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Epistemology

Branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge: its nature, sources, limits, and justification

If 2 people offer different explanations of human behavior, what would count as a good reason to believe one over the other?

Rationalism

• knowledge through reason

• Can you get to an answer just using logic?

• Pro: reason can go beyond senses

• Con: logical idea doesn’t mean it’s an accurate description of human behavior

• Plato and Rene Descartes

Empiricism

• knowledge through experience and observation

• experience can provide information that intuition and reasoning can’t

• important bridge from philosophy to scientific study of psychology

• Aristotle and John Locke

Rationalism and Empiricism

Modern psychology uses reasoning to generate explanations and empirical evidence to evaluate them

Plato and Aristotle

Plato argues some forms of knowledge are innate

Aristotle emphasizes learning and experience

Tabula Rasa “Blank Slate”

Emphasizes role of experience in shaping knowledge and behavior

Modern psychology asks how does biology and environment interact. Doesn’t see nature and nurture as either/or

Dualism

• Sees mind and body as separate

• Rene Descartes

Free will vs. Determinism

• Free will is choice

• Determinism: experience and conditions shape behavior

• Theories differ by how much agency they assume people have

What problem did Philosophers have regarding settling disagreements?

They could propose explanations but had few methods for settling disagreements

Philosophy meets Physiology

• New tools made it possible to measure sensation, perception, reaction time, and nervous system

• This helped psychology separate from philosophy

What is Psychology as a separate discipline?

• Wilhem Wundt and William James, Leipzig laboratory, study of consciousness

• Pivotal point where we can now test for hypothesis through systems and measurements

Structuralism (What is conscious experience MADE of?)

• Goal: identify basic elements of psychological experience

• Method: people were asked to describe their immediate conscious experience during tasks

• Pro: helped show that mental experience can be studied systematically

• Con: people can’t always accurately explain how their minds work

Functionalism (what does thought or behavior DO?)

• Focused on purpose/function

• Influenced by Darwin’s Natural Selection Theory

• Doesn’t only ask what consciousness is made of but how psychological characteristics help organisms adapt

Evolutionary Psychology (Can psychological characteristics have adaptive functions?)

• Applies ideas from natural selection to psychological processes and behavior

• Caution! evolutionary explanations can be difficult to test directly and can become “after-the-fact” explanations if not evaluated carefully

Psychodynamic Psychology (What if we are NOT fully aware of why we behave as we do?)

• Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

• Emphasizes conscious thoughts, feelings, memories, and influence of early experience

Behaviorism (What if psychology studies what we can OBSERVE?)

• Difficult to objectively study mind

• Focused on observable behavior and how environment shape responses

• Watson, Pavlov, Skinner (emphasized reinforcement)

• This strongly advanced study of learning and testable predictions

Behaviorism and Free will

• Skinner: free will is an illusion

• For a strong behaviorist: behavior is shaped by environmental history and current possible future event

Timeline of Theories/Disciplines

• Philo