Table of contents
01. Foundations from Antiquity — Pre-Socratics; Socrates, Plato (nativism/ideal forms),
Aristotle (empiricism/categories); Democritus; Islamic scholars (Al-Kindi, Alhazen,
Avicenna).
02. Early Modern Roots — Descartes (dualism, reflexes), Locke (associationism), Leibniz
(active mind, monads).
03. Brain & Mind — Localization vs. anti-localization; Broca/Wernicke; stimulation
(motor/sensory strips); H.M. & memory.
04. Sensation & Perception — Kant vs. Hume; Helmholtz & nerve conduction;
psychophysics (Weber–Fechner, Stevens); Gestalt principles.
05. Wundt & Experimental Psychology — Mental chronometry; structuralism vs.
Völkerpsychologie; Ebbinghaus & memory.
06. Evolution & Function — Darwin (natural/sexual selection); comparative/evolutionary
psych; function over structure.
07. Individual Differences — Galton (correlation, twins, eugenics), Pearson; heritability
debates.
08. American Pioneers — James (habit, emotion, pragmatism), Hall, Calkins (paired
associates), Thorndike (law of effect).
09. Behaviorism — Pavlov (classical), Watson, Skinner (operant, schedules, shaping);
Tolman (latent learning).
10. Social Influence — Hypnosis origins; Asch, Festinger (dissonance), Milgram, Zimbardo;
research ethics.
11. Freud & the Unconscious — Catharsis, repression, dreams (manifest/latent), Id–Ego–
Superego; later neo-Freudians.
12. Personality & Humanistic — Allport (traits; nomothetic/idiographic), factor models
(16PF, PEN, Big Five), Maslow; Rogers.
13. Applied Psychology — I/O (Taylor, Münsterberg, Gilbreths, Hawthorne), legal
testimony (suggestibility), Hollingworth.
14. Clinical Science — Scientist–Practitioner model; critiques (Albee, Eysenck); common
factors; behavior & cognitive therapies; MMPI.
, Lecture 1: Foundational ideas from Antiquity
Plato (424-347 B.C.), coming from a wealthy aristocratic family chose to study under Socrates ((ca. 470–
399 b.c.) rather than with teachers so called sophists, who taught the skills of rhetoric and public
speaking, the way most young men were studying in democratic Athena.
Socrates engaged his students in conversations or dialogues which encouraged them to discover their
own innate capacities for finding truth, rather than passing on to them predetermined ideas or lessons.
He opposed the entire notion of writing things down, but Plato provided written portrayals of him called
The Socratic Dialogues —emphasized the great importance of those “higher” capacities for rational
thinking and mathematical reasoning that presumably reside innately within the human mind.
The dialogues became foundational statements of the approaches to mental philosophy known as
nativism, emphasizing inborn as opposed to acquired properties, and rationalism, emphasizing reason.
In his 30s he inherited substantial property, where he established the Academy, a gathering place for
scholars. In 367 b.c., a 17-year-old from the northern Greek provinces named Aristotle (ca. 384–322 b.c.)
arrived at the Academy. His father was a physician. He became the most distinguished senior scholar. He
then left the Academia to northern Greece.
There were differences between the 2. Aristotle placed more emphasis than his teacher did on the
systematic observation of the natural, empirical world of the senses. Aristotle became the first great
proponent of empiricism, the notion that true knowledge comes first and primarily through the
processing of sensory experiences of the external world.
Platon- higher realms of reason and ideas
Aristotle-the empirical solidity of earth
The pre-Socratic philosophers
The early Greeks invented philosophy (“love of wisdom”) and first theorized creatively, if often
speculatively, in such fields as physics (Thales), mathematics (Pythagoras), pondered the concept of
infinity (Zeno), fruitless to speculate about big questions like the nature of the universe, concentrate on
human experience and behavior(Protagoras) =>sophists and medicine (Hippocrates), among others.
The concept of psyche emerged. The original meaning=breath. In time, it came to signify a general life-
principle with various functions. All living things were said to possess a psyche and dead things to lack
one.
SOCRATES
He helped his pupils bring out the knowledge and wisdom that already resided within their psyches in
conversational question-and-answer dialogues.
Socrates’s myth of reincarnation (he thought the psyche or soul becomes repeatedly reincarnated in
new bodies) and recollection (the forgotten knowledge in each psyche can be re-aroused) represents an
,extreme version of philosophical nativism, in the notion that fully formed but forgotten knowledge lies
within a psyche, and just needs help from empirical experience to bring it out. =>
the human mind contains innately within itself features (eg create abstract ideas) and predispositions
that enable it to interpret and comprehend empirical experiences in ways that go beyond their raw
sensory input
PLATO
Appearance- how do objects appear to us, in the outside world, through our senses
Ideal forms- only something that exists in your mind
Plato differentiated between transient appearances, (everyday sensations and conscious experiences we
have of the external world- as when we see a particular tree, a dog), and the eternal and abstract ideal
forms that lie behind appearances (the essences of all trees). = idealism=the view that exits something
more ultimate behind every day sensory experience
He linked appearances to the shadows cast by a brightly illuminated object, reflecting only superficial
and incomplete aspects of the true form, whose qualities can only be comprehended following deep
rational contemplation.
Plato thought the human psyche has three components governing: the appetites –fastest, immediate
physical gratification, courage-duty, motivation to respond bravely to threats, and reason-rational
component that tries to make the 2 cooperate and go in the same direction
These occur in unequal proportions within different individuals. Appetite- ordinary masses, courage-
soldiers, reason-elite guardians.
ARISTOTLE
empiricism: knowledge = observations + classification (taxonomy)
Aristotle placed greater emphasis on empiricism, the observation and classification of those sensory
experiences Plato had dismissed as mere appearances. For Aristotle the mind was not passive, but it
functioned primarily as the organizer rather than the origin (as Socrates and Plato maintained) of ideas
and knowledge.
Aristotle initiated the field of biological taxonomy by meticulously observing countless animal and plant
specimens and organizing them into a hierarchy of groups and subgroups.
He attributed different degrees of complex psyches to living organisms:
He explained the difference between them in terms of soul
just the elementary functions of nutrition and reproduction to the psyches of plants (vegetative souls),
further “higher” abilities to sense-sensation, to move themselves-locomotion, and sometimes to
remember-memory and imagine experiences-imagination to animals (sensitive soul)
with the ability to think logically and to organize experience in terms of innate abstract categories
(rational soul) were presumably unique to human beings.
,The role of these categories- the mind filters observations of the things we observe through categories
of experience: substance (what), quantity (how much), quality (color, shape), location (where), time
(when), relation (e.g., bigger-smaller), activity (what is it doing)
Conclusion: Plato and Socrates had regarded the human psyche as a reservoir of innate ideas and forms,
which may be brought out or partially revealed by empirical experiences. Aristotle, by contrast,
emphasized empirical experiences as the necessary “raw materials” the psyche subsequently processes
by means of its inborn categories, thereby creating the abstract concepts and “ideal” general laws the
Platonists thought were innate.
DEMOCRITUS
A contemporary of Socrates, Democritus, proposed a radical but underappreciated atomic theory of the
physical universe, holding that everything was composed of tiny, indivisible atoms that have different
shapes moving randomly in otherwise empty space, and interacting with one another in unpredictable
ways to create material bodies. => this makes the physical substances of the universe
It was attacked because it contradicted the Greek assumption about the nature of causality, which held
that every caused event had to have a purpose. The atomic theory proposed material and efficient
causes of the universe (the stuff out of which is made and the plan behind it), but denied the reality of
any underlying plan or final purpose.
It was adopted by Epicurus and made the subject of a poem by the Roman writer Lucretius.
After the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity in Europe, classical Greek philosophy was regarded as
pagan blasphemy and would have been completely lost had it not been preserved by a series of brilliant
Islamic scholars.
Al-Kindi promoted Aristotelian philosophy and introduced the system of Indo-Arabic numerals, which
revolutionized computational mathematics and made possible most of modern science.
Alhazen described geometrical properties of light rays and their reflection, the features of the eye as an
optical device, the influence of binocular (two-eyed) vision in enabling depth perception, laying
important foundations for modern visual science. –with an experiment of a camera obscura, he
concluded that light from the outside world is refracted by the lens in front to result in inverted images
on the retina in the back
Avicenna
He codified medical knowledge.
extension of Aristotle's functions of the soul:
exterior senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch)
interior senses
common sense
imagination, memory
, estimation (opportunities and threats)
appetition (impulses to approach or avoid)
self-awareness (floating man thought-experiment)
Most significantly, Avicenna added to the functions of the sensitive soul an internally originating
motivating function that he referred to as “appetition” which provides the impulses and energy to
approach desirable objects and avoid undesirable ones.
Avicenna’s second noteworthy elaboration of Aristotle concerned the rational soul. For him, self-
awareness was an innate capacity of the human rational soul, and evidence for the soul’s or the mind’s
distinct existence independent of the body and its physical sensation. =self-awareness is a characteristic
of the rational soul, independent of sensory input. He wanted to show that self-awareness exists
independent of sense perception.
After the hostilities of the Crusades waned, Christian and Islamic scholars interacted so that classical
learning was reintroduced into Europe and integrated into the curriculum of medieval universities.
Lecture 2. Pioneering philosophers
RENE DESCARTES
He concluded that the only way to develop true knowledge was by his own method- for him to be
convinced whether it’s true or not. He started by doubting everything. He was looking for simple nature-
the fundamental properties of physical phenomena that you cannot doubt.
Knowledge to him was more about thinking, internal thoughts (deduction) above sensory experiences
(induction).
He concluded that the physical world has at least 2 properties that he could not doubt- extension (things
have a certain space) and motion (things have a certain movement). This related to Galileo who
distinguished qualities of the world: primary qualities - shape, quantity, motion - things that are outside
of our own experience, outside of us, physical objects have those properties and secondary qualities-
sights, sounds, feelings- that exist when we interact with those objects, the way we experience the
world
The physics of the world
Descartes thought the universe is filled with particles (fire-the smallest, concentrate in the center to
form the sun, the largest earth particles form the material bodies, and transparent air particles fill all the
spaces in between), that there is no empty space. Even things like air are actually very small particles
floating around. These particles have extension and motion =>
he developed Mechanistic Physiology=seeing your body as a machine. He thought that behaviors of the
body could be explained in mechanical terms. He knew about nerves from other studies, but people
didn t know what they were, how they looked. He thought they were hollow tubes that go throughout
your body, filled with fine fluids called animal spirits=cerebrospinal fluid. He thought these fluids also
float through the nervous system. => "I can explain behavior"
, the reflex occurs when there is a stimulus (from the outside world) and an automatic response
(organism behavior) = fire particles bumping into nerves in the foot, moving the fluids, animal
spirits, fluids move upwards, go into the brain, make the cerebrospinal fluid flow and that flows
back through modal nerves, activating the muscles
acquired behavior, learning - the structure of the brain changes such that the same stimulus
leads to a different response and it can lead to an automatic response
passions-anger, fear, sadness- if the animal spirits in your brain are going around violently,
actively, then the same stimulus will lead to a violent reaction -anger; the cerebrospinal fluid is
very still, then it will lead to a small reaction
he could also explain the interaction between body and the outside world, with no soul needed (as
opposed to Aristotle)
he applied doubtness to his senses as well (maybe I see an illusion) => I can doubt what I see, what I feel,
but not that there is someone or somebody doing the doubting => Cogito Ergo Sum - I think, therefore I
am => he concluded he had a rational soul, characterized by thinking, that has innate ideas
conclusion= body and mind are 2 different things that somehow interact
Elizabeth of Bohemia posed a question: How do the material body and the immaterial mind interact? If
the mind is not made of particles and just of thought, how does it interact?
Descartes: the interaction happens in the pineal gland =lower side of the brain, in the ventricles, where
the cerebrospinal fluid flows; he chose the pineal gland because he was looking for a part of the body
that did not have symmetry, that was just one (like the soul)
He also explained how vision work -light from an external object falls into the eyes and it creates a
reversed image in the eyes, the light pushes the nerves, the animal spirits flow through the brain, move
the pineal gland and create an experience of the object that we saw = interactive dualism
Where does the knowledge in your mind come from?
1. mechanistic physiology =how people automatically react to the environment > Locke picks up, says
the mind is passive
2. interactive dualism - by the means of the mind >Leibniz, the mind is active in creating knowledge
JOHN LOCKE
Soul (innate ideas) are not necessary for knowledge =>
You need sensations (the input that comes from your senses) and reflections =create memories or
representations in your mind
ideas combine in 2 ways:
1. contiguity-they co-occur and you associate them; example: you try to pet a cat, the cat hits you
and you feel pain and the feeling of pain is close to the cat hitting you
2. similarity-they look alike, you treat them alike; example: you learned how to use a pen, you can
also learn how a pencil works
Hume elaborated Locke's association of ideas into laws of continuity and similarity
, he said there is 3 types of knowledge:
intuitive -experience of the way things are, like a certain color
demonstrative-knowledge that you can explain-mathematical theorems
sensitive- knowledge you get from interacting with the world, from the senses
it all starts out as simple ideas -you interact with the world and you see something red or you feel
something as round and hard and you combine these things into the concept of apple = complex idea; or
you have an apple and you get a feeling and say oh I’m hungry => hunger = complex idea
He was supported by Molyneux - take a blind person who interacts with the world by feeling, now the
person can see. Will he recognize by sight which one is the cube and which the sphere? No, he would
have to learn how to see
LEIBNIZ
He took the Aristotelian side of the mind being active in constructing knowledge. He was inspired by
Spinoza's pantheism idea = God is not a person, it’s everything, and by van Lee -who saw with a
microscope that water is made of all kinds of living things => all the world consists of living things,
entities who are capable of perceiving things, who are aware
He introduces monads -different kinds of perception
hierarchy of monads:
1. bare monad-they resemble someone in deep sleep=they react to certain stimuli, but for the rest
are unaware
2. sentient monad: have the capacity of perception-aware of the word around (automatic)
3. rational monad- perception and apperception=you can consciously, actively be aware of the
things around you
4. supreme monad- God, aware of everything, omnipresent
minute observations- attributed to the bare monads because your mind is made of more than one thing-
you have a sentient monad, bare monad, etc., at each and every time all these monads have certain
perceptions
example: you’re watching the video, at the same time your stomach is processing food and you’re not
aware of it - you have unconscious experiences
necessary truths- things that are in your mind; you have a certain way of perceiving things, a certain
disposition; example: you are an angry person
has inspired continental European psychology
01. Foundations from Antiquity — Pre-Socratics; Socrates, Plato (nativism/ideal forms),
Aristotle (empiricism/categories); Democritus; Islamic scholars (Al-Kindi, Alhazen,
Avicenna).
02. Early Modern Roots — Descartes (dualism, reflexes), Locke (associationism), Leibniz
(active mind, monads).
03. Brain & Mind — Localization vs. anti-localization; Broca/Wernicke; stimulation
(motor/sensory strips); H.M. & memory.
04. Sensation & Perception — Kant vs. Hume; Helmholtz & nerve conduction;
psychophysics (Weber–Fechner, Stevens); Gestalt principles.
05. Wundt & Experimental Psychology — Mental chronometry; structuralism vs.
Völkerpsychologie; Ebbinghaus & memory.
06. Evolution & Function — Darwin (natural/sexual selection); comparative/evolutionary
psych; function over structure.
07. Individual Differences — Galton (correlation, twins, eugenics), Pearson; heritability
debates.
08. American Pioneers — James (habit, emotion, pragmatism), Hall, Calkins (paired
associates), Thorndike (law of effect).
09. Behaviorism — Pavlov (classical), Watson, Skinner (operant, schedules, shaping);
Tolman (latent learning).
10. Social Influence — Hypnosis origins; Asch, Festinger (dissonance), Milgram, Zimbardo;
research ethics.
11. Freud & the Unconscious — Catharsis, repression, dreams (manifest/latent), Id–Ego–
Superego; later neo-Freudians.
12. Personality & Humanistic — Allport (traits; nomothetic/idiographic), factor models
(16PF, PEN, Big Five), Maslow; Rogers.
13. Applied Psychology — I/O (Taylor, Münsterberg, Gilbreths, Hawthorne), legal
testimony (suggestibility), Hollingworth.
14. Clinical Science — Scientist–Practitioner model; critiques (Albee, Eysenck); common
factors; behavior & cognitive therapies; MMPI.
, Lecture 1: Foundational ideas from Antiquity
Plato (424-347 B.C.), coming from a wealthy aristocratic family chose to study under Socrates ((ca. 470–
399 b.c.) rather than with teachers so called sophists, who taught the skills of rhetoric and public
speaking, the way most young men were studying in democratic Athena.
Socrates engaged his students in conversations or dialogues which encouraged them to discover their
own innate capacities for finding truth, rather than passing on to them predetermined ideas or lessons.
He opposed the entire notion of writing things down, but Plato provided written portrayals of him called
The Socratic Dialogues —emphasized the great importance of those “higher” capacities for rational
thinking and mathematical reasoning that presumably reside innately within the human mind.
The dialogues became foundational statements of the approaches to mental philosophy known as
nativism, emphasizing inborn as opposed to acquired properties, and rationalism, emphasizing reason.
In his 30s he inherited substantial property, where he established the Academy, a gathering place for
scholars. In 367 b.c., a 17-year-old from the northern Greek provinces named Aristotle (ca. 384–322 b.c.)
arrived at the Academy. His father was a physician. He became the most distinguished senior scholar. He
then left the Academia to northern Greece.
There were differences between the 2. Aristotle placed more emphasis than his teacher did on the
systematic observation of the natural, empirical world of the senses. Aristotle became the first great
proponent of empiricism, the notion that true knowledge comes first and primarily through the
processing of sensory experiences of the external world.
Platon- higher realms of reason and ideas
Aristotle-the empirical solidity of earth
The pre-Socratic philosophers
The early Greeks invented philosophy (“love of wisdom”) and first theorized creatively, if often
speculatively, in such fields as physics (Thales), mathematics (Pythagoras), pondered the concept of
infinity (Zeno), fruitless to speculate about big questions like the nature of the universe, concentrate on
human experience and behavior(Protagoras) =>sophists and medicine (Hippocrates), among others.
The concept of psyche emerged. The original meaning=breath. In time, it came to signify a general life-
principle with various functions. All living things were said to possess a psyche and dead things to lack
one.
SOCRATES
He helped his pupils bring out the knowledge and wisdom that already resided within their psyches in
conversational question-and-answer dialogues.
Socrates’s myth of reincarnation (he thought the psyche or soul becomes repeatedly reincarnated in
new bodies) and recollection (the forgotten knowledge in each psyche can be re-aroused) represents an
,extreme version of philosophical nativism, in the notion that fully formed but forgotten knowledge lies
within a psyche, and just needs help from empirical experience to bring it out. =>
the human mind contains innately within itself features (eg create abstract ideas) and predispositions
that enable it to interpret and comprehend empirical experiences in ways that go beyond their raw
sensory input
PLATO
Appearance- how do objects appear to us, in the outside world, through our senses
Ideal forms- only something that exists in your mind
Plato differentiated between transient appearances, (everyday sensations and conscious experiences we
have of the external world- as when we see a particular tree, a dog), and the eternal and abstract ideal
forms that lie behind appearances (the essences of all trees). = idealism=the view that exits something
more ultimate behind every day sensory experience
He linked appearances to the shadows cast by a brightly illuminated object, reflecting only superficial
and incomplete aspects of the true form, whose qualities can only be comprehended following deep
rational contemplation.
Plato thought the human psyche has three components governing: the appetites –fastest, immediate
physical gratification, courage-duty, motivation to respond bravely to threats, and reason-rational
component that tries to make the 2 cooperate and go in the same direction
These occur in unequal proportions within different individuals. Appetite- ordinary masses, courage-
soldiers, reason-elite guardians.
ARISTOTLE
empiricism: knowledge = observations + classification (taxonomy)
Aristotle placed greater emphasis on empiricism, the observation and classification of those sensory
experiences Plato had dismissed as mere appearances. For Aristotle the mind was not passive, but it
functioned primarily as the organizer rather than the origin (as Socrates and Plato maintained) of ideas
and knowledge.
Aristotle initiated the field of biological taxonomy by meticulously observing countless animal and plant
specimens and organizing them into a hierarchy of groups and subgroups.
He attributed different degrees of complex psyches to living organisms:
He explained the difference between them in terms of soul
just the elementary functions of nutrition and reproduction to the psyches of plants (vegetative souls),
further “higher” abilities to sense-sensation, to move themselves-locomotion, and sometimes to
remember-memory and imagine experiences-imagination to animals (sensitive soul)
with the ability to think logically and to organize experience in terms of innate abstract categories
(rational soul) were presumably unique to human beings.
,The role of these categories- the mind filters observations of the things we observe through categories
of experience: substance (what), quantity (how much), quality (color, shape), location (where), time
(when), relation (e.g., bigger-smaller), activity (what is it doing)
Conclusion: Plato and Socrates had regarded the human psyche as a reservoir of innate ideas and forms,
which may be brought out or partially revealed by empirical experiences. Aristotle, by contrast,
emphasized empirical experiences as the necessary “raw materials” the psyche subsequently processes
by means of its inborn categories, thereby creating the abstract concepts and “ideal” general laws the
Platonists thought were innate.
DEMOCRITUS
A contemporary of Socrates, Democritus, proposed a radical but underappreciated atomic theory of the
physical universe, holding that everything was composed of tiny, indivisible atoms that have different
shapes moving randomly in otherwise empty space, and interacting with one another in unpredictable
ways to create material bodies. => this makes the physical substances of the universe
It was attacked because it contradicted the Greek assumption about the nature of causality, which held
that every caused event had to have a purpose. The atomic theory proposed material and efficient
causes of the universe (the stuff out of which is made and the plan behind it), but denied the reality of
any underlying plan or final purpose.
It was adopted by Epicurus and made the subject of a poem by the Roman writer Lucretius.
After the fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity in Europe, classical Greek philosophy was regarded as
pagan blasphemy and would have been completely lost had it not been preserved by a series of brilliant
Islamic scholars.
Al-Kindi promoted Aristotelian philosophy and introduced the system of Indo-Arabic numerals, which
revolutionized computational mathematics and made possible most of modern science.
Alhazen described geometrical properties of light rays and their reflection, the features of the eye as an
optical device, the influence of binocular (two-eyed) vision in enabling depth perception, laying
important foundations for modern visual science. –with an experiment of a camera obscura, he
concluded that light from the outside world is refracted by the lens in front to result in inverted images
on the retina in the back
Avicenna
He codified medical knowledge.
extension of Aristotle's functions of the soul:
exterior senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch)
interior senses
common sense
imagination, memory
, estimation (opportunities and threats)
appetition (impulses to approach or avoid)
self-awareness (floating man thought-experiment)
Most significantly, Avicenna added to the functions of the sensitive soul an internally originating
motivating function that he referred to as “appetition” which provides the impulses and energy to
approach desirable objects and avoid undesirable ones.
Avicenna’s second noteworthy elaboration of Aristotle concerned the rational soul. For him, self-
awareness was an innate capacity of the human rational soul, and evidence for the soul’s or the mind’s
distinct existence independent of the body and its physical sensation. =self-awareness is a characteristic
of the rational soul, independent of sensory input. He wanted to show that self-awareness exists
independent of sense perception.
After the hostilities of the Crusades waned, Christian and Islamic scholars interacted so that classical
learning was reintroduced into Europe and integrated into the curriculum of medieval universities.
Lecture 2. Pioneering philosophers
RENE DESCARTES
He concluded that the only way to develop true knowledge was by his own method- for him to be
convinced whether it’s true or not. He started by doubting everything. He was looking for simple nature-
the fundamental properties of physical phenomena that you cannot doubt.
Knowledge to him was more about thinking, internal thoughts (deduction) above sensory experiences
(induction).
He concluded that the physical world has at least 2 properties that he could not doubt- extension (things
have a certain space) and motion (things have a certain movement). This related to Galileo who
distinguished qualities of the world: primary qualities - shape, quantity, motion - things that are outside
of our own experience, outside of us, physical objects have those properties and secondary qualities-
sights, sounds, feelings- that exist when we interact with those objects, the way we experience the
world
The physics of the world
Descartes thought the universe is filled with particles (fire-the smallest, concentrate in the center to
form the sun, the largest earth particles form the material bodies, and transparent air particles fill all the
spaces in between), that there is no empty space. Even things like air are actually very small particles
floating around. These particles have extension and motion =>
he developed Mechanistic Physiology=seeing your body as a machine. He thought that behaviors of the
body could be explained in mechanical terms. He knew about nerves from other studies, but people
didn t know what they were, how they looked. He thought they were hollow tubes that go throughout
your body, filled with fine fluids called animal spirits=cerebrospinal fluid. He thought these fluids also
float through the nervous system. => "I can explain behavior"
, the reflex occurs when there is a stimulus (from the outside world) and an automatic response
(organism behavior) = fire particles bumping into nerves in the foot, moving the fluids, animal
spirits, fluids move upwards, go into the brain, make the cerebrospinal fluid flow and that flows
back through modal nerves, activating the muscles
acquired behavior, learning - the structure of the brain changes such that the same stimulus
leads to a different response and it can lead to an automatic response
passions-anger, fear, sadness- if the animal spirits in your brain are going around violently,
actively, then the same stimulus will lead to a violent reaction -anger; the cerebrospinal fluid is
very still, then it will lead to a small reaction
he could also explain the interaction between body and the outside world, with no soul needed (as
opposed to Aristotle)
he applied doubtness to his senses as well (maybe I see an illusion) => I can doubt what I see, what I feel,
but not that there is someone or somebody doing the doubting => Cogito Ergo Sum - I think, therefore I
am => he concluded he had a rational soul, characterized by thinking, that has innate ideas
conclusion= body and mind are 2 different things that somehow interact
Elizabeth of Bohemia posed a question: How do the material body and the immaterial mind interact? If
the mind is not made of particles and just of thought, how does it interact?
Descartes: the interaction happens in the pineal gland =lower side of the brain, in the ventricles, where
the cerebrospinal fluid flows; he chose the pineal gland because he was looking for a part of the body
that did not have symmetry, that was just one (like the soul)
He also explained how vision work -light from an external object falls into the eyes and it creates a
reversed image in the eyes, the light pushes the nerves, the animal spirits flow through the brain, move
the pineal gland and create an experience of the object that we saw = interactive dualism
Where does the knowledge in your mind come from?
1. mechanistic physiology =how people automatically react to the environment > Locke picks up, says
the mind is passive
2. interactive dualism - by the means of the mind >Leibniz, the mind is active in creating knowledge
JOHN LOCKE
Soul (innate ideas) are not necessary for knowledge =>
You need sensations (the input that comes from your senses) and reflections =create memories or
representations in your mind
ideas combine in 2 ways:
1. contiguity-they co-occur and you associate them; example: you try to pet a cat, the cat hits you
and you feel pain and the feeling of pain is close to the cat hitting you
2. similarity-they look alike, you treat them alike; example: you learned how to use a pen, you can
also learn how a pencil works
Hume elaborated Locke's association of ideas into laws of continuity and similarity
, he said there is 3 types of knowledge:
intuitive -experience of the way things are, like a certain color
demonstrative-knowledge that you can explain-mathematical theorems
sensitive- knowledge you get from interacting with the world, from the senses
it all starts out as simple ideas -you interact with the world and you see something red or you feel
something as round and hard and you combine these things into the concept of apple = complex idea; or
you have an apple and you get a feeling and say oh I’m hungry => hunger = complex idea
He was supported by Molyneux - take a blind person who interacts with the world by feeling, now the
person can see. Will he recognize by sight which one is the cube and which the sphere? No, he would
have to learn how to see
LEIBNIZ
He took the Aristotelian side of the mind being active in constructing knowledge. He was inspired by
Spinoza's pantheism idea = God is not a person, it’s everything, and by van Lee -who saw with a
microscope that water is made of all kinds of living things => all the world consists of living things,
entities who are capable of perceiving things, who are aware
He introduces monads -different kinds of perception
hierarchy of monads:
1. bare monad-they resemble someone in deep sleep=they react to certain stimuli, but for the rest
are unaware
2. sentient monad: have the capacity of perception-aware of the word around (automatic)
3. rational monad- perception and apperception=you can consciously, actively be aware of the
things around you
4. supreme monad- God, aware of everything, omnipresent
minute observations- attributed to the bare monads because your mind is made of more than one thing-
you have a sentient monad, bare monad, etc., at each and every time all these monads have certain
perceptions
example: you’re watching the video, at the same time your stomach is processing food and you’re not
aware of it - you have unconscious experiences
necessary truths- things that are in your mind; you have a certain way of perceiving things, a certain
disposition; example: you are an angry person
has inspired continental European psychology
