BI308 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Tabula Rasa, Empiricism, Pineal Gland
Document Summary
1. 2 historical antecedents to the study of animal learning. Field of animal learning has two components: philosophy and biology. Biologists used experimental techniques to uncover information about the body. Before descartes in the 1600s, it was believed that all behaviour performed by humans was solely determined by free will everything we did was consciously intended. Descartes noticed that some behaviours are automatic reactions to environmental stimuli aka involuntary. He purposed the idea of cartesian dualism human behaviour can either be voluntary or involuntary. Involuntary behaviour was thought to be caused by the external world (sense organs brain muscles) Voluntary behaviour was thought to originate in the mind which is connected to the brain via the pineal gland. Descartes believed that humans were the only animals with a mind therefore he thought that animals were restricted to reflexes only. In the 1600s-1700s british empiricists such as john locke and hume believed that at birth, our minds are tabula rasa (blank slate).
