and soul) Nativist Views (the soul possesses a priori knowledge that can be recalled) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/ 9  Meno: Plato’s view on innate knowledge “Meno: Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way? Meno By drawing geometric gures Socrates tries to demonstrate that a slave, apparently unknowledgeable, appears to understand basic geometric principles, speci cally, answer the question: How long must a square’s side be to double the area of a 2 feet-sided square? The slave initially guesses (incorrectly) that the original side must be doubled in length. Socrates then draws a second square using the diagonal of the original square. Each diagonal cuts each two foot square in half, yielding an area of two square feet. The square composed of four of the eight interior triangular areas is eight square feet, double 2 feet that of the original area. He gets the slave to agree that this is twice the size of the original square and says that the slave has "spontaneously recovered" knowledge. Plato’s Meno represents an example of his idea of anamnesis, that certain knowledge is innate and "recalled" by the soul through proper inquiry. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html 10 fi fi A modern form of Plato’s problem In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky introduced the “poverty of the stimulus” argument as a critique of B. F. Skinner’s idea that language is learned solely through experience. According to Chomsky, this is a version of “Plato’s problem”: children are not exposed to rich enough data (i.e., feedback) in their linguistic environments to acquire every feature of their language - therefore, some knowledge of linguistics must be innate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus Chomsky, N. (1959). A review of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior. Language, 35, 1, 26-58. 11  Phaedrus: Plato’s view on the soul (psyche) The Chariot Allegory "Of the nature of the soul (…) let me speak brie y, and in a gure. And let the gure be composite-a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. (…) the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him.” Phaedrus the Charioteer represents the intellect or reason that steers rational or moral impulse as well as irrational passions and appetites. Only the intellect, not the body, is immortal and allows entrance to the world of ideas. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/phaedrus.html 12 fi fl fi  Plato’s view on the soul (psyche) “The same thing clearly cannot act or be acted upon in the same part or in relation to the same thing at the same time, in contrary ways; and therefore whenever this contradiction occurs in things apparently the same, we know that they are really not the same, but different.” The Republic Greek Term Seat in the Position in Soul Component (Domain) body Society epithymetikon Desire/Appetitive Soul Abdomen Worker (Emotion) thymoeides Spirit/Spirited soul Breast Warrior (Motivation) logistikon Reason/Logical soul Head Ruler (Cognition) http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html 13  Aristotle Plato’s disciple, founded a philosophy school in 335 BC, the „Lyceum“ at Lykeion, a grove in Athen, behind todays’ Hellenic Parliament) Contributions to many different areas of knowledge (theoretical, practical, productive sciences) - biology - logic and causality Aristotele (384-322 BC) - psychology: memory, dreams, health - emphasis on practical goals of philosophy (rhetoric, ethics, the good life) Monist body and soul are two interdependent parts that support and rely on each other; the body as a tool of the soul https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/ Bocage Map of Athens (1784) 14  Aristotle: Causes material (what it is made of) nal (what it is for) causes formal (what it is to be) ef cient (what produces it) 15 fi fi  Aristotle: Causes Krakauer, J. W., Ghazanfar, A. A., Gomez-Marin, A., MacIver, M. A., & Poeppel, D. (2017). Neuroscience needs behavior: Correcting a reductionist bias. Neuron, 93(3), 480–490. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.12.041 16  De Anima: Aristotle’s view on the soul (psyche) “It is not necessary to ask whether soul and body are one, just as it is not necessary to ask whether the wax and its shape are one, nor generally whether the matter of each thing and that of which it is the matter are one. For even if one and being are spoken of in several ways, what is properly so spoken of is the actuality. Tripartite view of the soul in which faculties or powers are distinguished (yet the soul is viewed as not being divisible as in Plato’s view) Faculty Function Vegetative/Nutritional threptikon (Nutrition, Growth) oretikon (Desires) Animal/Appetitive aisthetikon (Perception) kinetikon (Movement) Intellectual/Calculative dianoetikon (Reason) 17 Modern psychology’s latent factors Today’s modern theories of intellectual and personality functions also hypothesise latent factors that are not directly observable… Deary, I. J. (2001). Human intelligence differences: A recent history. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5(3), 127–130. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01621-1 Funder, D. C. (2001). Personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 197–221. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.197 18  Nicomachean Ethics: Aristotle’s view on well-being "what is best is not "He is happy who lives in abstaining from pleasures, accordance with complete but instead controlling them vir tue and is su ciently without being controlled." equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life." Aristippus Aristotle hedonism eudaimonism re ects the view that well-being consists re ects the view that well-being consists of pleasure or happiness. of ful lling or realizing one’s daimon or true nature. Both hedonic and eudaemonic views remain well represented in modern theories of human motivation. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 141–166. doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.141 19 fl fl fi ffi A lecture in 14th Century Bologna (some things never change…) Liber ethicorum des Henricus de Alemannia, Laurentius de Voltolina (1350) 20 Galileo Galilei – 1564 Birth in Pisa, Italy – 1609 Develops a new telescope – 1610 Discovery of Jupiter’s Moons – 1613 Discovery of Venus’ phases evidence that Venus revolves around the sun favours Copernican (heliocentric) over Aristotelian/Ptolemaic (geocentric) system – 1616 Admonishment by the Pope Galileo Galilei – 1623 Publishes “The Assayer”, his “scientific (1564-1642) manifesto” – 1632 Publishes “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” and is later arrested – 1633 Judged for heresy in Rom Consequence: life-long house arrest, publication ban – 1642 Death – 1992 (!) rehabilitated by the church 21  Galileo Galilei Galileo’s Telescope The Assayer Dialogue [Concerning the Two Chief World Systems] The book presents a series of discussions between three men, Salviati (a stand-in for Galileo), Sagredo (an initial neutral layman), and Simplicio (a follower of “Philosophy [i.e. natural philosophy] is written Galileo made his rst telescope in geocentric views). The book discusses a number of in this grand book — I mean the Universe — 1609, and with it was able to, phenomena, including Venus’ phases and sunspots which stands continually open to our gaze, but among other things, verify the (that are largely correct by today’s standards), but also it cannot be understood unless one rst learns phases of Venus, and discover a theory of tides (that we now now to be false). The to comprehend the language and interpret the sunspots, that he was later to use dialogue did not discuss the geocentric theory of Thyco characters in which it is written. It is written in as support for a heliocentric view. Brahe that some astronomers preferred at the time (a the language of mathematics, and its hybrid system of the Copernican and Ptolemaic models; characters are triangles, circles, and other Mercury and Venus orbit the Sun, but the Sun orbits a geometrical gures, without which it is humanly stationary Earth; Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn orbit the Sun impossible to understand a single word of it; in much larger circles, which means they also orbit the without these, one is wandering around in a Earth). At the time, the two systems were not dark labyrinth.” distinguishable from the existing data. power of and need for mathematics as the using data to distinguish theories instrumentation in science language of science (but also omission of problems!) 22 fi fi fi Francis Bacon In 1645, his “Novum Organum Scientarium” helped establish and popularise the scientific method (i.e., inductive method). By reasoning using "induction", Bacon meant the ability to generalize a finding stepwise, based on accumulating data. He advised proceeding by this method, or in other words, by building a case from the ground up. For example, Bacon suggests that one draws up a list of all things in which the phenomenon to explain occurs, as well as a list of things in which it does not occur. Then one can rank the lists according to the degree in which the phenomenon occurs in each one. Then one should be able to deduce what factors match the occurrence of the phenomenon in one list and don't occur in the other list, and also what factors Francis Bacon (1561-1626) change in accordance with the way the data had been ranked. Broadly, this approach could be seen as a synthesis of experience and reason… https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/francis-bacon/ 23 Rationalism and Empiricism Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Rationalism The epistemological view that René Descartes (1596-1650) reason is the main source of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) knowledge, and, consequently, that there are signi cant ways in John Locke (1632-1704) which concepts and knowledge can be gained independently of Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) sensory experience — deduction. Isaac Newton (1642-1726) Empiricism Carl Linnaeus (1708-1778) The epistemological view that experience is the main source of David Hume (1711-1776) knowledge, and that emphasizes Jean-Jacques Rosseau (1712-1778) the role of evidence in the formation of ideas and beliefs — Adam Smith (1723-1790) induction—over the notion of innate knowledge or deduction. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) 24 1550 1600 1650 1700 1750 1800 fi  “The rst was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.” (1637) 25 fi René Descartes Nativism Descartes believed that the human soul already comes equipped at birth with an innate understanding of certain concepts, such as time or space. Dualism res extensa (body) vs. res cogitans (mind/soul) the body works like a machine and has material properties, the mind or soul is nonmaterial and does not follow the laws of nature René Descartes The mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland, "the (1596-1650) seat of the soul". The hypothesis was derived from, first, the idea that the soul is unitary, and unlike many areas of the brain the pineal gland appeared to be unitary (more careful inspection reveals it is formed of two hemispheres). Second, the pineal gland is located near the ventricles and Descartes proposed the cerebrospinal fluid of the ventricles acted through the nerves to control the body (Spiritus animales). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/ 26 Descartes’ Error? More recent theories in psychology and neuroscience, such as Damasio’s, engage directly with Descartes’ views on dualism by questioning the distinctions between reason and emotion based on recent neuropsychological evidence (lesion studies and associated decision and personality deficits). Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. Putnam Publishing. 27 John Locke and David Hume English physician and Scottish philosopher, philosopher, statesman economist, historian Wrote Essay concerning Wrote A treatise on human human understanding, nature, 1739, in which he 1690, in which he argued against the postulated that, at birth, the existence of innate ideas, mind is a blank slate or postulating that humans can tabula rasa. Contrary to have knowledge only of the John Locke Cartesian philosophy based objects of experience, and David Hume (1632-1704) on pre-existing concepts, he the relations of ideas. He (1711-1776) maintained that we are born also argued that inductive without innate ideas, and reasoning, and therefore that knowledge is instead causality, cannot, ultimately, determined only by be justified rationally, our experience derived from belief in causality and sense perception. induction instead results from custom, habit, and experience rather than logic. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ R 28 Hume’s Principles of Association Associationism The idea that mental processes operate by the association of mental states. The principles of association are still studied today, for example, concerning the principles of semantic knowledge acquisition and representation (see examples below). Network or Associationist Representations of Semantic Knowledge Different proposals have been made concerning how network structures may represent semantic knowledge, including (A) tree-structured hierarchical networks (Collins & Quillian, 1969), (B) random, unstructured networks (Collins & Loftus, 1975), or, more recently, scale- free, small-world networks (Steyvers & Tenenbaum, 2005). Steyvers, M., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2005). The large-scale structure of semantic networks: statistical analyses and a model of semantic growth. Cognitive Science, 29(1), 41–78. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2901_3 29 Rationalism and Empiricism: Commonalities and differences Both rationalist and empiricist views represented attempts to go beyond religious dogma (scholasticism), and propose new methodologies to uncover the “truth”, that is, obtain knowledge of the world through systematic methods (i.e., science). Rationalism and empiricism have different emphasis on deduction (i.e., the process of reasoning from one or premises to reach a logically certain conclusion) vs. induction (i.e., the accumulation of evidence or premises to provide support for a particular conclusion). It was the philosophical work of Immanuel Kant that contributed to a more common acceptance of the integration between rationality and empiricist views. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/ 30 SAME OR DIFFERENT? To what extent are today’s perspectives and approaches to psychology the same or di erent relative to the past ones discussed in this session? 31 ff “Psychology” throughout the ages The rst use of the term "psychology" was likely by the Croatian humanist Marko Marulić (1450–1524) in the title of his Latin treatise, Psichiologia de ratione animae humanae. The German scholastic philosopher Rudolf Göckel (1547–1628), also used the term in Psychologia hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu (1590). However, the term did not come into popular usage until the German philosopher, Christian Wolff (1679–1754) used it in his Psychologia empirica (1732) and Psychologia rationalis (1734). This distinction between empirical and rational psychology was picked up in Denis Diderot's (1713–1780) Encyclopédie and popularized in France by Maine de Biran (1766–1824). In England, the term "psychology" overtook "mental philosophy" in the middle of the 19th century, especially in the work of William Hamilton (1788–1856). 32 fi “Psychology” throughout the ages 33 Summary Classical antiquity: no well-de ned eld of psychology, but psychology topics were central parts of the intellectual debate in the emerging eld of philosophy (e.g., discussion on the nature of knowledge, the structure and functions of the soul, ethics and morality, as well as implications for education and politics); Renaissance and enlightenment: pronounced cultural change from scholasticism to humanism, emergence of science and its institutionalisation (e.g., universities!); continued discussion on the nature of knowledge and associated topics (rationalism vs empiricism); Contrast and compare: Then and now, similar questions and goals, heated debates about nature-nurture views of human psychology, the structure of the soul/mind, ethics/morality, among many others; however, at least until the 19th century psychology not an independent, empirical science… “psychology”: initially, a term used to describe mental life, increasingly used to describe the branch of philosophy dedicated to mental issues in the 19th century (substituting “mental philosophy”) and one that will become distinct from philosophy and ever more institutionalised (more on this in session 3). 34 fi fi fi