PSYC 305 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Pineal Gland, Daniel Dennett, Scientism
8 May 2018
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PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 5 EMPIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM AND POSITIVISM
1
Empiricism: a philosophy that stresses the importance of experience in the attainment of knowledge
Feb 13 2018
Introduction
- we saw how early thinking required a lot of observing what was happening and trying to make some sense of it. Some
have suggested that it was like reading a book, where things played out for a reason and all that occurred could be
foretold like in a book. … a loel otio of ho the old oks that as ot eessail auate.
- We went through the dark ages, renaissance and the scientific revolution (heliocentric universe earth revolves
around sun …) hih eall haged people’s eliefs. The idea that the eath ould possil esole aoud the su is
difficult to accept because it takes away from the grander of people who in Christianity are the center of the world.
o It’s ipotat to keep i id that siee as’t ell eaed ad a ee aused of eig heitis.
o Despite this, people ee askig uestios… the est a to get e koledge!
- The world is looked at as just matter... there were laws that explained everything (Newton). The universe became
koale … that thee is a atheatial eplaatio fo the old… people ae also opaed to loks, people ae
eplaiale as ahies. It’s understandable and manageable.
- Descartes is one of the people ho’s ideas we will bring up several times as we go along. He brings out the dualism
idea in a solid way. Desartes as er ifluetial at this poit, ad therefore ost of the philosophers’ ideas that
came after him were in response to what he had put out there. Keep in mind that Descartes was also afraid of being
tried with heresy. Galileo was placed under house arrest for suggesting that the earth revolved around the sun (and
he had legit proof!!) so we have to keep in mind that maybe some of what Descartes suggested about the soul and
the pineal gland and animals lacking all of this, was maybe a way to stay safe (i.e. keep some added specialness for
humans).
Arguing across Europe...
People start having many questions (all based on ideas of Descartes)
- Can we be certain of anything? remember Descartes suggested that the act of doubt was the only certainty, but for
him, this showed that the importance of being was in getting the mind engaged)
- Are people/ animals machines? (This is a fun one because there will be some good and bad points to viewing people
this a. If e ae ahies, ith geas ad pulles, e a ko eatl ho e ok. O the egatie side… this
kind of takes away the deeper parts that make us more interesting (existential thought, consciousness, subjective
experience, etc.)
- Does the soul have any place in Science? (again Descartes tried to keep an aspect of soul in order to maintain some
sort of divinity)
- How much of our perceptual experience belongs to the stimulus? How much belongs to us? Are we just responding to
the stimulus because of the stimulus itself? Or is our response due to something within ourselves?
- If things and events have no meaning, why do they seem to?
- What role does the mind play? (is it active or passive) If our senses are not reliable, if experiencing events and nature
is not adding to our knowledge, why does it seem to be so important? Which begs the question:
o what role does the mind play in processing sensory information (passive as the empiricists will suggest)
o Germans will look at the mind in an active way,,,,, Gestalt
o
All these ideas go back to Aristotle and his four causes:
Desates’ dualit as ooted ito Aistotle’s auses hih a atuall e diided ito phsial ateial & foal ause
and the mental (efficient and final cause).
Physical
- Material cause – matter of which it is made
- Formal cause – form or pattern of the object – what is it?
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PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 5 EMPIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM AND POSITIVISM
2
Mental
- Efficient cause– force that transforms the matter – who made it?
- Final cause – purpose–why it exists
So we can think of people and animals as machines similar to the English gardens he had experienced and we can know
how we are made.
While also leaving room for the mind as something beyond the body.A physical body will be affected by the laws of matter
and motion (because it is matter), but the immaterial mind will not
Can we be certain of anything?
Descartes viewed the mind as being able to exist without the body. This perspective of mind/body is one of the most debated
topic in Psychology. If you want to hear from someone who disagrees with this perspective, look up the Cartesian Theatre
from Daniel Dennett.
Descartes believed that the mind can experience things without the need for sensory experience (the basis of rationalism) so
even if the body ceases to exist, our mind can still go on
Are people and animals machines?
Again as we mentioned several times, Descartes did have a materialistic perspective of the body being similar to any machine
that runs because of pulleys and gears and hollow tubes. It was animal spirits coursing through these tubes that caused our
body to move and respond to the world around us. But did humans not have something a little special too?
If e do’t eall eed ou od fo the id to suie, the the id eall is this highe etit
Does the soul have any place in Science?
- What is it that differentiates people and animals (and any other machine?)
- Ete soul…… If aials ae also capable of perception, learning, and remembering then these are body based
- But then higher thought requires the mind which houses the soul (pineal gland being the seat of the soul) and this
makes us special
- This duality opens further doors of debate:
Are we a mind within a body
OR
A body with a mind
- Taking away the importance of the soul at this time in history ould’t e a e good idea
Are we a mind with body or a body with a mind? – Ted Talk
- Are the body and mind 2 separate things?
- This idea of mind and body will open the doors for many things.
How much of our perceptual experience belongs to the stimulus? How much belongs to us?
- Do we see an apple as red because it is red? OR is there something in our visual system that creates red?
- how reliable is our body?
- Can our experience give us an accurate idea of the world around us?
- Galileo thought us that we have Primary (material) and Secondary (perception) qualities
o Secondary qualities will open the doors to discussing consciousness
If things and events have no meaning, why do they seem to?
- empiricist start testing this idea. Are you calling an apple red because it is red or is that just a perception?
- We value the importance of experiencing things.
- Debate point: We can experience things from an outside force (material, qualities, the stimulus itself) or an inner
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PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 5 EMPIRICISM, SENSATIONALISM AND POSITIVISM
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force (something that happen within us, principles of association etc.)
- Empiricist focus on the outer experiences (we will discuss the laws of association)
British Empiricism
It was quite large in Brittan, we will see their take first
1. sensory experience constitutes the primary data of all knowledge (we need our senses to experience things, stimuli are
useless of the do’t egage ou seso eeptos; ou ill ot epeiee usi if it is plaig i a oo too fa fo ou to
hear or feel the vibrations)
2. knowledge cannot exist until sensory information has first been gathered ou o’t ko hat usi is if ou hae ee
experienced it)
3. all subsequent intellectual processes must focus only on sensory experience in formulating propositions about the world
(experience is the building block of all knowledge)
Thomas Hobbs
- seen as the founder of British empiricism (others have attributed British empiricism to Locke, Hume and Berkeley as
well)
- starts looking at the body as just a machine
- robots have very similar features to humans
- epiiists did’t etio consciousness too much)
- The machine idea works well because it makes humans understandable.
- Humans are seen as a machine within a bigger machine
- He was a Materialist: the id as a seies of otios ithi the peso a phsial oist. Going with all the
laws of physics that you can put all the law applicable to nature to human.
o all mental phenomena could be explained by the sensory experience that results when the motion of
external bodies stimulate the sense receptors thereby causing internal motion
o id as the su total of people’s thikig atiities
o denied the existence of a non-material mind
- But what about: Attention; Dreams; Imagination??? From an empiricist perception, these are all coming from
sensory experience.
o Explanation of these psychological phenomenon:
▪ attention: as long as sense organs retain the motion cause by the external stimulus, they cannot
respond to others (you need to focus on the task at hand!)
▪ imagination: sense impressions fade over time and imagination is a weaker experience of the
stimulus
▪ dreams: can be vivid because there is no other sensory impression to compete with the imagination
▪ memory
Descartes had the idea that we are born knoig etai thigs atiis like ahies… epiiist disagee… all our
knowledge comes from our experiences in this world.
- Complex thought processes (which many assumed were a great human power) resulted from law of contiguity
(originating with Aristotle). We hae a tai of thought eause e’e hae a epeiees ith things happening
one after another. We formed associations over time ad these ople thought proesses ere’t reall so
fa…just assoiatios…
- Proposed a hedonistic (for pleasure and feeling good) theory of motivation.
o Human behavior is motivated by: Appetite, seeking or maintaining pleasure; aversion, avoidance or
termination of pain drove human behavior.
o If you want a behavior to continue you reinforce it (reward, pleasure) if you want to stop a behavior you
either remove the reinforcers or you punish (pain, unpleasant).
There is no free will
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