2.3 Problem 1: Early Roots of Psychology
Plato: The Quest for Perfect Knowledge
- Nativist = believes that knowledge is innate (learning is remembering knowledge that
we already had)
Rationalist = uses reasoning to get to the truth (real knowledge), not through
experiences
Idealist = reality consists of ideas
Dualist = distinguishes between mind & body
- 2 worlds: world of knowledge vs. world of opinion
World of knowledge = forms – real knowledge. Universal things you know by
reason, reasoning from previous knowledge
World of opinion (conception & mind), world of appearances = consists of changing
particulars of the material world, conveyed by the senses. Senses are not accurate
body hinders gain knowledge
, Sensory perception = interaction between pure form & matter
Matter is continuously changing, so result of interaction is less perfect than the pure
form
Cognition: What is Knowledge?
- According to Greeks, what sets humans and animals apart is the capacity for abstract
knowledge, while animals only respond to concrete here and now
- Plato created the field of epistemology – the study of knowledge – that eventually
gave rise to cognitive psychology
- Plato: what seems true based on today’s data may be overturned by tomorrow’s.
Truth had to be permanent & knowable with certainty
- Truth & our knowledge of it has 2 defining characteristics:
1) A belief is True if and only if it is true in all times & places absolutely
2) Knowledge had to be rationally justifiable, e.g., if a judge always judges rightly
doesn’t know the truth unless they can explain their judgments and convince others
that they’re correct
- Plato accepted earlier philosophers’ arguments that sense perception was not the path
to knowledge, as the physical world is always in a state of becoming
- How to world seems to each person and each culture is relative to each of them.
Observation is therefore tainted by individual differences and cultural preconceptions
Theory of the Forms
- The idea of Form helped reconcile Being & Becoming and provided a solution for
Socrates’ questions about Virtue
Forms belong to the realm of Being, maintaining themselves eternally, while their
material but ephemeral copies (lasting a very long time) belong to the realm of
Becoming. In Socrates’ ethical realm, every courageous act resembles the Form of
Courage, every beautiful object resembles the Form of Beauty, etc. Courage &
beauty are good = Form of the Good
- Plato accepted that societies might instill different views of beauty & ugliness, but he
didn’t think that judgments of beauty were therefore matters of local taste (not
subjective)
For Plato, something is beautiful if it resembles the Form of Beauty, it’s ugly if it
doesn’t resemble the Form of Beauty
- Beauty & virtue are not subjective judgments of people & cultures, but real properties
that objects actually possessed, like size/weight. If 2 people disagreed about beauty of
something, at least one of them was wrong, because they were ignorant about the
Form of Beauty.
- Plato elaborated Socrates’ idea into metaphysical realism: the Forms really exist as
nonphysical objects. Forms were more real than their observable copies, because they
were eternal, existing outside the physical realm of Becoming
Plato: The Quest for Perfect Knowledge
- Nativist = believes that knowledge is innate (learning is remembering knowledge that
we already had)
Rationalist = uses reasoning to get to the truth (real knowledge), not through
experiences
Idealist = reality consists of ideas
Dualist = distinguishes between mind & body
- 2 worlds: world of knowledge vs. world of opinion
World of knowledge = forms – real knowledge. Universal things you know by
reason, reasoning from previous knowledge
World of opinion (conception & mind), world of appearances = consists of changing
particulars of the material world, conveyed by the senses. Senses are not accurate
body hinders gain knowledge
, Sensory perception = interaction between pure form & matter
Matter is continuously changing, so result of interaction is less perfect than the pure
form
Cognition: What is Knowledge?
- According to Greeks, what sets humans and animals apart is the capacity for abstract
knowledge, while animals only respond to concrete here and now
- Plato created the field of epistemology – the study of knowledge – that eventually
gave rise to cognitive psychology
- Plato: what seems true based on today’s data may be overturned by tomorrow’s.
Truth had to be permanent & knowable with certainty
- Truth & our knowledge of it has 2 defining characteristics:
1) A belief is True if and only if it is true in all times & places absolutely
2) Knowledge had to be rationally justifiable, e.g., if a judge always judges rightly
doesn’t know the truth unless they can explain their judgments and convince others
that they’re correct
- Plato accepted earlier philosophers’ arguments that sense perception was not the path
to knowledge, as the physical world is always in a state of becoming
- How to world seems to each person and each culture is relative to each of them.
Observation is therefore tainted by individual differences and cultural preconceptions
Theory of the Forms
- The idea of Form helped reconcile Being & Becoming and provided a solution for
Socrates’ questions about Virtue
Forms belong to the realm of Being, maintaining themselves eternally, while their
material but ephemeral copies (lasting a very long time) belong to the realm of
Becoming. In Socrates’ ethical realm, every courageous act resembles the Form of
Courage, every beautiful object resembles the Form of Beauty, etc. Courage &
beauty are good = Form of the Good
- Plato accepted that societies might instill different views of beauty & ugliness, but he
didn’t think that judgments of beauty were therefore matters of local taste (not
subjective)
For Plato, something is beautiful if it resembles the Form of Beauty, it’s ugly if it
doesn’t resemble the Form of Beauty
- Beauty & virtue are not subjective judgments of people & cultures, but real properties
that objects actually possessed, like size/weight. If 2 people disagreed about beauty of
something, at least one of them was wrong, because they were ignorant about the
Form of Beauty.
- Plato elaborated Socrates’ idea into metaphysical realism: the Forms really exist as
nonphysical objects. Forms were more real than their observable copies, because they
were eternal, existing outside the physical realm of Becoming
