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Who was Francis Bacon?
Bacon was a radical Empiricist who believed that nature could only be understood by experiencing it directly. He believed that following scripture or faith would be not only futile but also a hindrance to knowledge.
What did Bacon demonstrate in his book Novum Organum (New Method)?
He demonstrated the use of the scientific method to discover knowledge about the natural world. The title is a bit of a dig at Aristotle’s book Organon as a revolt against Aristotle and past attempts at scientific thought.
What was Baconian Science often contrasted with?
It was contrasted with Descartes.
Descartes followed deductive reasoning, whereas Bacon promoted inductive reasoning.
What is deductive reasoning?
A top-down method, which begins with a theory, then a hypothesis, and makes observations that hopefully confirm the hypothesis.
What is inductive reasoning?
A bottom-up method. It begins with observations, notices patterns, then formulates a hypothesis and a theory.
What did Bacon believe about science?
Science should have no theories, hypotheses, mathematics, or deductions but rather should just focus on observations.
What did Bacon believe about hypothesis and theory?
He did not suggest that hypothesis and theories were inaccurate, but rather that if someone was conducting research with a pre-determined theory or hypothesis, then their perspective might be biased. Theories and hypotheses were mere words and prone to errors of interpretation, and mathematics was just symbols. Neither of them were unbiased observations.
What did Bacon suggest in the debate between empiricism and rationalism?
He suggested finding a middle ground, thinking both had their merits but a third option would possibly be better suited, like a bee that gathers materials from flowers, and then transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
Both empiricism and rationalism have their place in the scientific method. We need rationalism to formulate hypotheses and we need empiricism to be able to make quantifiable observations.
What are the 4 errors Bacon warned could creep into the world of science (specifically scientific investigation)?
Idols of the cave
Idols of the Tribe
Idols of the Marketplace
Idols of the Theatre
What are Idols of the Cave?
Personal biases that can influence how one perceives the world.
For example, an atheist and a devout Christian looking at the same sunrise might perceive it differently.
What are Idols of the Tribe?
Biases due to human nature.
Our perception may be distorted because humans “distort and discolour the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it”.
For example, when we anthropomorphize or project our ideas onto non-humans, it suggests the belief that human perception is the standard for all things.
What are Idols of the Marketplace?
Overly influenced by the meaning assigned to words.
This is the bias that comes from labels.
For example, do we treat psychopaths the same as other people?
What are Idols of the Theatre?
Blind allegiance to a viewpoint.
For example, being an anti-vaxxer and only accepting information that suits that perspective.
What did Bacon believe about science?
Science should provide useful information and offer advances that could positively change the world. Science adds to knowledge, and “knowledge itself is power”.
How did British Empiricism develop?
As a response/reaction to Descartes’ perspectives.
Although they were in opposition to his nativist position, they were in agreement with his perspective of the body as a machine.
How did the British Empiricists attempt to explain the functioning of the mind?
In the same terms that Newton had used to explain the universe.
Humans, from this perspective, are machines within bigger machines, and follow the laws of matter and motion.
Who were the 5 main contributors to British Empiricism?
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
George Berkeley
David Hume
John Stuart Mill
Who was Thomas Hobbes?
He is considered the founder of British Empiricism, that that title has also been shared with John Locke.
What inspired Hobbes?
A copy of Euclid’s Elements, a famous book of the mathematical knowledge of the classical Greeks, as well as meeting with Galileo, to suggest a similar mechanistic perspective of the human body.
What is one of Hobbes famous quotes that describe his view on the human body?
“Life is but motion of limbs. For what s the heart but a spring; and the nerves but so many strings and the joints but so many wheels giving motion to the whole body”
This places us as machines within a bigger machine, the universe.
What 2 theories did Hobbes believe in?
Materialism, in that he followed the doctrine that suggests that matter is the fundamental substance in nature and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions.
He was considered a physical monist because he did not believe that the mind was a separate immaterial entity but rather a series of motions within the person, like gears that appear in machines. All mental phenomena can be explained by physical experiences that result from the motion of external bodies, which stimulate the sense receptors.
How can all psychological phenomeno be explained?
Through sensory experiences, even the ones that we seem to attribute specifically to humans.
Which experiences do we attribute specifically to humans?
Attention
Imagination
Dreams
How do we sensorily experience attention?
As long as sense organs retain the motion caused by specific external stimuli, they cannot respond to others.
How do we sensorily experience imagination?
Sense impressions fade over time but can be recalled, but we do not have an imagination in the sense that our minds can create anything that our senses have not experienced.
How do we sensorily experience dreams?
Dreams can be vivid because there is no other sensory impression to compete with the imagination.
What does Hobbes argue about humans’ capability of complex thought?
Hobbes argued that what seems like complexity is really just us being able to pool from our resources of ideas that have been associated with a topic.
What phrase did Hobbes coin in his book Leviathan?
‘Train of Thoughts’
What does Hobbes mean by ‘Train of Thoughts’?
He defines ‘train’ as “a succession of one thought to another” or a ‘mental discourse’, to be distinguished from discourse in words.
Basically, this is the tendency of one thought to follow another in a coherent manner. This might seem like our minds must be capable of some pretty intense and deep analysis of a topic.
What does the law of contiguity suggest?
That when two events occur in close proximity of time or space, we tend to think they are associated.
(originated with Aristotle)
What theory did Hobbes propose?
He proposed a hedonistic theory of motivation or what drove us to behave in certain ways. Behaviour was divided into:
appetitive: seeking or maintaining pleasure
aversive: avoidance or termination of pain
If behaviour results in something pleasurable, we will keep doing it but if it results in pain or displeasure, we will stop doing it.
What does the hedonistic theory suggest about free will?
Learning, and even morality, based on this theory, leaves little room for free will.
Basically, whatever is pleasurable is good and whatever is painful is evil. This is a very deterministic view of behaviour. It is very predictable; if you derive pleasure from an act, you will do it again.
Although people may believe that they are in control because they believe they are choosing a particular behaviour, really it is just a response to these motivators.
What did John Locke believe?
In opposition to Descartes’ nativist ideas, John Locke brings the opposing stance, which will be a fundamental concept to empiricism and early behaviourism, the tabula rasa or blank slate.
What was one of Locke’s arguments?
That if knowledge was innate, then there would be principles that would be universally recognized, and he believed there was no such thing.
Also, if there were innate principles of truth in the human mind, then reason would not be necessary. Even morality, he believed, was not universally agreed upon.
If we come into this world with no pre-existing knowledge, who we become is based on the experiences we have.
What did Locke believe about ideas?
He believed that ideas, mental images while thinking, all come from either sensation or reflection.
What is sensation vs reflection?
The direct sensory stimulation by something external to the mind, whereas a reflection is an internal operation of the mind, such as thinking back on past sensation.
Therefore, sensation is passive and reflection is active.
How does Locke differentiate between simple and complex ideas?
Simple ideas cannot be divided further, while complex ideas are composites of simple ideas that can be analyzed into their parts. Complex ideas are formed either through a combination of simple ideas or by taking simple ideas and putting them through an operation of the mind, such as comparing, judging, abstracting, remembering, and reasoning through reflection.
What did Locke believe was innate?
He did not believe in innate knowledge, but he did believe in innate operations of the mind. Although we can conceive of a god, the knowledge of one is not innate.
What did Locke believe about the mind?
Although his version of a mind had elements of activity that most Empiricists do not, he believed that the mind was only able to re-configure ideas rather than generating new ones (which will be more the realm of Rationalists).
What did Locke believe about emotions?
For Locke, feelings of pleasure and pain accompany simple and complex ideas. Although humans seem to have a wide range of emotions in our repertoire, Locke highlights that all other emotions are derived from these two basic feelings.
What is a quality?
The ability for a physical object to produce an idea.
Locke differentiated between primary and secondary qualities in terms of the types of ideas that these qualities produced.
What is a Primary Quality?
Primary qualities create ideas in us that correspond to actual physical attribute of objects such as solidarity, extension, shape, motion, and quantity.
What is a Secondary Quality?
Secondary qualities produce ideas which do not correspond to the objects in the real world and can be colour, sound, temperature, and taste.
What are primary and secondary qualities similar to?
What we would call objective and subjective.
But it is crucial to note that Locke meant that these qualities were properties of the physical object itself and not our minds.
The claim is not that temperature or “cold” exists only in our mind, but rather that the sensation of coldness that is in our mind does not resemble whatever it is in the physical world that caused us to have this idea.
How does Locke show how temperature is a secondary quality?
Through the paradox of the basins.
Imagine there are three basins that have water of varying temperatures. Basin A has cold water, basin B has hot water, and basin C has warm water.
If you place your left hand in basin A and your right hand in basin B, you will feel cold on one and hot on the other.
Now, if you place both hands in basin C, how will your hands feel? Will they feel the same? No, your left hand will feel like it is hot because of the contrast and your right hand will feel cold.
The experience of hot and cold would depend on the person experiencing it. This was evidence that some of our ideas reflected the world as it was, and some did not. This is not to say that these ideas are less valid or less important.
What as Associationism for Locke?
An association of ideas.
He believed that most knowledge was acquired by actively reflecting on ideas and/or running them through the operations of the mind.
However, ideas were also influenced by the law of contiguity and as such, might lead us to faulty beliefs, which he referred to as “a degree of madness”.
What example does Locke use to explain the association of ideas?
“Someone who eats too much honey becomes sick and thereafter avoids even the thought of honey”.
Honey isn’t necessarily a bad thing but a negative association has been formed.
What did Locke’s idea of the blank slate call awareness to?
The treatment of children.
If they are learning by experience then this places the importance on nurture rather than nature. This idea changed the course of education.
How did education change due to Locke’s idea of the blank slate?
Important education took place at home and at school. Parents were encouraged to provide the necessities for children but to also expose them to some hardships “hardening” to raise their own level of resilience. Mild punishment was acceptable but beatings were not. Teachers should praise student accomplishments so that there would be a positive association with school and learning.
What school of thought did George Berkeley found and why?
Mentalism.
Berkeley was disappointed in the decline of scholasticism and religion that he sough out a radical perspective in opposition to materialism. He felt that materialism left no room for God, so he advocated for immaterialism or the denial of material substance. This is the foundational belief in mentalism or idealism.
What is Mentalism?
It is the belief that the mind is all that exists (the only existing substance is mental), and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind.
What did Berkeley agree + disagree with Locke on?
He agreed with Locke that ideas are the foundation of knowledge.
He disagreed that a physical interaction with the world was necessary. If the material world does not exist, all that exists is our perception of the world, “to be is to be perceived,” which basically states that we exist only in being perceived by another.
He rejected primary qualities in favour of only secondary qualities because they are, by definition, perceived, making them the only truth that exists. All that we encounter, the external reality, was, according to Berkeley, God’s perception. It is through our senses that we are able to experience God’s mind.
What did Berkeley believe about sensations?
Similar to other Empiricists, he believed that all sensations that are experience together become associated due to the law of contiguity.
Each sensory modality supplies its distinct information about the object and, through experience with it, the information from all the modalities become associated.
eg. If you have eaten an apple, you likely will have experienced the feeling of the apple in your hand, the crispness when you bite into it offers a texture, the sweetness, the smell.
All of the modalities offer a distinct sensation, Likely just the idea of an apple elicits all of this information
What theory did Berkeley propose?
The Theory of Distance Perception.
He proposed this theory that was contingent upon the senses and learning.
What did Berkeley argue about our retina?
Certain Rationalists had suggested that the retina used innate understanding of geometry to process depth.
Berkeley argued that our retinas process a two-dimensional world and it was in fact the culmination of several sensory modalities coming together that allowed for processing the third.
How many dimensions is the world made of?
The World of Consciousness is three-dimensional, height, width, and depth.
Interacting with the world begins at a very young age. In infancy, we use our sensorimotor skills to understand the objects around us.
eg. If you had a rattle, you likely picked it up, felt the weight and the shape, and as you brought it closer to you, it seemed bigger and as you moved it away, it got smaller. The tactile, as well as the visual information, allowed you to learn about distance.
What did David Hume set out to do?
Combine empirical philosophy with Newton’s scientific laws.
He developed three laws of association:
Law of Contiguity
Law of Resemblance
Law of Causation
For Hume, these laws were how simple ideas became complex ideas.
What is the Law of Contiguity?
Two ideas co-occur or in close proximity of time and/or space.
What is the Law of Resemblance?
When two ideas resemble each other, they seem related.
What is the Law of Causation?
When two ideas follow one another, it seems as though they show cause and effect.
What rules does Hume suggest that will allow for association by causation?
The cause and effect must be contiguous over time: they must occur in close temporal proximity.
The cause must be prior to the effect.
Constant union between cause and effect.
The same cause always produces the same effect, and the same effect never arises but from the same cause.
eg. When a rolling ball bumps into a stationary ball, the ensuing motions seems to be cause by the impact.
What did John Stewart Mill propose?
A mental chemistry in which complex ideas do not come from combining multiple simple ideas but rather, ideas can fuse together in a creative synthesis to produce something entirely different from the simple ideas from which they originated.
This combination of mental elements creates something greater than or different from the individual elements that make it up.
eg. hydrogen and oxygen coming together to form water
However, this was still a passive process.
What was Mills a crucial contributor for?
The proposed development of psychology as a science.
What was Mills perspective?
He held a deterministic perspective that all behaviour had a knowable cause. He suggested that, in keeping with the materialist position, the mind and body were subject to the laws of nature and could be studied scientifically because they followed primary laws (such as associations).
What are secondary laws?
Aspects that influence behaviours such as our emotional state, our expectations, and our past experiences.
These are more difficult to account for because we don’t have knowledge of how the primary laws interact with secondary laws.
What did Mill argue for?
The development of a “science of the formation of character,” which he called ethology, which would explain how individual minds or characters form under specific circumstances.
Who are the two main contributors to Rationalism?
Baruch Spinoza & Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Who tried to bridge a gap between Rationalism & Empiricism?
Immanuel Kant
What do Rationalists believe?
Mind was immaterial and often akin to the soul.
Believe in an active mind which adds something to the sensations that are picked up by the senses. It does not just organize it, but it transforms it.
True knowledge is innate.
Consciousness can be studied
What do Rationalists want to know more about?
What causes behaviour (rather than observing the behaviour).
Who was Baruch Spinoza?
A big fan of Descartes, but he did not agree with the idea that the mind, body, and God were all separate entities.
If God, nature, and mind were inseparable, then so was the mind and body.
What is Double Aspectism?
The idea that the mind and body are two sides of the same thing.
It is a monist perspective.
Although they are different, they are still part of the same entity.
Anything happening to the body happens to the mind and vice versa. If the body experiences pain, then the mind will have thoughts about it, maybe an emotional response. Likewise, emotions and thoughts can influence the body.
What did Spinoza believe about pleasure and pain?
That they were motivators (he was somewhat of a hedonist).
What was Spinoza’s view on pleasure?
Pleasure meant clarity of mind. A clear mind had a purpose and an understanding of the world. When the mind entertains unclear ideas, it feels weak and vulnerable and the body will also respond negatively.
What did Spinoza believe about sensations?
Sensations are often unclear, therefore the mind seeks to replace them with clear ideas by making sense of them.
What did Spinoza believe to be the master motive?
Self-preservation.
Fleeting passion and unclear thoughts brought about pain. Emotions offered clarity because they are associated with a particular thought.
Behaviours and thoughts that are guided by reason are conducive to survival.
What did Spinoza believe about passion?
It should be harnessed by reason because it is maladaptive, otherwise the body will respond negatively to the vulnerability and may experience pain or confusion.
Passion is not associated with a particular thought, nor is it clear or conducive to survival.
What did Spinoza’s beliefs about harnessing passion with reason act as a stepping stone for?
Freudian Psychoanalysis.
What is Psychic Determinism?
The position, associated particularly with Sigmund Freud, that mental (psychic) events do not occur by chance but always have an underlying cause that can be uncovered by analysis.
Who was Gottfried von Leibniz?
A German polymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians, and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment.
What was Leibniz’s goal?
To reconcile many of the scientific advances with God.
What did Leibniz believe?
He believed that no experience can cause a thought because when we interact with the world, it is done at a physical level, a material level, so it cannot influence an immaterial mind.
Who did Leibniz go against?
Most of his work was in opposition to Locke.
He took issue with Descartes lack of suitable explanation for the supposition that there was an interaction between the material and immaterial mind. For him, something immaterial was necessary.
What is the logic behind innate ideas?
If ideas are immaterial and cannot be caused by material activity such as sense activity, or even caused by a physical brain, maybe ideas must be innate.
What was Leibniz’s definition of innate?
The innateness was the capacity to have an idea. The reason the mind was capable of having ideas is because of these microscopic entities he called monads.
(slightly different from Plato’s definition).
What did Leibniz suggest about monads?
The universe was made up of infinite number of monads. Leibniz rejected dualism in favor of psychophysical parallelism based on pre-established harmony.
What does psychophysical parallelism based on pre-established harmony mean?
The psychological and physical work in parallel.
Leibniz used the analogy of two pendulums swinging in harmony. They seem to be coordinating but they aren’t influencing each other.
Internal and external events are mirroring each other. And the pre-established harmony suggests that mind and body are always in agreement because that is how God planned it. Two clocks that have been set to the same time will agree but they won’t influence each other.
What are monads?
They are not easy to understand.
First of all, Leibniz believed that everything was living (animism). Monads are small life units, like a living, conscious atom.
Similar to Aristotle’s scala naturae, monads were hierarchical with inert matter having monads that were not capable of clear thought. Plants, animals, and people had different abilities for clarity, all the way to God, who was the ultimate monad.
Also similar to Aristotle, as we go higher on the hierarchy, the organism has the monads from the lower levels as well as the clearer ones. Monads seek to have clear thoughts, this is similar to what Spinoza suggested.
Every organism has a dominant monad that controls the maximum level of clarity and knowledge they can achieve. Because monads had a consciousness, they sought to achieve their final cause which depended on the organism.
Monads could not be created or destroyed. They could not be influenced by anything external and could only develop with their own internal system, an entelechy.
What does Leibniz believe in terms of the mind-body relationship?
He believed that experience could not create a thought but it could help with the clarification of thoughts.
Monads cannot directly influence each other but they can mirror similar monads. The fact that humans were capable of having the most clarity, next to God, and because we have the monads of every other organism, we can gain clarity from interacting with all things.
What caused Leibniz to suggest another level of consciousness?
The fact that there is a whole world that is not visible to the naked eye.
What is the law of continuity?
The slow transition from being imperceptible to perceptible.
As monads seek consciousness, they can transition from a state of imperception to perception.
Anything below consciousness is known as petites perceptions. Leibniz believed that nature doesn’t leap off, instead it transitions in smaller degrees.
He used the example of the noise from the sea, it can get to the point of roaring, yet we cannot perceive all the smaller waves, but when they start to combine, we can hear the roar and the crashing.
Who was Immanuel Kant?
A Prussian German philosopher in the Age of Enlightenment.
He declared himself neither Empiricist nor Rationalist but achieved a synthesis of the two in his greatest work The Critique of Pure Reason.
What did Kant claim?
Knowledge was impossible without accepting truths from both Rationalist and Empiricist schools of thought.
What did Kant believe about the science of psychology?
According to Kant, the science of psychology was impossible because you cannot measure aspects of the mind in a mathematical manner, it is not possible to isolate individual thought, and the only way to examine phenomena was through introspection, which is not consistent.
Why would introspection be the only way to study the mind?
Because our experiences are always and inescapably mediated through the activity of our mind and of our senses.
To further describe this, Kant divided the world into a noumena world, and a phenomenal world.
What is the Noumenal World?
It is the external world with objects in a pure state that exist independent of human experience. According to Kant, this world can never be known directly because nothing we experience is in its pure state.
What is the Phenomenal World?
The internal experience of the noumenal world, what we experience. Our interaction with the world, filtered through our mental and sensory apparatus.
Did Kant believe people were passive or active in our knowledge of the world?
Active.
Rather than saying people are all passive perceivers observing the world, Kant believed that humans are active in knowing the world.
In agreeing with his Empiricist predecessors, he says, ““There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience. But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience,” suggesting that although experience is necessary, it is the active mind that is further required for knowledge.
How did Kant solve the problem of how the mind acquires knowledge from experience?
By arguing that the mind imposes principles upon experience to generate knowledge.
He proposed that the mind must add something to sensory data before knowledge can be attained. This is the epitome of the active mind.
Why can we never know the noumenal world?
Because as soon as we interact with it, our categories of thought convert it to something totally different.
