The Beginnings of Modern Psychology: Philosophical Influences

Vocabulary flashcards covering the major philosophical influences on the beginnings of modern psychology, including dualism, empiricism, positivism, and materialism.

Idea of Mechanism

An image of the universe as a machine and physical entities as mechanical devices, subscribed to by René Descartes.

René Descartes (1596–1650):

A 17th-century philosopher whose work shaped later trends in psychology and who viewed the universe through mechanism

Human vs. Animal Distinction (Descartes):

While Descartes viewed animals and humans mechanically, he separated humans from animals by asserting that humans possess a 'mind'

Comte’s View on Social Life:

He believed that social life is governed by laws and principles that can be discovered using the methods of physical sciences.

David Hume (1711–1776)

A Scottish philosopher who made the association of ideas explicit, treating them as the mental counterpart to physical universe laws.

Dualism

The philosophical view that the body and the mind (or soul or spirit) are fundamentally different in nature.

Cartesian Dualism

A strictly physical–psychological dualism developed by René Descartes asserting a relationship of mutual interaction between the mind and the body.

Positivism

A way of thinking coined by Auguste Comte that recognizes only positive facts and observable phenomena.

Empiricism

A philosophical tradition rooted in England that sees sensory experience as the source of all knowledge, using observation and experimentation as its method.Theory: The mind grows through the accumulation of sensory experience.

Essay on Human Understanding (1690)

The work by John Locke that marked the formal beginning of British empiricism and rejected the notion of innate ideas.

Tabula Rasa

John Locke's concept that each infant is born with a mind like a blank slate with no knowledge whatsoever, upon which experience is written.

Laws of Association

Three mental principles outlined by David Hume as the counterpart to physical laws: resemblance or similarity, contiguity (tangency) in time or place, and causality.

Materialism

The philosophical view that all things, including mental phenomena, can be described in physical terms.

Three Philosophical Pillars of Modern Psychology

Materialism, positivism, and empiricism.