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Historiography
the study of the proper way to write history.
Psychology
the study of the psyche (mind) as old as the human species.
Presentism
interpreting and evaluating historical events in terms of contemporary knowledge and standards.
Historicism
studying of the past without attempt to interpret or evaluate it in terms of current knowledge and standards.
Zeitgeist
the spirit of the times.
Great person approach
the approach to history that concentrates on the most prominent contributors to the topic or field under consideration.
Historical development approach
an approach to history that concentrates on an element or discipline and how the understanding of that element has changed over time.
Eclectic approach
Taking the best from a variety of opinions and viewpoints, combining coverage of many individuals, concepts, ideas and contributions.
Science
the systematic attempt to rationally categorize or explain empirical observations.
Empirical observation
the basis of all knowledge is experience.
Theory
a proposed solution to a problem or an explanation of a number of empirical observations.
Rationalism
the philosophical belief that knowledge can be attained only by engaging in some type of systematic mental activity.
Empiricism
the belief that the basis of all knowledge is experience.
Scientific theory
a proposed solution to a problem or an explanation of a number of empirical observations.
Confirmable propositions
Capable of validation through empirical tests within science.
Scientific theories functions
organizing empirical observations and being a guide for future observations.
Scientific Law
a consistently observed relationship between classes of empirical events. (ex. when X occurs, Y also tends to occur.)
Public observation
The stipulation that scientific laws must be available for any person to observe, there is no secret knowledge available only to qualified authorities.
Correlational Laws
laws that do not need to be causally related, for example one can note that as temperature rises as does crime rate without knowing or caring if these two events are related.
Causal Laws
laws describing relationships, these laws specify the conditions that are necessary to produce a certain event. (ex. if we knew the causes of a disease, we could predict and control that disease—as preventing the causes of a disease from occurring prevents the disease from occurring.)
Determinism
the belief that everything that occurs does so because of known or knowable causes thus, the knowledge of an event's causes allows the prediction and control of the event.
Determinism (philosophical doctrine)
the philosophical doctrine that states that for everything that ever happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen -Taylor (1967)
Karl Popper
Saw scientific method as having three components: problems, proposed solutions to the problems (theories), and criticisms of the proposed solutions.
Selective Observation
Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem.
Conjectures
an opinion or conclusion formed based on incomplete information.
Refutations
the action of proving a statement or theory to be wrong or false.
Principle of Falsifiability
Popper's idea that for a theory to be considered scientific it must specify the observations that could refute the theory if made. It must be able to be falsified.
Risky Predictions
Predictions derived from a scientific theory that run a real chance of showing the theory to be false. (Predictions that run a real risk of being incorrect.)
Postdiction
An attempt to account for something after it has occurred, a contrast to prediction which attempts to specify conditions under which an event hasn't yet occurred.
Scientific Progress
According to Popper, it is a theory's incorrect predictions, rather than its correct ones, that cause scientific progress.
Thomas Kuhn
Believed that the activities of members of a scientific community are governed by a shared set of beliefs called a paradigm which continues to exist until it is displaced by another paradigm.
Correspondence theory of truth
The belief that scientific laws and theories are correct if they accurately mirror events in the physical world.
Kuhn's Notion
The goal, when evaluating scientific laws or theories, is to determine whether or not they correspond to an external, mind-independent world.
Paradigm
A viewpoint shared by many scientists while exploring the subject matter of their science and becomes the way of looking at and analyzing the subject matter of their science.
Normal Science
The research activities performed by scientists as they explore the implications of a paradigm.
Puzzle Solving
Problems that have guaranteed solutions and certain rules must be followed to arrive at these solutions, like working on a puzzle.
Anomalies
Persistent observations that cannot be explained by an existing paradigm.
Stages of Scientific Development
The phases through which scientific disciplines progress, including preparadigmatic, paradigmatic, and revolutionary stages.
Preparadigmatic Stage
The first stage in the development of science characterized by warring factions vying to define the subject matter and methodology of a discipline.
Paradigmatic Stage
The stage where the puzzle-solving activity guided by a paradigm called normal science occurs.
Revolutionary Stage
The stage of scientific development during which an existing paradigm is displaced by a new one.
Paradigm Shift
Occurs when the old paradigm is replaced by a new one.
Mayr's Argument
Several paradigms have always existed simultaneously in biology, leading to a Darwinian competition for the acceptance of ideas among them.
Staats' View on Psychology
Describes psychology as a preparadigmatic discipline.
Popper vs Kuhn
A major source of disagreement concerns Kuhn's concept of normal science, which Popper argues is not science at all.
Popper's View
Scientific problems are not like puzzles, as there are no restrictions on what counts as a solution or on what procedures can be followed.
Kuhn's Perspective
Science cannot be understood without considering psychological and sociological factors; there is no neutral scientific observation.
D.N Robinson's Conciliation
The major disagreement between Kuhn and Popper vanishes when picturing Kuhn as describing historical science and Popper asserting what it ought to be.
Correspondence Theory of Truth
Popper accepted this theory, while Kuhn rejected it, claiming that the paradigm accepted by a group of scientists creates the 'reality' they explore.
Paul Feyerabend
Argued that science cannot be described by any standard set of rules, principles, or standards.
Anarchism
A philosophy that helps to achieve progress in various senses, suggesting that even law-and-order science requires anarchistic moves.
Biological determinism
The type of determinism that stresses the biochemical, genetic, physiological, or anatomical causes of behavior.
Environmental determinism
The type of determinism that stresses causes of behavior that are external to the organism.
Sociocultural determinism
The type of environmental determinism that stresses cultural or societal rules, customs, regulations, or expectations as the causes of behavior.
Cultural Determinism
The idea that what is considered desirable, undesirable, normal, and abnormal is culturally determined.
Overdetermined behavior
The concept that behavior is seldom caused by a single event or a few events, but rather by a multitude of interacting events.
Physical determinism
The type of determinism that stresses material causes of behavior.
Psychical determinism
The type of determinism that stresses mental causes of behavior.
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
The concept that the act of observing an electron influences its activity and casts doubt on the validity of the observation.
Indeterminism
The belief that even though determinism is true, attempting to measure the causes of something influences those causes, making it impossible to know them with certainty.
Nondeterminism
The belief that human thought or behavior is freely chosen by the individual and is, therefore, not caused by antecedent physical or mental events.
Free will
The concept that individuals freely choose their courses of action and are responsible for them.
Hard determinism
The view that the causes of human behavior function in an automatic, mechanistic manner, rendering personal responsibility meaningless.
Soft determinism
The view that cognitive processes such as intentions, motives, beliefs, and values intervene between experience and behavior.
Sigmund Koch
A psychologist who argued that psychology should embrace both science and the humanities in its effort to understand humans.
Persistent Questions in Psychology
Questions regarding whether human behavior is freely chosen or determined and how much of our animal heritage remains in human nature.
Materialists
Those who believe that everything in the universe is material (physical), including those things that others refer to as mental.
Monists
Those who believe that there is only one reality, they attempt to explain everything in terms of matter.
Idealists
Those who believe that ultimate reality consists of ideas or perceptions and is, therefore, not physical. They explain things in terms of consciousness.
Dualists
Anyone who believes that there are two aspects to humans, one physical and one mental. It is assumed that both a physical and a mental realm exist.
Interactionism
A proposed answer to the mind-body problem, maintaining that the mind influences the body, and the body influences the mind.
Emergentism
The contention that mental processes emerge from brain processes. For example, once mental events emerge from brain activity, the mental events can influence subsequent brain activity and thus behavior.
Epiphenomenalism
This form of emergentism states the brain causes mental events, but mental events cannot cause behavior. In this view, mental events are simply by-products of brain processes with no ability to exert any influence.
Psychophysical parallelism
The idea that experiencing something in the physical world causes bodily and mental activity simultaneously and that the two types of activities are independent of each other.
Double aspectism
The belief that bodily and mental events are inseparable because they are two aspects of every experience.
Preestablished harmony
The belief that bodily events and mental events are separate but correlated because both were designed to run identical courses.
Occasionalism
The belief that the relationship between the mind and body is mediated by God.
Mechanism
The belief that the behavior of organisms, including humans, can be explained entirely in terms of mechanical laws.
Vitalism
The belief that life cannot be explained in terms of inanimate processes. For there to be life, there must be a vital force present.
Naïve Realism
The belief that what one experiences mentally is the same as what is present physically.
Reification
The belief that abstractions for which we have names have an existence independent of their names.
Irrationalism
Any explanation of human behavior stressing determinants that are not under rational control.
Nativist
Anyone who believes that important human attributes such as intelligence are largely inherited.
Epistemology
The study of the nature of knowledge. (from the Greek episteme, meaning "to know or understand").
Passive mind
A mind that simply reflects cognitively one's experiences with the physical world. Records physical experiences as mental images, recollections, and associations.
Active mind
A mind that transforms, interprets, understands, or values physical experience.
Universalism
The belief that there are universal truths about ourselves and about the physical world in general that can be discovered by anyone using the proper methods of inquiry.
Relativism
The belief that because all experience must be filtered through individual and group perspectives, the search for universal truths that exist independently of human experience must be in vain.
