PSYA01H3 Chapter 1: Chapter 1 notes
Document Summary
Also called the father of modern philosophy and of a biological tradition led to modern physiological psychology. Believed humans and animals= machine affected by natural causes and producing natural effects. Believed most action were automatic and did not require the brain (ex: touching hot stove j immediately take hand away j he called these actions reflexes ) Believed in dualism even though he was not the 1st one the propose the idea. His explanation of how the mind and the body caused reflexes was one of the 1st to use. Suggested that casual link existed btw the mind and its physical housing technological device as a model of the nervous system. Descartes model of the human body was mechanical, it was controlled, as we have seen, by a non mechanical (in fact, non physical) mind. He refused to deny a spiritual basis to human action.
