PSYC 3140 Lecture Notes - Lecture 47: Noble Savage, Renaissance Humanism, Polymath
9 May 2018
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PSYC 3140
Lecture 47
1. Aspects of Romanticism are found in ancient Cynicism and
Renaissance humanism.
2. The romantics sought to elevate human emotions, intuitions, and
instincts from the inferior philosophical position they had occupied to
one of being the primary guides for human conduct
3. Rationalist defined the good life as one lived honestly in accordance
with one’s inner nature.
a. Science is antithetical or at best irrelevant to understanding
humans.
4. Romantics and Existentialists rebelled against Enlightenment
(rationalism, empiricism, and sensationalism).
5. Romantics and Existentialists both emphasized the importance of
meaning in one’s life and the ability to freely choose that meaning.
1. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
a. Father of Romanticism
b. Rousseau emphasized feelings in contrast to reason as the
important guiding force in human nature.
i. The best guide for human conduct is a person’s honest
feelings and inclinations.
ii. According to Rousseau, all the governments of his time
were based on the faulty assumption that humans need to
be governed.
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