Fundamentals of Psychology
Lecture 1
Materials: lecture 1 and chapter 1
CAUSE: Language, numbers and images were the first forms of distributing
knowledge. Practical way of communicating.
Man discovers representation, in which things are denoted with symbols.
Shared representations: we can all think alike now, e.g. money is based on
the shared understanding of what something is worth. Also important for
complex social structures -> job division.
EFFECT: discovery of agriculture, man can stay in one place, produce more
food -> job division and population growth. Different jobs emerge. Based
on this, hierarchy emerged, in which higher ranked individuals have time
which can be devoted to knowledge.
EFFECT: birth of systematic research in Greece. Key questions in
philosophy:
- What is the world like (ontology)
- How do we know what is true (epistemology)
- What makes things beautiful (aesthetics)
- What makes some deeds good and bad (ethics)
The last two typically related to Greece. Focus on the first two.
Socrates
Before: Heraclitus doubts whether something ever stays the same. ‘No
man steps in the same river twice’. The only constant is change itself ->
Panta Rhei (everything flows).
Modern: invariance principles e.g. all neurons are interchangeable.
Rationalism and empiricism: School of Athens Plato is the one pointing up
because he believed that we gain knowledge from the ratio/ mind and
Aristotele points forwards -> he believes our knowledge comes from the
observation on the planet.
Important positions:
Rationalism: knowledge comes from reason, ratio (Plato)
Empiricism: knowledge comes from sensory experience (Aristotle)
Plato: knowledge comes from the ratio and is only partly based on
observation. Nativism. Nothing we see is the perfect version of it so how
do we know how the perfect one looks like? From birth -> we have the
perfect shapes in our mind. We remember it from the world of forms
(before we were born, transcendent world where there are perfect forms).
He believed in reincarnation. Socrates dialogues: Socrates was his teacher
and Plato wrote his dialogues down -> asking questions to prove your
point. E.g. helping the slave retrieve the memory. Plato’s cave: we all have
,faulty observations, some of us have the opportunity to escape the cave
and see what true knowledge is. This is difficult. Summary: people who are
in the cave only see the things presented to them. If someone is forced out
of the cave they first need to acclimatise to the fire first and then they will
see the things they see as more clear than the previous shadows, and
when they got outside they could first only look at the shadows because of
the painful light, then the reflection of the water, then the objects and
then the sun. they would make some observations about the sun (seasons,
warmth). They feel sorry for the people in the cave. But when they are
forced back, they are blind with darkness and when they tell the others
they are ridiculed. Eventually they end up resenting the person that took
them out of the cave and are very unhappy.
Modern: nativism is still relevant. Baby’s are surprised when laws of
nature are violated. Also, many argue that language is innate. Nativism is
not reincarnation but rooted in the evolution of the brain.
Aristotle: founding father of empiricism, knowledge is observation. Now:
commonsense view -> if you want to know what’s going on, you have to
observe. He did not reject rationalism e.g. no observations needed for
mathematics (e.g. geometry). He understood there can be noise -> how to
systematically gain knowledge. He rejects Plato’s two world theory (that
here is only one world we can observe). Everything around us consists of
matter. Peripatetic principle: walking around while teaching. First version
of tabula rasa theory. ‘Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the
senses’.
Modern: Locke tabula rasa, Watson behaviourism, nature nurture.
He used observation and induction to go to more general logic. Logic does
not tell us what to think but how we get from premises to a conclusion.
Truth: to say of what is that is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is
that it is, and of what is not that is not, is true. Correspondence theory of
truth: true statements correspond with states of affairs.
Empiricism versus rationalism: Aristotle sees the ability to know as natural
qualities of the soul, but knowledge does not spring from the soul but
perception. Knowledge deduced from self evident laws is stronger than the
observations that contradict this knowledge. Plato also willing to admit
that some knowledge comes from observation. But the important
knowledge comes from ratio. Continuum.
Hellenistic period:
- Stoicism: best to minimalize your feelings
- Epicureanism: happiness is the ultimate pursuit, which you achieve
by living your life as balanced as possible.
- Scepticism: refrain from judgement. Phyrro: maintains that one can
never know anything for sure. Springs grom a new quest to justify
, knowledge claims. Primary motivation for Descartes (1596). And
later inspiration for Hume (1711). The freedom to question
everything is important now.
The Romans:
More practical.
Chapter 1
Lindberg three characteristics of knowledge in civilisations without a
writing system
1. Knowing how to make tools and other skills that are based on rules of
thumb.
2. Fluidity of knowledge: limited to two generations and function of oral
tradition is mainly to transmit practical skills.
3. Existence of myths and stories about the beginning of everything and
natural phenomena. Animism: when human trats are projected onto
events and objects.
Myths could contradict so according to Lindberg, scientific thinking can not
occur without written records.
Written language appeared separately in China, Egypt, Sumer and
America. First protowriting (using symbols to represent entities without
linguistic information linking them).
Early stage written language: combination of pictograms (information
conveying sign that consists of a picture resembling the object) and
phonograms (signs that represent a sound or syllable of spoken language).
These were replaced by phonemes or syllables -> alphabetic writing
systems. Chinese has remain the closest to its original form. It is a
logographic language: sign representing spoken word which has no
physical resemblance to the words meaning.
Socrates: availability of books -> students become lazy and discouraged
from properly studying. So important legends were memorized as verses.
Reading is easiest in languages with a transparent relationship between
spelling and sound. Examples: Spanish, Croatian, Korean. Not: English and
Hebrew.
Scholastic method: study method in which students unquestioningly
memorize and recite texts that are ought to convey unchanging truths.
Discovery of numbers
Due to the possession of goods. Subtizing: newborn babies and animals
can distinguish between 1, 2 and 3 entities.
Most popular base number for tallying was 5
1. It was the first entity exceeding perceptual limits
2. It coincides with the number of fingers on one hand
, All Indo European languages share the same roots for the numbers 1-10.
Grouping of tallies -> large numbers were best represented as multiples of
smaller numbers. Most frequent base was 10.
Greek – 600 BC developed a writing system from 1-24 based on their
alphabet. Not necessarily for calculations, they used 10 base for that.
Roman – not simple or transparent numbers (just as Greek) because the
length of the numbers was not systematically related to the 10 base
structure of numbers.
India was more transparent: nine symbols from 1-9 was devised.
Also place coding system to represent powers of 10 (only working when
there is a symbol for the absence of a quantity at a certain slot e.g.
leaving space between symbols and later symbol for 0). Adopted and
extended by the Arabs and Western Europe. Order was changed -> Arabic
numerals.
The Fertile Cresent
Region in the middle east with high level of civilisation around 3000 BC
including ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations.
Innovations: the wheel, written records, number system.
Egyptians contributed geometrical knowledge and calendar.
Babylonia: superior in number system and algebraic equations.
Lindberg conditions for the growth of science
1. Political stability
2. Urbanisation
3. Patronage
4. Availability of a writing system easy to learn for enough people so that a
critical mass could be reached
The Greeks
Plato – first thinker to call philosophy a distinct approach with its own
subject and method. Distinction between the realm of eternal, never
changing ideal forms and the realm of the ever changing material reality in
which the forms or ideas are imperfectly realised and which we perceive.
Soul and body two different kinds of entity -> soul is entity defining the
person.
Division of the soul
- Reason: in the brain. Access the realm of ideal forms.
- Sensation and emotions: in the heart. Mortal.
- Lower: in the liver. Appetite and lower passions.
Aristotle – Plato’s student.
Division of knowledge
- Productive: making things.
- Practical: how men ought to act under different circumstances.
- Theoretical: truth, divided into mathematics, natural science and
Lecture 1
Materials: lecture 1 and chapter 1
CAUSE: Language, numbers and images were the first forms of distributing
knowledge. Practical way of communicating.
Man discovers representation, in which things are denoted with symbols.
Shared representations: we can all think alike now, e.g. money is based on
the shared understanding of what something is worth. Also important for
complex social structures -> job division.
EFFECT: discovery of agriculture, man can stay in one place, produce more
food -> job division and population growth. Different jobs emerge. Based
on this, hierarchy emerged, in which higher ranked individuals have time
which can be devoted to knowledge.
EFFECT: birth of systematic research in Greece. Key questions in
philosophy:
- What is the world like (ontology)
- How do we know what is true (epistemology)
- What makes things beautiful (aesthetics)
- What makes some deeds good and bad (ethics)
The last two typically related to Greece. Focus on the first two.
Socrates
Before: Heraclitus doubts whether something ever stays the same. ‘No
man steps in the same river twice’. The only constant is change itself ->
Panta Rhei (everything flows).
Modern: invariance principles e.g. all neurons are interchangeable.
Rationalism and empiricism: School of Athens Plato is the one pointing up
because he believed that we gain knowledge from the ratio/ mind and
Aristotele points forwards -> he believes our knowledge comes from the
observation on the planet.
Important positions:
Rationalism: knowledge comes from reason, ratio (Plato)
Empiricism: knowledge comes from sensory experience (Aristotle)
Plato: knowledge comes from the ratio and is only partly based on
observation. Nativism. Nothing we see is the perfect version of it so how
do we know how the perfect one looks like? From birth -> we have the
perfect shapes in our mind. We remember it from the world of forms
(before we were born, transcendent world where there are perfect forms).
He believed in reincarnation. Socrates dialogues: Socrates was his teacher
and Plato wrote his dialogues down -> asking questions to prove your
point. E.g. helping the slave retrieve the memory. Plato’s cave: we all have
,faulty observations, some of us have the opportunity to escape the cave
and see what true knowledge is. This is difficult. Summary: people who are
in the cave only see the things presented to them. If someone is forced out
of the cave they first need to acclimatise to the fire first and then they will
see the things they see as more clear than the previous shadows, and
when they got outside they could first only look at the shadows because of
the painful light, then the reflection of the water, then the objects and
then the sun. they would make some observations about the sun (seasons,
warmth). They feel sorry for the people in the cave. But when they are
forced back, they are blind with darkness and when they tell the others
they are ridiculed. Eventually they end up resenting the person that took
them out of the cave and are very unhappy.
Modern: nativism is still relevant. Baby’s are surprised when laws of
nature are violated. Also, many argue that language is innate. Nativism is
not reincarnation but rooted in the evolution of the brain.
Aristotle: founding father of empiricism, knowledge is observation. Now:
commonsense view -> if you want to know what’s going on, you have to
observe. He did not reject rationalism e.g. no observations needed for
mathematics (e.g. geometry). He understood there can be noise -> how to
systematically gain knowledge. He rejects Plato’s two world theory (that
here is only one world we can observe). Everything around us consists of
matter. Peripatetic principle: walking around while teaching. First version
of tabula rasa theory. ‘Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the
senses’.
Modern: Locke tabula rasa, Watson behaviourism, nature nurture.
He used observation and induction to go to more general logic. Logic does
not tell us what to think but how we get from premises to a conclusion.
Truth: to say of what is that is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is
that it is, and of what is not that is not, is true. Correspondence theory of
truth: true statements correspond with states of affairs.
Empiricism versus rationalism: Aristotle sees the ability to know as natural
qualities of the soul, but knowledge does not spring from the soul but
perception. Knowledge deduced from self evident laws is stronger than the
observations that contradict this knowledge. Plato also willing to admit
that some knowledge comes from observation. But the important
knowledge comes from ratio. Continuum.
Hellenistic period:
- Stoicism: best to minimalize your feelings
- Epicureanism: happiness is the ultimate pursuit, which you achieve
by living your life as balanced as possible.
- Scepticism: refrain from judgement. Phyrro: maintains that one can
never know anything for sure. Springs grom a new quest to justify
, knowledge claims. Primary motivation for Descartes (1596). And
later inspiration for Hume (1711). The freedom to question
everything is important now.
The Romans:
More practical.
Chapter 1
Lindberg three characteristics of knowledge in civilisations without a
writing system
1. Knowing how to make tools and other skills that are based on rules of
thumb.
2. Fluidity of knowledge: limited to two generations and function of oral
tradition is mainly to transmit practical skills.
3. Existence of myths and stories about the beginning of everything and
natural phenomena. Animism: when human trats are projected onto
events and objects.
Myths could contradict so according to Lindberg, scientific thinking can not
occur without written records.
Written language appeared separately in China, Egypt, Sumer and
America. First protowriting (using symbols to represent entities without
linguistic information linking them).
Early stage written language: combination of pictograms (information
conveying sign that consists of a picture resembling the object) and
phonograms (signs that represent a sound or syllable of spoken language).
These were replaced by phonemes or syllables -> alphabetic writing
systems. Chinese has remain the closest to its original form. It is a
logographic language: sign representing spoken word which has no
physical resemblance to the words meaning.
Socrates: availability of books -> students become lazy and discouraged
from properly studying. So important legends were memorized as verses.
Reading is easiest in languages with a transparent relationship between
spelling and sound. Examples: Spanish, Croatian, Korean. Not: English and
Hebrew.
Scholastic method: study method in which students unquestioningly
memorize and recite texts that are ought to convey unchanging truths.
Discovery of numbers
Due to the possession of goods. Subtizing: newborn babies and animals
can distinguish between 1, 2 and 3 entities.
Most popular base number for tallying was 5
1. It was the first entity exceeding perceptual limits
2. It coincides with the number of fingers on one hand
, All Indo European languages share the same roots for the numbers 1-10.
Grouping of tallies -> large numbers were best represented as multiples of
smaller numbers. Most frequent base was 10.
Greek – 600 BC developed a writing system from 1-24 based on their
alphabet. Not necessarily for calculations, they used 10 base for that.
Roman – not simple or transparent numbers (just as Greek) because the
length of the numbers was not systematically related to the 10 base
structure of numbers.
India was more transparent: nine symbols from 1-9 was devised.
Also place coding system to represent powers of 10 (only working when
there is a symbol for the absence of a quantity at a certain slot e.g.
leaving space between symbols and later symbol for 0). Adopted and
extended by the Arabs and Western Europe. Order was changed -> Arabic
numerals.
The Fertile Cresent
Region in the middle east with high level of civilisation around 3000 BC
including ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations.
Innovations: the wheel, written records, number system.
Egyptians contributed geometrical knowledge and calendar.
Babylonia: superior in number system and algebraic equations.
Lindberg conditions for the growth of science
1. Political stability
2. Urbanisation
3. Patronage
4. Availability of a writing system easy to learn for enough people so that a
critical mass could be reached
The Greeks
Plato – first thinker to call philosophy a distinct approach with its own
subject and method. Distinction between the realm of eternal, never
changing ideal forms and the realm of the ever changing material reality in
which the forms or ideas are imperfectly realised and which we perceive.
Soul and body two different kinds of entity -> soul is entity defining the
person.
Division of the soul
- Reason: in the brain. Access the realm of ideal forms.
- Sensation and emotions: in the heart. Mortal.
- Lower: in the liver. Appetite and lower passions.
Aristotle – Plato’s student.
Division of knowledge
- Productive: making things.
- Practical: how men ought to act under different circumstances.
- Theoretical: truth, divided into mathematics, natural science and
