PSYC 212 Lecture 2: Lecture 2

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 212
• Professor: Mathieu Roy

Document Summary

The study of perception is rooted in epistemology (how we can know the world) Idea: the role of the philosopher is to teach people what these ideal forms are (difficult job bc usually people are reluctant; they"re comfortable in their illusions) Nativism/innatism (part of rationalism): nativism/innatism: we are born already knowing the world. Therefore, he thinks we must be born with some knowledge of the world, meaning that knowing/ learning something is remembering something that we already know. Anamnesis (plato): plato"s version of nativism (the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence, anamnesis: idea is that: (1) our souls are immortal and made of left-overs of a greater. Cosmos-soul" that had universal knowledge, (2) we lost this knowledge when our souls were incarnated in our imperfect bodies, and (3) we must recover this knowledge by trying to remember what we forgot.