Please read chapter 2. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate to the previous chapter?
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why ?
What ideas did you have while reading the chapter?
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
After reading this chapter, three things I found interesting were...
Ebbinghaus's statement that psychology has a long past but a short history was interesting in an of itself. What i believe he meant by this was the subject matter of psychology has been around since the beginning, but that psychology as we know it today, scientific psychology, is a fairly new development.
I really enjoy the fact that this chapter is focused on the sciences and philosophy of psychology. Descartes is discussed a fair amount, He lived during the end of the Resistance. Descartes was a rationalist, understanding that the way to true knowledge is through the use of your own abilities. This was understandable after reading further to notice he was also a nativist, duelist, an an interactionist. He believed the mind an body were distinctively different, but they had direct influence on each other. Some of these things are had to wrap my mind around because philosophy is a confusing topic. But what I understand is the model developed of the nervous system activity to explain the mind-body interactism.
Another thing I found interesting was Immanuel Kant's idea. From what I read he mad a mistake in thinking that psychology could not achieve the status of science. But, in reality psychology achieved the understanding of science, mind-body and behavioral science. Kant recognized the importance of our experiences for developing our understanding of the world, but argued that experience was not possible without prior knowledge. This is something I can relate to and opinion wise I agree with this statement. But Kant was wrong when he stated that psychology could not achieve the status of science.
The thing I found least interesting was the philosophical foundations, simply because I have a hard time understanding philosophy, especially by myself. So this is something I would like to go over more with Dr. Maclin or another psych professor in order to gain the right knowledge of this material.
However, there was a lot of useful material in this chapter. Although, the British Assocationism seemed to be the most informational section in my opinion. It have overviews of many historical indivduals tht helped add historical views in psychology, sciences, and philosophy.
This chapter simply expanded on the philosophical aspects of psychology. I don't think the two chapter relate in the material other than the historical views.
I would like to learn more about the British Associationism and all the individuals that were incorporated in this time. Even more information on the individuals already discussed would be alright.
The ideas that went through my mind as i read through this chapter was the things I learned in my philosophy class, which by the way was one of the hardest courses I've ever taken. The concepts are hard to wrap your mind around. The people that came to my mind when thinking of philosophy were Socrates and Plato. I'm not sure of their place in planting history in psychology and sciences but I am almost positive they accomplished something in that area. I would be interested to look more into what they may have helped incorporate in history of psychology.
One thing I found interesting in this chapter was Descartes' discovery that the mind and body influence each other. I guess I find it interesting because I've always thought about the mind and body as being one thing and not two separate things. The mind affects what the body does.
Locke's theory on how thoughts develop is something else I found interesting. I found it interesting that he believed all of our information about the world comes form our experiences. The ideas that come from those experiences come from two sources: sensation and reflection. I never thought about our ideas forming in this way before. Sensation ideas come directly from our senses from our environment in which we are in. Reflection ideas sprout from our mental activities that occur from our senses and memory. Another part of Locke's information that I found interesting was his view on punishments and rewards. He was against punishment on school children. Locke thought the more a child was punished the more they could grow to hate learning. Locke also thought concrete rewards, such as giving a child candy for good behavior, should be avoided. The child will only want to perform good behavior to get candy. I found this interesting because I learned something similar in my behavior modification class and I am surprised that the information is carrying over into a history class.
Hume's three laws of association is the next idea that interested me, well one in particular anyway. The cause and effect law of association is the one that interested me the most. At first he made me wonder why he thought we could never be certain about what causes something to happen, but as I continued reading it made sense. It kind of reminded me of the ABC's of behavior. The antecedent allows us to know what behavior is going to occur and that behavior will cause a consequence. However, sometimes the antecedent changes but the same behavior occurs. Because of this we can never be 100% certain what will cause the behavior. There is never just one event that causes something to happen. I also found it intriguing that he thought the more experience we have the better. This is interesting because if you think about it the more we know about what triggers someones anxiety (just an example) we can determine what kind of antecedent may contribute to their anxiety attacks and from there we can give them better treatment.
I found this chapter to be kind of hard to read because it was boring. One thing I found least interesting in this chapter was the part on Mill. He didn't interest me because he uses a chemical metaphor to explain his ideas, and that doesn't really work for me. Another thing that didn't interest me was the philosophical sections in this chapter.
One idea I had while reading this chapter was how much some of the information from my behavior modification class carried over to some parts of this chapter. I am interested in learning about more people who have different ideas on the way thoughts and ideas occur. I am also interested in learning more about the British Associationism, but different people other than the ones we just read about. The only way I can see these two chapters relating is through the historical views. The information didn't really relate other than it is all apart of history.
Terms: John Stuart Mill, British Associationism, Hume, Three laws of association, Descartes, Locke, Sensation, Perception, Cause and Effect law of association, punishment, rewards, behavior
The first thing that really interested or lets say fascinated me was that Descartes was able to do so much in one lifetime. He started college at age 13 and finished at 18. In this time and age that is impossible, but back then it was probably more normal. He was able to write numerous books and articles describing his work and coming up with new theories of why things did what they did. For example what he did with the ox’s eye was a huge discovery in his day. He wrote books called The World, Passions of the Soul, and Discourse on Methods among others. Descartes was able to look beyond himself and create innate idea and derived ideas.
The second thing that I found interesting and agreed with was John Locke’s social contract idea. I believe that this is true for most societies today. The social contract basically states that the government will wisely protect the citizens in terms of welfare and the common good, and in return the citizens would support the government. If either the citizens or the government failed in their duty than either the citizens would overthrow the government or the government could punish the citizen acting against the common good. John Locke explains this idea in one of his books called Two Treatises on Government.
The third thing that I found interesting was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz thoughts on consciousness. He was able to create three ideas about it. Those were Apperception, perception, and petites perceptions. He believed that apperception was the highest level of awareness meaning that this was when a person was most alert and able to consume information and make in personally meaningful. He also believed that perception was being aware of something, but not fully consumed in what was going on. Thirdly he believed that Petites perceptions was the platform for the apperception because it was when someone was below the level of awareness, but without being below the level there would be no apperception.
I think that learning about the struggles that these scientists went through is a good thing to know when learning about the history of psychology. I believe this because with Descartes for example he had to battle with the Church on multiple occasions in order to do the research he wanted to do and even then some of the work he didn’t wouldn’t get published until after his death. Trying to go against the Church in that time had to have been hard for a lot of researchers because questioning the Church was considered such a huge sin. But going back to why this is important to learn about is because they may have had to deal with a lot of obstacles, but they still did it and were able to come up with great theories that have lasted to this day and age.
One thing that I didn’t really like or maybe I just didn’t understand it was the part about David Harley. I think that his idea of psychophysical parallelism is confusing. I am not sure if I agree with it. I have read the section a couple times now and still am having a hard time figuring out exactly what he means because I think that I have the wrong idea of what he is talking about.
I would like to learn more about Descartes and his dualist argument that there is a clear separation between the body and the mind. I would like to better understand what he is saying about that and why he came to the conclusion that they were separated.
This chapter builds off the last chapter by going into the specific people who made an impact in psychology’s history. I think that going from the first chapter which explained how we should look at history and the people who are writing the history to the actual people who basically made history worked really well. It flowed nicely from one general topic to more specific topics.
Some ideas I had while reading this chapter were about the struggles with the Church that I mentioned earlier and about James Mill. The grey box talked about how James Mill raised his child to learn things and not so much meet people. Mill Jr. turned out to be a brilliant man because of the fact that his father pushed him so much when he was growing up. Some people thought that he was gifted, but he just believed he had a good teacher who was his father. I was thinking about how it would have been like growing up without having any friends. I think it would have been so hard growing up with only one person to talk to and that one person being your father. I guess this was just in my mind throughout reading the rest of the chapter.
Terms : Descartes, the world, discourse on methods. Church, innate ideas, derived ideas, dualist, Passions of the Soul, social contract, John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, David Harley, and psychophysical parallelism. Researchers, psychology, James Mill, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, consciousness, apperception, perception, petites perceptions, awareness
I have to say my all time favorite thing about this chapter was reading about John Mill (Junior). His life is the example of an experiment that will never be replicated. It is so highly unethical that nobody would ever think of putting someone through that life. But we can take the knowledge from an event that has already happen, his life. His life is very much a symbol of what happens when you live an unbalanced life. Reason was shoved down his throat until he couldn't breathe and was practically brainwashed to think like a scholar at a young age. It was a gift that eventually came back to bite him. I would fill this was something that I enjoyed about the chapter as well as something I would like to learn more about. I am really interested to read his autobiography. It has been added to my list of books to read (right after "Flow, Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). I'm very interested to see how he perceived life, because it will surely be very different from anyone else.
I think it was very fitting that John Stuart Mill went through an existential crisis. It's very relate-able and sounds like it really brought him down to earth to recognize that he is human like everyone else. Sounds like a brilliant man and I'm looking forward to learn more.
I also took a lot of interest in John Locke's idea of punishment in children. I very much agree (not sure about scientific backing) the idea that "A child who is beaten for not doing lessons soon comes to dislike learning". It seems to fit the idea of a coach for a young basketball team. The coach yells at kids and has them do exercise for punishment, then some of the children learn to dislike this punishment and can relate that to exercise.
John Locke believed that punishments could have long term effects which is something that I also agree with. The whole subject of punishment/reward is a bit iffy, but it's nice to have something that you can somewhat relate to.
His idea of rewards are also interesting. The idea that you can destroy someones motivation by trying to reinforce a behavior is interesting to me.
As a third thing that I enjoyed reading, I would have to say reading about Descartes and his reflexes on the Mind-Body. Wile reading this section, I really started to understand the gap between philosophy and psychology. With that being said, while reading this chapter, I had the chance of seeing that gap slowly being crossed over a long period of time. In my head, it was like watching a time lapse of a massive bridge of knowledge being built.
I didn't enjoy this version of "animal spirits". When I took intro to philosophy, I remembered hearing about the idea of animal spirits a bit differently. I learned that the animal spirits were always in someone's head and that they never ran out. My professor at the time related the animal spirits to the soul. That we had an inner want to move, and that was what the animal spirits were, that inner want. But this chapter describes it differently.
It's hard to pick one thing out of this chapter to be the all in-composing "most useful thing to understand the history of psychology". If I had to choose, it would be the overall understanding of this chapter. The details of this chapter are interesting within themselves, but the grand idea of the growth of psychology from the age of scholars to what is more recognized today is most useful.
I had many ideas of things that I wanted to spend some time thinking deeply about. I wrote down many ideas into my mini-notebook. Things that will be good to think about in meditation. I want to be able to think like some of these amazing people. It wouldn't even have to be to think on their level but in my time. Just to have the realization that they have had would suffice.
Terms: John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Punishment, Reward, Psychology, Meditation, Descartes, Philosophy, Motivation, Scholar.
When reading I found three things that I felt were most interesting. I thought Descartes life was all around an interseting topic. From his early schooling, to his later years as more of a philospher. I also thought his idea on the "animal spirit" was unique. The belief that an animals spirt activated movement is one way of explaining things. Lastly, Mill's methods of scientific logic grabbed my attention. One thing I did not enjoy about this chapter was the fact that it seemed more based on science rather that psychology. I just could not get into it that much because of this. Do not get me wrong, the people were interseting, but the science part was not in my opinion.
Decartes, life was interseing to me because it was so enlightened. He did so much to improve the world with little knowledge about it. From his early education being taught be the jewist, to his own seperate thinking that made him unique from traditional education. Decartes never stopped aquiring knowlegde and the way he thought. Dualism, mechanism, interactionism, and discovering the idea of the reflex. Particularly, the animal spirit idea was fasinating to me. These spirits were tiny particles found in the mind, body, and muscles. These timy particles were activated by two things. The mind could first activate them or vice versa. Therefore uncovering the idea of reflex. Decartes life was always in this constant motion of learning and teaching. He tutored Queen Christina of Sweden at 5 am until he died.
Another interesting thing that I liked about the chapter was Mills methods of scientific investigaton. They were confusing at first, but after reading about them again they made sense. First was the method of agreement which stated that one looks for a common element in several instances of an event. This meant that if X then Y, but X does not always cause Y to happen. Second, was the method of difference which stated that one looks for evidence that the absence of an effect is always accompained by the absence of a proposed cause. For example, if not X, then not Y. So if someone with bipolar didnt carry the gene X for that disorder then they would not carry the Y gene. Third, was the concomitant variaton which states that one looks to see if changes in X are associated with predictable changes in Y. For example, if a researcher was looking at two people with bipolar, he would see if the person that carried the X and Y gene for that disorder would be more likely to have bipolar than someone who also carried the X and Y gene.
One thing that I did not like about this chapter was the science aspect of it all. It did not interest me to learn about all the theories and ideas of all the people they mentioned in the chapter. Although, some were entertaining, most of them dragged on throughout the chapter. For example, I did not like reading about social contract and John Locke. I skimmed this section because I learned about John Locke and social contracts in my senior class government class in high school, nad it bored me then too. Another person/theory that I did not like was Hume and his association of cause and effect. I also learned about this in high school. I know for the sake of history the author had to include everything important about each persons life, but it seemed to a lot to take in.
The thing that I think that will be most useful is probably the thing that I hated the most about the chapter, and that was all the people and their different ideas. They are useful because they help the present understand how they went about discovering new things and how to explain those things. So, yes, learning about cause and effect and s social contract might seem boring to read about, but it is also very important in understanding the past and how we can take knowlege from them and build onto it.
The person that I would like to learn more about would be Decartes. They devoted such a long section to him in the chapter, but I found myself wanting to know more about him. From what I read and continued research online, I found out that he was a brilliant human being. From an early age taking college level classes at the college de la fleche at age 14 is incredible. He never confined himself to the ways of the scholatic way of thinking because came up with so many of his own ideas and theories. One I particularly liked was the idea of dualism. The mind and the body are two seperate things. The mind can control the body and the body can control the mind. Through that he discovered the reflex. Just by really thinking about things and the ability to research he found out so many important things that later lead to even more discoveries.
Ideas that I had while reading that chapter was how much courage it would have taken for Decartes to go in front of a group of scholars and explain this idea that animal spirits controlled the mind and body. At that time people probably thought he was off his rocker because it was such an abstract way of thinking and went totally against the way that people were suppose to think. Another thing that I thought of was the these people that the chapter mentioned and how they related to the great man theory fromt he past chapter. They all seemed to carry the same ideas, traits, and qualities. They discovered great things in this world, and they all did it with this abstract way of thining. Going against the usual way that the scholastic system was teaching them. They all knew that there was something more, something undiscovered and they rethought how to do things and discovered so many truths in doing so. And I think thats what the reinassance was all about.
Terms: Locke, Decartes, cause and effect, animal spirit, social contract, Mills, Mills method of science( Agreement, Difference, Concominant Variation), David Hume, Rules of association, College de la fleche, Queen Chritina, dualism, reflexes, scholastic
The fist section in this chapter I found interesting was the one about Descartes. The first thing about this section that really gathered my attention was the mind set that Descartes had. He was extremely focused on trying to find answers for life's questions. He was a motivated man that lived in a time of revolutionary developments in science. The timing of his life may have influenced his effectiveness at philosophy. He was attempting to unify all knowledge through science. He had discovered that he could combine various things by using reason from mathematics. I found this very interesting because it seems so crazy to me that someone could imagine combining all knowledge into a single category. Descartes was afraid his work would be condemned by the church like Galileo's had been so he kept some of his work unpublished for his lifetime. It was only when he died that the rest of his work was published. Obviously he was not able to unify knowledge throughout his life time like he had desired, but he did make a lot of advances in the process of rationality and reason.
The next thing that caught my attention in this chapter was the section about David Hume. I have learned about him before in some philosophy classes I have taken earlier in my education. This section reminded me of how frustrating his ideas about cause and effect are. He believed that no matter how many times an action preceded an event we could never be certain the action caused the event. The example that he used when explaining his argument was striking a pool ball with a pool cue. He believed that no matter how many times the cue hit the ball, and the ball moved, we could never be certain that every time the ball would move when it was struck. I found this theory frustrating the first time I learned about it. I find David Hume as a very interesting philosopher. I liked how he believed that even though "we could not be certain" we could make the best predictions from our previous experiences.
The third thing that I liked about this chapter was Immanuel Kant. He is an important philosopher. I like how he explained how the human mind instinctively organizes out experiences in a cause and effect order. I find it interesting that he believed that psychology could never be a science, because clearly today it is, but I understand that in his time he probably never realized how far technology would advance.
I did not really like how much information was in the chapter. I felt like it crammed a ton of information about several different people into one chapter. It is hard to learn about several people all at one time. It would have been easier to comprehend if they could have spread the people out throughout different chapters.
A topic I would like to learn more about is psychophysical parallelism. I do not know much about this but it sounds interesting. The book talks about how it is the idea of psychological and physical events being separate, but operating in parallel. I think it is really interesting and would like to learn more about it.
I had a lot of ideas while reading this chapter. The ways that these philosophers thought during their lifespans is amazing. I just cannot believe how deep of thinkers they could be. In todays age we grow up learning about the enlightened thinkers, but they did not have such a privilege. They had to come up with the ideas on their own. It made me think of where we would be today if we would not have had such rational thinkers.
Terms: rational, reason, Descartes, Hume, Kant, cause and effect, psychophysical parallelism, and philosophy.
One thing that was interesting in chapter 2 was discussing how the Renaissance revolutionized our way of thinking through philosophy, science, and eventually psychology. It was a time when people became fascinated with the human mind and body, they would explore it through art, philosophy, science, anatomy, and human thought. The Renaissance was a time to challenge the way of thinking and reasoning. Even the perspective of the universe would change from a geocentric view of the Earth being at the center, to a more logical heliocentric view where the sun is at the center and Earth along with the other planets revolves around it. Through these great thinkers a passion for knowledge would influence other great minds throughout history and for generations to come.
The second interesting topic was Rene Descartes a rationalist known for his logical thinking. I liked how he was a pioneer in psychology and was interested in the mind, body, and how people reasoned. He came up with the theory of innate ideas, our ability of natural reasoning, and also derived ideas our individual personal experiences. As a dualist Descartes argued for the separation of the mind and body, which the body can extend and move, but the mind can’t. I think mentally our mind goes beyond physical extensions of the body. Descartes also believed the mind’s response can control the body’s reaction, which Thomas Willis would later refer to this as our “reflex.” Although some of Descartes’s theories were flawed, his concepts influenced others to think about the mind and its ability to reason.
The third interesting topic was John Locke and his theory about how our minds at birth are like white paper, clear and untouched, a blank innocence of not knowing. Our text book states that “Locke declared that all of our knowledge about the world derives from our experience in it.” He thought humans were capable of simple ideas and reflections, but also more complex ideas with a combination of intellectual thought s and concepts. I liked the fact that Locke was against physical, harsh, and senseless punishment for children, he believed punishment would only beak the mind and spirit of the child. It was interesting to know when it came to the government Locke had liberal views about tolerance and fairness. These views led him to create a social contract between the government and the people. This contract meant that if the common person supported the government, then that government would in return take care of and protect the rights and welfare of the people. Does this sound familiar? It should because Thomas Jefferson would later include this belief in The Declaration of Independence.
I found the Cartesian dichotomy to be least interesting, and their view that humans have a mind and animals don’t. Sometimes we get so caught up in our human world we take for granted that other species also have feelings, I think their sense of reasoning comes from their instinct to survive.
The most useful thing in understanding psychology is how the different views about the human mind and its ability to reason have evolved through the centuries. This chapter relates to the first by connecting us with some of the early thinkers of the time whose thoughts and ideas dominated the history of modern science.
The topic I would like to learn more about is Immanuel Kant. Although he argued that psychology could never become a science like the physical sciences, he understood the human capacity for thinking and believed cause and effect depended on individual experiences. Kant would famously write, “I think therefor I am.”
Terms used: Rene Descartes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, geocentric, heliocentric, innate ideas, derived ideas, Cartesian dichotomy, reflex, white paper, social contact
Chapter 2 was full of “little” biographies about influential individuals throughout psychology’s “long past.” It started off with Descartes of the 1400s and ended on Immanuel Kant of the early 1800s. While some of the reading became a bit redundant to me, I found many of the thoughts and perspectives of each individual discussed throughout this chapter to be very interesting.
Under Descartes’ section, I was blown away by his ability to think so abstractly. In a time where there was very little information about the interaction between the mind and the body, Descartes was able to come up with the word reflexes. While he may have been a little off with his thinking of “animal spirits”, reflex is a very common word in today’s society. I grew up learning what reflexes are from a very young age; probably the first time my doctor did the routine “knee” test. I couldn’t imagine being the one who invented this word, let alone being able to come up with this knowledge in an era of little to no technology and a lack of empirical research/evidence.
At the same time that Descartes was producing his profound work and influencing the world, England was also experiencing a new age of thinking. Empiricism became a prominent role in the British tradition and continues to be so in today’s world. Empiricism means that our knowledge comes from the experiences that we have. A leading empiricist, John Locke, was discussed thoroughly during Chapter 2. I found his work to be very interesting. Specifically, I found his rejection of innate ideas to be very thought provoking. The book uses God as an example of what some thought to be an innate idea. Locke does not necessarily agree or disagree but rather gives other possible explanations of why the belief of a God is seen, especially in his time, in almost everyone, in every culture. He says that perhaps, since everyone dies, we all worry about what happens to us after death. Because of this common experience, humans have come up with the idea of a God to ease our peace of mind while we are living here on earth. Locke also pointed out that often times, we tend to underestimate the experiences that infants and toddlers have. Some believe that because someone as young as two talks about something frequently, in the book they used religion as an example, that religion must be an innate idea. However, Locke countered the argument by saying that perhaps that two year old has grown up in a very religious environment, therefore religion was learned and not innate. Locke preferred to think as the human mind as an empty sheet of white paper, written on by our experiences over our lifetime. With all of the “theories” discussed in this chapter, Locke’s white paper theory was one that I could most identify with.
The third idea that I found to be very interesting in chapter 2 was Hume’s take on cause and effect. I just finished psychological stats last semester and we were taught to be very wary about making cause and effect statements. It was “cool” to realize that this idea has dated all the way back to the 1700s. Hume believed that one can never be absolutely certain about the causes of events. Since Hume was an empiricist, he too believed that our knowledge is gained from our experiences. Because one can only endure so many experiences over a lifetime, our experiences are limited; therefore, Locke believed that “absolute certainty was unattainable.” This was very thought provoking for me. Perhaps things that our culture proclaims as absolute truths are due only to our experiences. Would we still think the same if we lived in another place, time, or era?
While there were many specific things that I was able to pull from the chapter as interesting, I found the chapter to be a very hard read because some of the content was hard for me to connect with. There was a lot of jargon that I was unfamiliar with and learning about people over and over made it hard for me to stay invested. I realize though that learning about this people, specifically their influence on psychology, is very important if I want a full understanding of today’s psychology.
I really enjoyed the last few pages of Chapter 2 because it helped me tie together the pieces of this chapter to the pieces of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 ends by warning the reader to not think of the individuals discussed throughout the chapter as “falling short.” In hindsight, we now can see how some of their thoughts were incorrect of missing pieces but in their time, those same thoughts were colossal and vey advanced for their age of thinking. This made me think of Chapter 1 and how we learned about problems that come along with interpreting history. It is important to “put yourself in their shoes” if one wants to get a real grasp of their ideologies.
While reading, many ideas came to mind and most of these are open ended questions that I would like to learn more about and explore the “world of the unknown.” First, almost all of the individuals discussed in chapter 2 were very liberal for their time. In today’s society, liberal ideas almost always come with ridicule and criticism, as did they in earlier centuries. However, we now look at these liberal views of the past as very advanced and intellectual for their times. Are current liberal views going to be discussed in the same way as the ones of Chapter 2 are? Secondly, again, almost all of these individuals had achieved a great deal and were either in college or out of college in their teens. Is today’s education system failing? Are we too willing to accept material in textbooks as the truth? And lastly, many of these individuals were very profound in numerous areas of study such as politics, math, science, psychology, and philosophy. Nowadays, this is very rare. You almost always see professional who are experts in very specific fields, and those with a broad knowledge are deemed as last valuable. Is this way of thinking wrong?
Terms used: Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, white paper, innate ideas, empiricism, reflexes, cause and effect, absolute certainty.
After reading chapter two I found a couple things to be quite interesting. The first thing I found interesting was have the work of great minds such as Galileo and Descartes. It was absolutely amazing the things they figured out without any of the technology that we have today. The thing I found interesting though was the rejection of their theories by the church. It had to be so frustrating for these men to work so hard on research and when it came time to show it to people, the church made that almost impossible. If they said anything that went against what the church was thinking, the church took action. It's crazy that the church literally made Galileo publicly take back his theories on a heliocentric view. This had to be motivation for them to prove that they were right. I found the section on John Locke to be very interesting. All the events that he witnessed in his lifetime made him interested in philosophy. I enjoyed his ideas on a social contract between the government and it's people. Things today have just gotten so much more complicated. His ideas aided Thomas Jefferson and other men of that time when they were coming up with a system of government for the new world. The third thing I enjoyed was Berkeley's work with understand vision. It had to have been so hard for him to come up with ways to study the eye. He had basically no technology and you can't really found out much about the eye by just looking at it. He had to be a creative thinker and come up with ways to understand this structure. I would a lot of his first experiments were not successful in finding what he wanted.
I really didn't really enjoy the first section on "a long past". I thought it was just putting into words what we already basically knew. I know it was sort of a set up to the chapter but it was not very interesting.
I think this chapter will help me in understanding history in a couple ways. It shows me how a lot of these ideas and theories were not widely accepted by the general population. The church, especially, shot down many theories and probably set us back a little when it comes to these subjects. The chapter also did a great time in setting the context so we could almost imagine the times these men were living in. This helps us understand what and why they were studying. It relates to the previous chapter because it keeps setting the stage that lead up to the way we study these fields today. They teach us not to take things at face value, asking questions can lead to the discovery of new theories (even if they are not accepted at first).
I would like to read more about Galileo. The work he was doing seemed to be really groundbreaking. He was seeing and observing space and stars like no one had ever done before. Most of what he thought went against the church, which had to make it harder for him to accept what he was seeing. It also must of been frustrating not being able to share your hard work with the public. He had to have been a very patient, understanding, and intelligent man. I had a lot of ideas while reading the chapter but the main thing I kept thinking about was criticism. Just because what someone may have thought or discovered went against what you have believed your whole life, does not make it wrong. Sometimes we get so caught up in what we already believe that it is hard for us to accept new concepts and theories. We should be more accepting when it comes to concepts in this field. It does not mean we have to agree with every theory, but we should at least give it some thought and investigate.
Terms: heliocentric, theory, motivation, government, social contract, creative thinking, experiments, Galileo, Descartes, Locke
The first thing that really interested me in this chapter were the animal spirits that Descartes talked about. He believed that animal spirits are the winds or air in a person's body that were the driving forces behind movement. It was believed that these came from the heat of a person's blood. They were tiny particles and were found in the muscles, brain, and nerves of the body. The movement of a muscle was supposed to come from the brain sending the animal spirits to one place or another in the body. The pineal gland is specifically where the movement came from that sent off the animal spirits across the body.
Descartes believed that the spirits were controlled by the pineal gland because it was centrally located in the brain and had access to both sides of it. This was important because the mind was thought to be a single unit, not something that occurred on both sides of the brain. Even though animals have a pineal gland, the function that allows for the control of animal spirits was thought to only occur in humans.
This section was interesting to me because this theory about what causes movement in a body is not accurate, but it is well thought out. Descartes has an answer to almost everything in this theory. When I was reading this section I was imagining little ghosts of animals moving from the brain down to a muscle and back. This idea seems idiotic to us now, but considering the technology of the time period this was the best they could come up with.
Another interesting part of this chapter was how John Locke thought we should educate children. Locke believed that a sound mind required a sound body. He believed that a person needed to suffer in order for them to be good citizens. For example, he believed that hard beds would make children tougher, and that soft beds would make a child weak. He also thought that we should accustom children to sickness by washing their feet in cold water and giving them shoes that leak.
Locke also believed that children develop their habits early in life, and it is up to the adults to teach children good habits before the bad ones set in. He thought that children don't form habits by following rules, but need to do something many times in order for it to be ingrained into their being.
John Locke did not like the idea of punishing children. His thinking was that a child who is punished for not doing his lessons will associate beatings with learning, which makes a child not want to learn. With too much punishment, Locke said that a child would become broken and making a child low-spirited.
The last piece of advice was that you should also avoid giving your child a concrete reward. If you do this, a child will only want the reward, and not care about being a good kid or doing the right thing. Instead, you should use approval as a reward and disapproval as punishment. This ensures that the child will work hard to please others.
Locke's opinions on raising children interest me because these are beliefs that are still around to this day. There are parents who want to baby their children and give them everything they want, and there are other parents who think the only way to raise a well-behaved child is to be tough on them.
He also talks about punishment, which seems to me like the reinforcement and punishment we learn about in intro to psych. If you want a child to like doing something, then you shouldn't give them a reward for doing it, or they will start doing something simply for the reward and no longer value the activity itself. This is a lot like what Locke believed. I think it is interesting that his opinions on child raising are still somewhat relevant today.
The third interesting thing I read was the description of John Stuart Mill's childhood and upbringing. John's father tutored him instead of sending him to school with other children. He saw his son as a blank slate and taught him many things. Mill was able to speak and read Greek and Latin as a child. He was also able to read and understand complex literature, including Greek and Roman texts. Mill did not realize how smart he was until he was an adult, because his father always seemed to think he did something backwards or wrong, but he was very smart. As an adult he said that he was not innately smart, but gained his brilliance from the teaching and experiences he received from his father.
I think it is interesting how focused Mill's upbringing was on education. This is not a normal childhood by any means. During this section I kept thinking about how children who are home schooled or tutored one-on-one are normally not as well developed when it comes to the social aspects of life, but it appears that Mill ended up with all the necessary social skills. I would not have the patience to teach a child day in and day out, but I think it is interesting that his father was so invested in him that he was willing to make this sacrifice for him.
The thing that I did not think was interesting in thus chapter was the section on complex ideas. Complex ideas include other ideas. A complex idea might be made up of simple ideas that are based on the senses a person has. For example, you might feel cold and decide you want to warm yourself up with a great smelling, dark cup of hot chocolate. The simple ideas in that thought focus on the sense of touch, smell, and sight.
I did not think this was interesting because I don't really care what makes up ideas. An idea is an idea whether it is simple or complex. There can be simple ideas that are good, and complex ideas that are good. There are simple and complex ideas that are bad. It matters more what the idea is about than how many smaller ideas go into the bigger idea.
The thing I think that will be useful in studying the history of psychology is how the history of science influences and relates to psychology. You assume that when you take a history of psychology class that you will only learn about Freud or other psychologists. Instead, we are learning about the people who laid the groundwork for such a science to be possible. This gives me a lot of perspective as to how much work has really gone into creating the psychology we have today.
I would like to learn more about Descartes and the different theories he had. Reading some about him in this book makes me realize how many ideas he may have had that I never knew of. He was a smart man, and made a lot of progress for science, even if some of his theories have been proven wrong.
While I was reading this chapter I thought a lot about what life was like during the different periods of history. During 1700's and 1800's there was very little known about the world, but people had a hunger to learn, and many discoveries were made. I also thought about what people will think in a couple hundred years about our ideas. I'm sure that many of the things we believe to be true now, will in fact prove to be false, and people will wonder how we could have ever believed such things.
Terms: Descartes, Animal Spirits, pineal gland, Locke, punishment, concrete rewards, habits, Mill, innately smart, blank slate, complex idea, simple idea
BG (login still won’t work even after reset)
Chapter two
One thing that I thought was interesting was the clock that was invented and on the Wells Cathedral in England. The clock featured lifelike statues dressed in armor that looked like knights and they would fight and one knight would be unhorsed. The other knight would strike the hour with a hammer.
Another thing that I thought was interesting during the Renaissance time was the controversial heliocentric theory. I think it was interesting that Copernicus was challenging the church on their geocentric theory that the earth and Gods greatest creation “man” was the center of the universe. Copernicus thought that the sun was the center and the earth and all other planets circulated around the sun. I think it was smart that Copernicus delayed his publication until just before his death. I think this was smart because of how controlling the church and its beliefs were at the time. I think it is crazy that so many people looked to Galileo for answers when he couldn’t even see the planets or have the technology to do so yet people would die if they questioned the beliefs of the church.
Another thing that I thought was really neat in the book was how Descartes came up with a scientific method in his Discourse on Method and how it is still very similar to the scientific steps we use today when solving an hypothesis. His first step was to accept nothing as true unless it was very clear to be true and there was no reason to doubt it. Second, Descartes said that he would use a strategy of analysis and would break the problems into sub problems. The third thing Descartes said was that he would work from the simplest problem to the hardest problem. The fourth and last step Descartes talked about was looking over his work and making sure there were no errors. I think this is very similar to the steps we use today in science.
One thing I thought that was weird yet interesting that was related to psychology was how the body had animal spirits in the brain that controlled reflexes and reactions. This was discovered also by Descartes. I think it is crazy some of the theories people thought back then. I am very thankful for the science and information we are given today even if we are still exploring the brain and the body. I think Descartes was smart in knowing that something must be causing reactions within the body that we do not control, like his example of a man pulling his foot out of a fire, I just think the animal spirits is a little strange. I also think this was the start of studying psychology because someone was willing to break away from the church and come up with ideas about the body and minds reactions.
I think this chapter relates to chapter one because it just keeps building off of one another with its theories and ideas of the world. I think philosophers and scientists just kept stealing parts of other peoples work and building off it with the advances in technology to help test new and old hypotheses.
One thing I like to learn about and kept learning about is the ideas early psychologists and scientists came up with in the beginning of psychology and science about the body and brain that I know knowledge about in modern day. I like to learn about early theories for things like Descartes animal spirits.
Some ideas I had while reading this chapter is how people in the renaissance time and earlier lived day by day believing only in what the church told them. I can’t imagine living in a world where you cannot ask questions and if you do ask them you could be punished if you questioned the churches response. I am a person of faith but if someone told me that all my questions can be answered by reading the bible I don’t know how people would survive. I am happy the world we live in its okay to believe in faith and science.
Terms: Renaissance heliocentric theory Copernicus geocentric theory Descartes
The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was Descartes. He was such a determined person. He is considered so many different things. I find it interesting how he thought about all of these things like derived ideas and our reflexes such a long time ago. It is the kind of stuff everyone knows but no one know who came up with it. I also found epistemology interesting. I didn't know there was an actually study of human knowledge I feel like that is a redundant term. Another thing I found interesting is how neurological correlates of mental activity. I like the science part. I like to know how things work. The least interesting part in the chapter was the background of all of the people. I would rather read about what they discovered not their background. I think that the biology part of psychology is very important. It is important to know how things work before we can study or fix anything. This chapter builds on the previous chapter. The first chapter was just an introduction and this chapter goes into more depth. I want to learn the biology part of psychology. It isn't exactly history but it was discovered a while ago. While reading this chapter I was thinking about how many people it took to get us where we are today in psychology. There must have be countless experiments and trials. It is crazy to think how much trial and error we had to go through to learn what we know now.
Terms: Descartes, epistemology, neurological, correlates
Right from the third page of the chapter I found a whole section that immediately caught me attention. The section was titles Descartes: The Beginnings of Modern Philosophy and Science. Although I've taken a philosophy class before and was not particularly fond of it, I still found the section immediately interesting when within the first paragraph the writers begin to discuss the Renaissance. Being an art education major, I've been learning and have had many conversations about the Renaissance before. The paragraphs began to discuss how art was relevant during the time period and moved onto inventions and even the break throughs of anatomy and astronomy. All of this I was very familiar with and was ready to learn how this would coincide with psychology. Then I realized that it would turn into discussing Rene Descartes and his advancements. The paragraphs turned into a short biography about his life which I found interesting considering there seemed to be little written knowledge about specific times in his life. It then moved into his fears while publishing The World and eventually publishing Discourse on Method. His ideas about rationalism were among the most interesting in the paragraphs due to it's emergence from a religious group. I found that extremely interesting due to the fact that, generally, we keep science and religion completely separate and nearly hope that one does not influence the other. This whole section about Descartes was very interesting to me and I think it did a great job summarizing his life which was an interesting background.
Another part of chapter that I liked was a much shorter section than the one I previously wrote about but was interesting all the same. The section was about animal spirits. The paragraphs provide details about Descartes theory about these animal spirits and it's very interesting to imagine. The theory, coming from the ancient Greeks was said to come from the "heat" of the blood and were the driving forces behind all movement. Descartes believed that these tiny spirits were actually tiny particles in constant motion and were found in the brain, nerves, and muscles. it was from this theory that Descartes hypothesized what reflexes were. it's extremely interesting to hear that the idea of reflexes came from a ancient greek idea of animal spirits which sounds so ridiculous but what was later taken as an idea and challenged to be true except they are called nerves and they are what control the muscles.
Something that I found rather uninteresting was the concepts of materialism and determinism. As I understood it, materialism was the concept that the only reality is a physical reality and even mental events that we have involve some sort of physical object in motion. Determinism being the belief that all events have prior causes and if we are not free to choose than we should not be held accountable for our actions. I find this a rather difficult concept to understand. I believe that I find these things very uninteresting simply because I don't understand them fully and can't, myself, think in that same way as the people who do think materialist or determinist way.
I believe that this chapter relates to the last chapter in the simple way that it's a continuance of how psychology has challenged our past. Chapter one focused on why we study history and how historians go about doing their jobs. It also discussed why we should want to know more about the history of psychology and how it can effect us in our lives and careers. while reading through chapter two, the meat of the class really seemed to begin. we got through part of the early history of some of the advances of the time. During the time 1500s, when these advances were being discovered we saw them as philosophical, biological, and even astronomical advances. Although now we see them today in many textbooks including one for psychology. Chapter one gives us a reason to look forward to beginning chapter two.
Although Immanuel Kant eventually came out saying that psychology would never achieve the status of a science, which I find terrible, I really did like reading about his thoughts and ideas associated with experiences. I really think that experience has a lot to do with our personality and how we look at the world around us. Kant believed that experiences were very important in developing our understanding of the world. He then argued that the more important question was how we reached the experience and how it was possible. Ultimately coming to the conclusion that, prior to the experience, there had to have been some knowledge that would help shape the experience. To me, this is a very interesting theory to grasp. Thinking about how many experiences we have daily. Millions of people probably share the same experiences we do, but how we handle and remember them could be completely different due to the prior knowledge that we have of the experience. That's a very interesting thought to me.
The biggest idea that I had while reading this chapter was about how they thought about all the disciplines back during the 1500s and figured out how they all led to modern psychology. Academics such as philosophers, biologists, astronomers, doctors and scientists alike were all discovering and testing so many hypothesis. It's incredible how many of those really inspired psychological ideas and how historians were able to dig back into all of those disciplines and pull out what transpired into influential psychology.
Terms: Renaissance, Descartes, determinism, materialism, Philosophy, Discourse on Method, animal spirits, reflexes, experience, Kant
I found section about John Locke to be the one of the more interesting parts of the book, from his social contract idea all the way to his outlook on education. The social contract stating how the government and people would work together to better themselves and later became the model for the Declaration of Independence. Locke’s determination to study human knowledge and its acquirement, more commonly known as epistemology. By doing this he first rejects the ideas of innate ideas proposed by Descartes, saying that to have any innate ideas one has to have experiences. Being a child, they have no experience or source, they don’t just know about God to talk about him they would have had to been exposed to religion, experiences. Bringing him to the conclusion and renaming of an old metaphor, that children start off as a white paper, no experience .
Next was George Berkeley and his empiricist focus on the human sensory processes, especially that of depth. All during a time when optic technologies was improving but knowledge of the visual system was lacking. The tendency of the eye muscles to make objects move closer to oneself or convergence. This is done by lessening or widening the interval between the pupils, movements he figured out were the result of muscle movements that created a sensation associated with a certain distance. The clarity of which we see something is known as accommodation, the changing of the shape of the lens to keep things in focus, all of which are due to muscle action and sensations. I like how Berkeley even went a step further in trying to explain in more depth how we see an upright world. He did this using and supporting Locke’s theory of experience, we see things in accordance to our other senses particularly touch. By touching something, such as a cross, we learn that “up” is farther away from earth when we touch the top than “down” when we touch an object that is loser to the ground.
Then there was David Hume and his proposed laws of association that caught my attention. Hume was concerned with how impressions, brought up by Lock, connected to ideas and how complex ideas formed? Along with how one idea leads to another? He came up with three laws: the first one being resemblance, objects with similarity to each other become associated with each other, thus bringing up memories or ideas. Second was contiguity, experiencing things together; when one has a snowball fight in Alaska, thinking of snow brings to mind Alaska. Hume’s third law was cause and effect, if one event follows another we develop an association between the two. He then goes on to say we can never truly be certain of the cause of an event.
The one thing that I found to be, not so much uninteresting, but funny was Descartes animal spirits. That these so called “animal spirits” when released from the brain caused our muscle to move in response to a stimulus-response, reflex. Only through the movement of tubes could the spirits reach the muscles. I know I’m looking at this from a presentism point of view, but to think that animal spirits lived inside use is just funnier than crap to me. The most useful thing in my opinion that helps with the understanding of the history of psychology would have to be the history of both Locke and John Stuart Mill. If it’s Locke’s ideas on experience and education or Mill’s contribution to the shift from philosophy to psychology, both contributed a lot in their life time. In relation to the previous chapter the only thing that I noticed was the way the book stuck to a more historicism point of view when referring to how the fathers came about their way of thinking. Giving us what was going on in their time period, to give them that frame of mind and relating to each other’s work and working off of it.
Terms: John Locke, social contract, epistemology, innate ideas, white paper, George Berkeley, Convergence, Accommodation, David Hume, Resemblance, Contiguity, cause and effect, animal spirits, reflex, presentism, John Stuart Mill, Historicism
I really found it interesting to think about Ebbinghaus' quote about psychology having a long past but a short history. His quote encompasses the idea that long ago people still thought about human behavior and mental processes even though it wasn't a scientific discipline of its own.
I also liked how the book mentioned little "did you know" facts about some of the major players in history, because it helped to put into perspective what the ideological environment was like at the time when each of these main people were writing their philosophies. This is a clear example of studying psychology from a historicist approach, because we are trying to understand what the norms were at these times.
I did not quite like the fact that the book went into great detail about all of the concepts that each of the philosophers developed. I sometimes find philosophical conversations interesting, however they really go nowhere, and most people end up feeling more confused after the conversation than they were in the beginning.
Having said that, I think it is important to understand how psychology, like all other studies, branches out from philosophy. This is like how chemistry began as alchemy. That, I believe, is a very important way in which this chapter links back to the previous chapter. Although I did not like reading about each person's extremely hypothetical philosophies, it was interesting to see things like Descartes' beliefs about reflex filaments, and to realize that he wasn't very far from what we now know scientifically about the nervous system.
It is important to understand that a rationalist is a person who systematically reasons their way to knowledge, and an empiricist is a person who believes that everything about us is based on sensation and reflection. These two concepts show up a lot in modern day psychology.
The most important thing to understand is that although philosophy cannot replace psychology, philosophy has the potential, through rational thinking, to guide people to "answers" that are similar to those that a psychologist would find through scientific research. This means two things:
a) We owe the beginning of all modern sciences to philosophy, and
b) thinking philosophically can help guide people to ask research questions that can then be studied scientifically.
Having studied a bit on visual perceptive processes in the past, I would like to learn more about George Berkeley's analysis of visual perception. Although it is very complicated, I find visual perceptive processes to be fascinating, and would like to conduct research on it at some point. Perhaps I can get some ideas for research questions from Berkeley.
Terms:
Historicist, Philosophers, Reflex Filament, Nervous System, Rationalist, Empiricist, Sensation, Reflection, Reason, Visual Perceptive Processes.
While reading chapter two, there were a few things that caught my attention to be deemed interesting. The first was within the first few paragraphs, when the books states that when referring to psychology’s “long past”, Ebbinghaus was reviewing that simple questions about human behavior and nature have been asked in the past, when questions were beginning to be formed, not just in the recent past. I found this interesting because I had always though that behavioral questions occurred within the recent past, much like psychology in general. Coincide with that, I also had not made the comparison between psychological questions and philosophical questions and the connection these areas might have. Although philosophy does seem to be answering a lot of “deep life meaning questions”, I never had made the connection between it and psychology, although after reading that section the connection does seem clearer than ever. Another thing I found interesting was the idea of simple ideas versus complex ideas. When first reading about these ideas, they sounded like common sense, simple ideas being based on simplistic thoughts, such as a color. In comparison, the complex ideas involve ideas that are compound and can, in a sense, be reduced down into simple ideas. These complex ideas involve constructive thoughts and layers of ideas piled on top of each other, each broken down into simple ideas. Throughout years of schooling, teachers ask you to “think complex” and “look deeper for the meaning”, but after reading this section, one can argue that thinking complex can be comparable to simple ideas. Alongside the ideas of simple and complex, another thing interesting was the ideas of primary qualities and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are qualities that are visible to the naked eye, such as shape and motion while secondary qualities consist of qualities that depend on perception, such as color or smell. These qualities can be comparable to the simple and complex ideas stated above. Simple ideas and primary qualities can be comparable, since both have a simplistic essence to them, both being easily noticed and do not require a large quality of thought. On the other hand, complex ideas and secondary qualities can also be comparable, due to their both need for a more complicated approach to the thought process. This was interesting because these ideas are similar, yet both carry different ideas and approaches. When thinking about these qualities, it is easy to relate back to previous situations when teachers would ask for the more complicated and descriptive thoughts. When reading about determinism, I immediately was reminded of any philosophical quote, essay, or discussion I had heard or read, for determinism reminded me of a deeper level of thinking, something I commonly associate with any philosophical situation.
One thing I disliked about this chapter was the sections on early philosophy and science, involving Descartes and Da Vinci. Throughout other classes in high school, these names were through around, whether it involved art, science or mathematics, these names were discussed thoroughly. From this, these names and their ideas have been overkilled and overused, causing me to almost flip to the next section.
This section is useful in understanding the history of psychology due to the connection between it and philosophy. The comparison between the two subjects allows the reader to understand how far back psychology goes, and that psychology’s beginning may not have begun when claimed. Meaning that psychology may have been in development long before. After this chapter, I understand that psychology’s history does not just involve the “creation” of these ideas, but builds on ideas of previous subjects.
Chapter one mainly discusses how history becomes history, while this chapter begins to explain the beginning of psychology and the connection is have with philosophy. However, these two are connected because one must know how history becomes history to understand the beginning of the history of this subject.
While reading this section, I had three educated and uneducated ideas occur. The first, and most educated, connects the Renaissance mentioned in this chapter to the Renaissance I have been learning about in my Art History class. Although these two classes cover two different subjects, art and psychology, they both cross paths in the Renaissance era by discussing the technology, science, and mathematics during this time frame. Due to this, I began to wonder if there were any other areas that these two history classes can and will cross paths that will allow me to broaden my understanding and thoughts on the Renaissance period. The second, and less educated idea, occurred to me while reading about animal spirits. Before reading after the bolded word, my mind immediately began thinking about old theories of animals being the past souls of dead loved ones, and how eerie and morbid this idea is to me. I found myself thinking about what animal I would become, and how each soul decides which animal to become. Although this idea is farfetched and slightly ridiculous, I know will remember what the chapter was meaning when discussing animal spirits. The third idea connects a character in the book, John Locke, to a character in one of my favorite television shows, Lost!. In the show, a character named John Locke, in my opinion, has some same characteristics of the John Locke in the book. The Lost! character has a philosophical attribute to him, making me wonder if the producer of the show based the character on the John Locke from the book. And if the producer did, the character in the show makes a lot more sense now.
Although chapter two seems just as uninteresting as chapter one, chapter two held more information that was easier to understand and read than just explanations of why history is important.
Terms: Ebbinghaus, simple ideas, complex ideas, primary qualities, secondary qualities, determinism, Descartes, Da Vinci, animal spirits, John Locke
Chapter two was very educational and a good summary of the important people and theories in psychology. This chapter helped me develop a sense of how ideas changed over time and the people that influenced psychology in major ways. During this chapter I constantly had the idea of connecting this chapter to chapter one. In chapter one they talk about the issues of psychology, and one main idea is the great man. This chapter continuously explained about the men of the history who shaped psychology, and I constantly was thinking that these individuals shaped psychology. The chapter held a high content of information, although, many things stood out to me more than others.
One of the first concepts in chapter two that gained my interest was the quote from Ebbinghaus, “ long past, short history.” In the overview of what you will learn from this chapter this quote is brought up, and it states that you will develop an understanding of this quote after reading this chapter. The long version is that questions about human nature and behavior have already been answered. After reading this chapter I realized, although the study of psychology is fairly new, so many things have been studied. However, research is an ongoing process that never truly ends. It is crazy how much was discovered and changed overtime. It took people to take what has been done and question it. In chapter one they talk about why we learn the history, and this quote in long term really reiterated how important history is. The next topic that stood out to me was the Renaissance era. One small topic that created such a large explosion was the advance in technology. Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press was such a huge part in the development. In my abnormal psychology class we talked about this development and how much it made an impact on psychology. I know that it is a small topic and not necessarily directly related to psychology, but I find it interesting. If you think about it, the invention spread the growth of the structure for psychology. The printing of the bible was what majorly interested me. The role religion played was so critical, and this was new to me. I find myself to be relatively religious, however I am a psychology major who understands both sides of theory. Yet the printing brought on a reasoning behind what they could not figure out. Up until the idea of observation came about, religion was a large answer for a category of items. The idea of mechanist also intrigued me. The body operating like mind and the mind having influence on body seems so relevant to us, but could you imagine making that connection and pondering it for the first time. This idea along with empiricist which I think flows directly beside dualist.. These men where genius, and this chapter overall made me excited to learn more about each individual.
The idea that I found the least interesting would be the Locke clip on education and the social contract. Maybe it is because I was an education major and these things are replicated over and over again. I find it interesting, however, I would rather the author extend on the other theories in the text. Locke did not need an entire page! But I am bias :)
It will be most useful to see a timeline to see what variables influenced new ideas and studies. I enjoy seeing things all laid out to fully connect ideas. I want to see what happened to provoke different ideas. Did someone just wake up and think, “ I don’t think thats right.” Yes, in a small idea, but what happened to move that person. I really want to learn about the rationalist, Descartes. I also want to learn more about how religion influenced things, and exactly when did that all change? Determinism states that all events have prior causes. I really like that idea, and I learn best by understanding the entire picture. I feel now religion is absent in our theories. Why? How? I enjoy learning about how fast things changed, and chapter one got me to understand why I should learn history. But this chapter got me provoked and egar to learn.
Key Terms: Great Man, Rationalist, Mechanist, interationist, Gutenberg, Locke, Rationalism, Nativism, observation, Associationist,dualist, empiricist, social contract, determinism.
I found the very first section “A Long Past” to be very interesting. As we read in the first chapter, psychology has not been around for very long: only for about one hundred and twenty five years. When I first read this I was very shocked because I would have never guessed psychology was such a new subject, and then when I read on about Ebbinghaus I was very intrigued. When I first read his statement: “Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short,” I thought it was pretty self- explanatory. However, when I read on about all the different philosophers this statement hit home and really showed how psychology has been the foundation to many important people throughout history spanning back thousands of years.
The next subject, like many others, that I found interesting was Descartes and all of the achievements he made throughout his life. The book provided an incredible amount of information on this early philosopher ranging from the time period he lived in to his stance on human capacity to reason, but there were a couple things in particular that I found especially interesting. The first included his Discourse on Method. At first I was really confused and did not understand anything he was talking about, but the book did a nice job of breaking things down into similar terms that made me understand it more. For many this method seems like common sense, but like the book says when you think about it from a historicist’s perspective you can see how amazing it really is. The fact that he was challenging authority at such an early time is fascinating. The next thing I found interesting was his work on the reflex and mind-body interaction. The conclusion he came to is very unique and I would like to learn more about his logic behind the animal spirit compared to the human; it doesn’t seem to me that he has supporting facts to prove that animals don’t have rational mind.
One last topic I found to be very interesting was Locke’s stance on education and his advice to parents. I liked this section of the chapter because it had a more behaviorist stance and also mentioned some familiar topics such as positive reinforcements, rewards, modeling, etc. I agreed with much of his advice: advocate physical health, train early on when children are more malleable, and no punishments especially as children age, and avoid concrete rewards. I believe that there are a few exceptions to these declarations, but all in all throughout what I have learned so far in other behavioral psychology classes these statements made by an early philosopher match up to later studies done by psychologists.
One thing that I didn’t like about this chapter was how much they dragged out each section. Though they provided a lot of interesting information, it was almost information overload. A few things that I did not enjoy reading about included the geocentric/heliocentric theory, social contract, and primary/secondary qualities. It’s more valuable to learn about theories that I can relate to/ that I have a little background on and with these I couldn’t do either of these things so I had a hard time becoming intrigued to learn about them.
I think that in general the whole idea of this chapter is important in understanding the history of psychology. If we omit the tiny details/theories and look at it in a holistic view we learned about how psychology has been the foundation of early thinkers/philosophers for thousands of years. We are able to see how people first viewed the human mind and we learned their reasoning behind it. In the future while learning more in this class this will help us compare and contrast and see how far we have advanced and different reasons why.
One thing that really grabbed my attention in this chapter was Berkely and his focus on the analysis of sensory processes. I am currently taking an anatomy and physiology class so we learn a lot about the different sensory processes so I would like to see some comparisons to today’s knowledge to Berkely’s findings. Also I would like to look more into the experiment he did when he hung himself and see what kind of conclusions he came up with.
I had many ideas while reading through this chapter a lot dealing with the actual science behind some of these philosophers’ studies. In my A and P lab we are currently studying reflexes and testing them out by hitting different sensitive areas, after reading Descartes opinions on muscle movement/spirits I wondered if he did similar testing or how he drew his conclusions. Another thing I thought about when I was reading the section of Locke on Education was what kind of punishments they used back in the 1600’s… spankings/groundings like we do today? One last thought I had while reading was during the section on Berkely and his theory of vision. He said that we do not see objects directly; rather we make judgments about them based on visual information and our experiences. I believe this is true to an extent but it made me think about how differently we all see things. Everyone has different tastes when seeking out their significant others. I may find one person attractive, but my friend might think they’re hideous. Is this because my experiences growing up? Whoever treated me well became attractive in my eyes? What is the psychology behind this?
Terms: Ebbinghaus, Descartes, Discourse on Method, reflex and mind-body interaction, rational mind, Locke, geocentric/heliocentric theory, social contract, and primary/secondary qualities, holistic, Berkely, analysis of sensory processes, theory of vision.
Terms: Ebbinghaus, Descartes, Discourse on Method, reflex and mind-body interaction, rational mind, Locke, geocentric/heliocentric theory, social contract, and primary/secondary qualities, holistic, Berkely, analysis of sensory processes, theory of vision.
One thing I found interesting in this chapter was dualism. Dualism is the theory that the mind or the “soul” is separate from the body. Descartes is known for being a dualist. Descartes says that the mind is like a center piece, it is the human ability to reason. The body is just a machine for the mind. I think of it as the body being a capsule which the mind is enclosed. They are separate in the sense that when the body dies, the mind continues on. Cartesian dichotomy is the separation between humans and animals. Animals have the body, the machine but because they do not have the ability of language or to reason, they do not have a mind. I find this interesting because in a way, this makes sense. I can understand how a body is a machine and your mind or “soul” is conducting the machine that continues working after the body stops.
David Hume and his rules of association also interested me. Hume believed that there were impressions and Ideas. Impressions would be your five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and hear. These sensations come from experience. Ideas are imitations of impressions. Impressions and ideas are similar but ideas are not as vivid as impressions. Hume is suggesting that with the use of impressions and ideas, we are able to deduce and make conclusions to something we have never seen. Again, I found this so interesting because it makes sense. It amazes me that philosophers and psychologists from the past were able explain thing that aren’t given a second thought today.
One of the last things I found interesting was John Locke and his blank slate theory. Locke believed that when we are born, we are born with a blank slate and what we do from there on out shapes us. He believes that we build on our experiences. We learn something very basic bit it turns out to be much more with what we do. He believed that “complex ideas were built from the basic elements of simple ideas.” I liked Locke’s quite a bit. I do believe that we are born with a blank slate and that our own actions and decisions form who we are as a person.
Though I was found of Descartes mind-body theory, I do not like to believe Cartesian dichotomy. My reason behind this is very elementary but I do not want to believe that animals have a mind or soul. The have reason for what they do and though they can not communicate with humans, they have their own form of language.
While reading this chapter, I thought it was a good addition to chapter one. It was helpful in understanding the history of psychology because it gave more insight to those who helped shape psychology’s history. I would like to look more into John Stuart Mill and his philosophies. While reading this chapter, I kept thinking I know this stuff. I’ve taken a philosophy class and while reading the chapter, a lot of it sounded familiar. Reading this chapter also reminded me how much I like learning about the different philosophers and their philosophies.
Terms: Dualism, Cartesian dichotomy, rules of association, impressions and ideas.
After reading this chapter the first thing that I found interesting was when it talked about HErman Ebbinghaus. I thought that his statement "Psychology has a long past, yet it's real history is short" was a clever, and true statement. It really got me thinking that Psychology really isn't that old of a subject, only about 120ish years, which really isn't that long if you think about it. What he meant by Psychology having a long past was referring to questions about and causes of human behavior. There have always been questions about why people act the way they do, and that is what he meant by Psychology having a long history. The secont thing that I found intersting was the Heliocentric Theory. The Heliocentric Theory argued that the sun was the center of the Universe and the Earth, like the other planets, rotated around it. I thought this was interesting because it was a different view on the Universe, also it questioned and challenged many people's beliefs at the time. It questioned the authority of the Church and upset many individuals as well. Galilei supported this theory with the help of the telescope. It basically confirmed the theory. The third thing that I found interesting was Immanuel Kant's take on experience. He said that knowledge is built from experience, but argued that the more important wuestion was how the process occurs. He wondered how experience was possible, and concluded that it required prior knowledge of some sort with helps to shape the experience we endure. He also said that we organize experiences with references to space and time, and the mind thinks in ters of cause and effect. He argued that Pschology couldn't ever become a science because he says mental phenomena couldn't be observed directly, defined, or measured with mathematics. I thought this was a very interesting point. I had never really thought about Psychology that way before. I also thought his theory about experience was interesting as well. Because if you think about it, a person would have to have some prior knowledge on a subject to make sense of the experience. It was a good arguement and theory.
While reading the chapter I thought that learning about Locke's theory about the mind would be most helpful in understanding the history of Psychology. Because he said the mind was blank at birth and had to be filled by our experiences. He said our parents are responsible for exposing us to these experiences and helping us to fill the mind. He said there were two sources to this process, sensation and reflection. Sensation is the information taken in by the senses and reflection is the mental activities involved in processing information. I would like to learn more abou tLocke's theory. I think it is a very interesting and logical theory. I didn't really have any ideas while reading the chapter honestly. Just really intrigued by Locke's theory.
Terminology: Herman Ebbinghaus, Galilei, Psychology, Heliocentric Theory, Immanuel Kant, Locke, Sensation, and Reflection.
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting?
The first thing I found interesting from chapter two was Descartes and his four basic rules which I summarized as follows. 1.) Accept nothing as true unless it presented itself so clearly there was no reason to doubt it. 2.) Analyze problems until there down to the fundamentals. 3.) Work from the simple to the most complex. 4.) Review all conclusions. To me I found this amazing because this is how we try to think today. You want to have an open mind, think logically, without bias and you want to look for a possible flaw. To think that Descartes had this mind set way back in this time period is weird to think about for many different reasons. One being given restrictions of the church and the fact that I think no one during this time really questioned any other possibilities for reasoning’s. Also, that he was able to think within all four of the basic rules then but looking at the present it’s obvious that we as a society still don’t or aren’t able to always think so rationally given a certain situation but yet at the same time we know not to be bias or illogical.
The second thing I found interesting was the argument or differences between Descartes and Locke especially on the subject of the existence of innate ideas. Innate and derived ideas are like nature vs. nurture and I felt that Locke had some really good points on the fact that maybe the questions we think of don’t just pop into our mind. I liked the example about God because it is interesting to know that many different cultures around the world believe in God or another higher power, but at the same time how did so many different cultures that have many different ways of communication come up with the idea of there actually being a higher power. Is it the fact that we are all just born with the innate belief that some force beyond ourselves created us and takes us away or is it the fact that as different cultures and people saw life being born and life being taken came to the conclusion by observations that there has to be some type of higher force. This has always been an interesting topic to me because looking at different cultures and what they religiously believe in there is a lot of conflict on what’s right and what’s wrong.
Thirdly from the chapter I enjoyed reading about Leibniz’s theory on the mind being a veined marble, I found this interesting because when you think about it if every single person when they were born had a brain/mind that was like a white sheet of paper, then shouldn’t we all be able to obtain the same information? I think on this certain topic Leibniz was getting at that the mind can be shaped twisted and turned, but depending how that specific mind is constructed there is only so much it can take in. When I think about this I think of my brother and myself, he’s naturally book smart and he does math problems for fun, me on the other hand I’m more logical and common sense smart and I would rather pull my hair out then do a math problem; given that were siblings and we grew up in virtually the same environment it just makes you realize or think that brains work completely different.
What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
Something I found to be the least interesting or a concept I didn’t fully understand was Lockes view on simple ideas and complex ideas. I just didn’t understand what he meant by the color yellow being a ‘simple idea’ but a cold glass of water on a hot day being a ‘complex idea’. I guess thinking about it a cold glass of water is complex because many other ideas go into it such as why it’s hot outside, why the waters cold, why the waters clear, how the water stays cold or takes the shape of a class but doesn’t hold that shape. But at the same time the color yellow doesn’t seem that simple either, I get that it’s just a color but at the same time how did it become yellow, who decided that it’s yellow and not orange. Possibly I’m just over thinking his concepts here, but I just didn’t care for this section of the chapter.
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Something I read from this chapter that helps me understand the history of psychology is how different discoveries of the time period contributed to different findings in psychology. Examples being Descartes and his findings on reflexes tying in with the improvements made to clocks and telescopes. Also how things being discovered in France helped the findings in Britain, and the fact that the word of each discovery or theory was able to get spread from in that day and time, places that seemed millions of miles away. I think the entire chapter just helped me picture how slowly different places and people discovering different things are like little tiny puzzle pieces and they were slowly being put together.
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate to the previous chapter?
I think chapter two just spans on the introduction of the history of psychology, it continues on with the beginning of findings and other factors that possibly helped these people to conclude what they had found.
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why ?
What ideas did you have while reading the chapter? One idea had was what if Descartes had never had the idea of innate ideas, would Locke have had the idea to still think of the question how the human mind gets its questions? Would there still be a nature vs. nurture, granted I think someone would have eventually thought of it, but then we could possibly not know as much or even more about the two categories then we do today.
Terms: Descartes and his 4 basic terms, bias, logically, innate ideas, derived ideas, locke, nature, nurture, simple ideas, complex ideas, Leibinz, veined marble, white paper.
The first thing that interested me in this chapter was “The Passions of the Soul” publication by Descartes. This was kind of a way that Descartes was explaining how the human body worked. With this Descartes starts off by describing the automatic reflexes of the body and how nerves and other body parts are all connected to the brain. The thing that really caught my attention about this section was how Descartes called these things that happened “animal spirits”. Descartes described these animal spirits as an air or wind that went through your body to control the things that you do. Descartes says that the mind can either direct these animal spirits or the muscles can direct them automatically with the brain. The reason this is interesting to me is because of how he words it, “animal spirits”, it just seems like a mythological thing that’s just science.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was John Locke’s idea about how we came to have ideas of our own. Locke stated that our ideas had arrived to us by reason and were not in fact our own. He states that ideas originate from other sources that we have already experienced and possibly built off of. A good example of this was how we conclude that all physical objects have the property of extension it is because we have experienced this before and if we hadn’t have then we wouldn’t even have thought about it this way. I found this interesting because it makes it seem like nobody is really original but just building off of things that we have already had. It’s hard to believe that everything we think about we think about because we have been exposed to it, if not we wouldn’t be thinking about it at all.
The final thing that I found interesting in this chapter was another idea that Locke had in his essay and that was how we made a distinction between ideas. There are two types of ideas, simple and complex. Simple ideas are those that are basic sensory qualities such as heat. Complex ideas are those that are made up of many simple ideas. Complex ideas are ones that we break down from the most complicated ideas into multiple simple ones that we can understand. I found this interesting because Locke and all these other people come up with what happens to us on a split-second decision in everyday life but we just don’t recognize it.
The least interesting thing that I found in this chapter was Mill’s logic he came up with in 1843. The reason I didn’t like this part of the chapter is because I am currently enrolled in two other classes that are going over things such as causation and other methods to support a hypothesis. I guess the only reason that I wouldn’t like it then would have been because I’ve heard too much of it already so I kind of shut myself down on this section.
The thing I read in this chapter that will be the most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology would be the historical figures ranging from Descartes to Locke to just about anybody else talking about the nature versus nurture discussion. If I know more about this I feel it will be easier to understand what is going on in history at the time because it seems like every person in this book stems an idea from this argument because it really can help in understanding other ideas and to determine why people act and think the way they do.
A topic that I would like to learn more about would have to be how religion plays into the thinking of many psychologists at the time and in the present day. I found this interesting due to a specific part where Berkeley says we can only truly perceive the permanence of reality through our faith in God. I’m curious to see how other people’s view of the church with the sciences kind of proceeded through time.
One idea I had while reading the chapter was when John Stuart Mill was being talked about and how he wrote about women’s equalities and how women should also get to vote. This was ahead of its time and it gave me the idea of how many women psychologists were there at this time and when did they truly start to emerge. Another idea I had was how psychology and the physical sciences seem to work really well with each other and kind of go hand in hand with their work, this was just a casual idea I had while reading.
Terms: The Passions of the Soul, Descartes, animal spirits, reflexes, Locke, simple ideas, complex ideas, causation, hypothesis, John Stuart Mill, nature versus nurture, psychology.
The first thing that interested me in this chapter was “The Passions of the Soul” publication by Descartes. This was kind of a way that Descartes was explaining how the human body worked. With this Descartes starts off by describing the automatic reflexes of the body and how nerves and other body parts are all connected to the brain. The thing that really caught my attention about this section was how Descartes called these things that happened “animal spirits”. Descartes described these animal spirits as an air or wind that went through your body to control the things that you do. Descartes says that the mind can either direct these animal spirits or the muscles can direct them automatically with the brain. The reason this is interesting to me is because of how he words it, “animal spirits”, it just seems like a mythological thing that’s just science.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was John Locke’s idea about how we came to have ideas of our own. Locke stated that our ideas had arrived to us by reason and were not in fact our own. He states that ideas originate from other sources that we have already experienced and possibly built off of. A good example of this was how we conclude that all physical objects have the property of extension it is because we have experienced this before and if we hadn’t have then we wouldn’t even have thought about it this way. I found this interesting because it makes it seem like nobody is really original but just building off of things that we have already had. It’s hard to believe that everything we think about we think about because we have been exposed to it, if not we wouldn’t be thinking about it at all.
The final thing that I found interesting in this chapter was another idea that Locke had in his essay and that was how we made a distinction between ideas. There are two types of ideas, simple and complex. Simple ideas are those that are basic sensory qualities such as heat. Complex ideas are those that are made up of many simple ideas. Complex ideas are ones that we break down from the most complicated ideas into multiple simple ones that we can understand. I found this interesting because Locke and all these other people come up with what happens to us on a split-second decision in everyday life but we just don’t recognize it.
The least interesting thing that I found in this chapter was Mill’s logic he came up with in 1843. The reason I didn’t like this part of the chapter is because I am currently enrolled in two other classes that are going over things such as causation and other methods to support a hypothesis. I guess the only reason that I wouldn’t like it then would have been because I’ve heard too much of it already so I kind of shut myself down on this section.
The thing I read in this chapter that will be the most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology would be the historical figures ranging from Descartes to Locke to just about anybody else talking about the nature versus nurture discussion. If I know more about this I feel it will be easier to understand what is going on in history at the time because it seems like every person in this book stems an idea from this argument because it really can help in understanding other ideas and to determine why people act and think the way they do.
A topic that I would like to learn more about would have to be how religion plays into the thinking of many psychologists at the time and in the present day. I found this interesting due to a specific part where Berkeley says we can only truly perceive the permanence of reality through our faith in God. I’m curious to see how other people’s view of the church with the sciences kind of proceeded through time.
One idea I had while reading the chapter was when John Stuart Mill was being talked about and how he wrote about women’s equalities and how women should also get to vote. This was ahead of its time and it gave me the idea of how many women psychologists were there at this time and when did they truly start to emerge. Another idea I had was how psychology and the physical sciences seem to work really well with each other and kind of go hand in hand with their work, this was just a casual idea I had while reading.
Terms: The Passions of the Soul, Descartes, animal spirits, reflexes, Locke, simple ideas, complex ideas, causation, hypothesis, John Stuart Mill, nature versus nurture, psychology.
BR
In chapter two I found the section about Decartes and how ambitious he was and how he wanted answers to questions about life to be interesting. Graduating at the age of eighteen and seen as a star pupil as well as a writer of many books about psychology; Decartes made a name for himself as history’s best known dualist. He argued about the difference of the mind and body. Decartes believed that the mind just came down to humans’ ability to reason, whereas the body was a machine. This is interesting and makes sense, because the body does all the movements like a “machine” where the mind does reason or all the thinking power behind the movements of the body. So although separate they influence each other; it’s odd to think of the mind and body separate because without the mind the body is nothing in the movement department. He thought that animals were just bodies and had “no minds” in a sense because they couldn’t reason or didn’t have language. I found this interesting because now we can say with evidence that this is not true. Animals are capable of language and reason, I find it intriguing how Decartes didn’t explore animals and their minds more in depth to find out details about how their brains work.
Another aspect I found interesting was how John Locke believed that behavior could be shaped by the environment of humans. He also believed that if you know people’s experiences you learn a lot about their life. This is interesting to me because I definitely agree. I believe that environments in which one lives or grew up in is a huge factor as to how one’s behavior develops throughout life or is portrayed. This concept shows how people are different and Locke used this theory to show that differences, even if religious should be allowed or tolerated. Locke was a smart dude and I would agree that everyone is different and that our environments is a key factor as to why.
The final interesting thing I came across while reading chapter two was Hume’s three laws of association. They were resemblance, contiguity, and cause/effect. Resemblance is when your mind is triggered by something that is closely related to another experience or memory. This obviously happens to almost everyone. It’s interesting that it was discovered that long ago, especially because something like that seems to be so natural that you wouldn’t ever stop to actually think about what’s going on in your mind as to why it links with previous memories. Experiencing things together is contiguity, for example if one does something only in a certain place or time, then when thinking about that activity it brings to mind of that time or specific place. Again something that I would never think about until reading this chapter, it makes me think of how often this happens to me. Cause and effect is the last of the three laws. Hume’s example is of a healed wound. The original wound led to causing pain, so when looking at the old wound, one is reminded of the pain and reasons to what caused it. These concepts are interesting to me because they seem so simple and natural, but when broken down I find myself thinking about them a lot more and how often I am doing each of them.
What I think will be the most useful to understand the history of psychology would be Locke’s ideas and British empiricism’s about how experiences and one’s environment are big factors of one’s life and their behavior. Without experiences one doesn’t really have a history because everyone experiences significant events throughout their lives which shape who they are and who they can possibly become.
This chapter relates to chapter one in the sense that presentism was brought up more than once. I think in doing so it (at least for me) made you stop for a moment and make sure that you are trying to see their discovers from their time period, instead of looking at what we know now in our time period and comparing it to their findings of their time.
I would like to learn more about any of the three interesting topics I stated above. I really enjoyed reading this chapter because it got me thinking and kept my interest, so I’d be happy with learning more about any one of those.
My ideas when reading this chapter was me wondering if Locke, Hume, Decartes etc. from the chapter ever thought how big their discoveries would be and how much influence they now have and had back then even though they weren’t always be recognized for it as much as they are today. I also wondered how things would have been different if these psychologists’ work was more viewed by the public, and if people would have done anything different to change their environments or tried to develop new experiences to help shape their behaviors after learning more about these theories.
Terms: Decartes, association, Hume, Locke, cause/effect, contiguity, resemblance, psychology, behavior, Hume’s three laws, dualist, reason, empiricism
After reading chapter two, one of the things I found interesting was the works of Descartes. I found this section interesting because Descartes managed to do so many different things in his lifetime. I also found it interesting how he managed to almost pave the way for modern science in the world. Descartes finished college at age eighteen, which is very impressive. When I think of how mature I was at age eighteen, I cannot say that I would be able to graduate from a university. Despite his formal education, Descartes was dismayed by his lack of understanding of the world. He set out to push boundaries in the name of science and explore things that we never officially questioned before. Descartes became a rationalist, which is a belief that mental operations must be employed before knowledge can be obtained. This way of thinking was what the Reformation was all about and helped to propel science towards what we know it as today.
Descartes was very brave. He defied the church, a very strong power in the world at that time, in a quest for scientific and philosophical knowledge. Although he made many contributions to science, I was more interested in the way that he did it. Descartes make observations and deduce the true meaning of something only after it could not be doubted to be true. For example, he deduced that the body can have a direct influence on the mind and that the mind can have an influence on the body because he determined that there is no way to prove these facts wrong.
A second thing that I found interesting was the story of James and John Stuart Mill. I found the story very interesting because its a very fascinating concept that I had never heard of before and that will most likely never be done again. From today's standpoint, I think it was foolish for a father to make his son endure a life of little social interaction and much reading, studying, and learning. I think that, at the time, it probably made sense. James Mill tried to compact as much information into his son's head as possible. The thing that was interesting was, at least at first, it seemed to work. John Stuart Mill was intellectually far superior to other children his age. I think his intelligence was exemplified in the fact that he deduced that he was not naturally any smarter than anyone else, but that his experiences shaped him. Sadly, John Stuart Junior fell into a depression at around age 20.
I think the thing that I took away from all of this was that scientists had to make mistakes in order to learn. Although the book continues to talk about all of John Stuart Mill's accomplishments and contributions to psychology, I was stuck on the idea that a father would subject his child to a life like this in name of science and understanding.
A third thing that I liked was the contributions of John Locke. I really liked Locke's Social Contract Theory,mainly because I remember learning about it in my high school World History class. Essentially, the theory states that a government would govern wisely and protect the rights, welfare, and common good of the the people; the people would then agree to support the government and participate in it. Thomas Jefferson later based the Constitution of the United States on John Locke's theory.
Other than the Social Contract Theory, I really liked Locke's stance on innate ideas. The part about the concept of the Deity really stuck out to me. Most people at the time believed that the concept of God was innate because it does not require any specific experiences and transcends across cultures. Locke did not believe that to be the case. He claimed that because everyone dies and everyone thinks of life after death, that all people share a common experience and the idea of the supernatural is inevitable. I mostly admire Locke for his ability to both see and question things that other people may not have thought about before.
The thing that I found the least interesting was the part about animal spirits. I honestly starting thinking of Native Americans and could not stop. The concept went over my head. I do not really care for philosophy and the concept seemed weird to me. I think that if I went back and read it again that I may be able to pick some more information up about animal spirits, but it seemed very strange and not really that scientific to me.
The thing that I took away from this chapter that will be most helpful to me in understanding the history of psychology would be the contributions of Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Mill, Hartley, and all the other people mentioned in this chapter, because they truely are the building blocks of the science. Without their contributions, regardless of how correct or incorrect they were, helped to pave the way for Psychology to develop. Without this knowledge, Psychology would seem to just appear out of no where. The foundation of how the Psychological thinking began is very important to understanding where it went from there.
When I thought about applying the last chapter to this chapter, I thought about what I used the most from chapter one: presentism verses historicism. Different theories seem strange by today's standards, but are perfectly acceptable in comparison to the thoughts and ideas of the time in which they took place.
I would really like to read more about the childhood of the John Stuart Mill. The textbook alludes that he had a fairly normal adult life, but that his childhood was very unique. I would like to read his autobiography to see what it was like for him to be raised that way, and to see what his thoughts on the situation were.
Terms: Descartes, animal spirits, social contract, Locke, John Stuart Mill, Psychology,
RB
In reading through chapter two, there was a lot of information that was presented in the text. Of the many things covered, one of the topics that I found interesting was that of John Locke’s views on education. In particular, I found his third point from the volume Some Thoughts Concerning Education very intriguing. In that paragraph, Locke argues against the use of punishment on children as they get older. Children will come to dislike learning if they keep being punished for not completing the lesson. This segment applied to me personally as I aspire to be a teacher some day. These four points in this section of the reading thus had an immediate appeal to me.
Another part of the chapter that I found interesting, but bizarre, was Descartes’ notion of “animal spirits.” This was what he referred to the nerves in the body as. The animal spirits were supposed to be from the heat of the blood and were the primary force behind movement of the body. Descartes believed that these tiny spirits were found throughout the body and were constantly in motion. It was this part of the chapter that I almost had to read twice because I couldn’t believe my eyes. Yet I still found it to be very enlightening of the past.
The third part of the chapter that I liked was the section about John Stuart Mill and his system of logic. His three methods; the method of agreement, the method of difference, and the joint method are all used for applying inductive logic to science. What I found interesting about this is that his methods are still used today for popular research. This essentially outlines the importance of the impact that Mill made on the field of psychology.
If there was any part of the chapter that I did not like, it would probably be how long it was. I know there was a lot of information that needed to be covered, but at the same time, I felt that some of the persons of interest had background stories that could have been shortened up a bit. Other than that, I didn’t mind this chapter. The one thing that would be most useful to the understanding is also probably the very thing that I was just talking about. The background information on both the historical figures and their contributions to the field of psychology are the most useful aspects of this chapter to the history of psychology
In comparing this chapter with the first chapter, I feel that the first chapter sort of led us into this chapter in that chapter one was sort of an introduction to the study of psychology. The second chapter went more into depth on the founders of psychology.
Terms: John Locke, education, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, punishment, Descartes, animal spirits, body, nerves, John Stuart Mill, psychology, method
The most intriguing thing to me about this chapter was the information about Copernicus and Descartes making sure their controversial works were only published right before or only after they had died. The reason was that they knew that the books they published were in contrast to the teachings of the Church and they did not want to suffer the consequences of facing heresy charges. I wonder if they gave much thought to the consequences that their families might have to suffer after the books were published. The Church would sometimes extend the punishment for heresy toward the families of those guilty of the charges. Copernicus did have his controversial work on heliocentric theory published prior to his death, and he made sure that the information did get out there. According to the textbook, Descartes had his most controversial works published after his death. Obviously because he was dead, he never really knew if that information was published. However, Descartes did die early and somewhat unexpectedly and maybe if he had he lived longer he would have gone ahead and published prior to death.
The second most intriguing thing to me about the chapter was the circumstances around Descartes death. I want to know more about his motivations to go to Stockholm and tutor the queen. I found it interesting that he was willing to change his routine (and get out of bed so early each day). Did she offer him huge sums of money? Was he interested in collaborating with other great scholars? Was she the one who made sure his controversial works saw the light of day? This is also one thing in this chapter I will research further to get some answers to my questions (I ran away screaming from the one philosophy class I nearly took, so my information concerning the great philosophers was limited to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle).
The third most intriguing part of the chapter was learning the contributions of John Stuart Mill. I was also interested to learn that he made an effort on behalf of women to argue for equality long before most others. He was greatly influenced by Harriet Taylor Mill, and she loved him because he treated her as an intellectual equal. I was interested to learn of the personal scandal in Mill’s life due to his love for Taylor (a married woman). The logical thing would have been to leave her alone, but instead Mill quietly but actively pursued her. The text gives us the information that the affair was platonic, but Harriet and her husband had separated in 1933, although they resided in the same household. The marriage was for “show”. Mill even resided in the same household – what a stunningly liberal arrangement for the time. Mill kept this friendship with Taylor from (at least) the early 1930s and they were finally able to marry after her husband’s death. The text has a picture of Mill with his stepdaughter, Helen Taylor, another brilliant feminist activist. The resemblance between John Stuart Mill and (step-daughter) Helen Taylor is remarkable. Mill collaborated with mother and daughter in writing books promoting gender equality.
The parts of the chapter I found least interesting were the attempts of early psychologists to explain the mind in spiritual terms. I understand what they were trying to do. I believe that many of us have tried to understand what really makes the human mind work as it does. Our thinking processes are unique in our world, as humans we do more than just function, we think critically. I have seen images of the human brain as a huge filing cabinet with little people running around retrieving information and processing that information much like a computer. One of our greatest interest as humans would naturally be to find out why our brains function the way that they do, and obviously Descartes and Locke put some thought into it. However, I am not interested in reading about their theories regarding the human “essence” when those theories are not provable or testable or even subject to being debunked.
I do believe that learning about the great philosophers and early psychologists will help me to understand how psychology evolved as a science, and how it is different from philosophy. It seems to me that, starting with the Renaissance, knowledge which had been lost was not only rediscovered but expanded upon. How do we know how much was lost and never recovered? It is important for me to learn where the human race has been in order to better understand where it is we are going. I feel like I need to know as much as I can about the pioneers of psychology, and the critical ways of thinking they have used to get us where we are today.
I believe this chapter 2 relates to chapter 1 by expanding on the history which we have learned. Watson and Boring did not invent psychology, they expanded upon it. I believe that Boring wanted the history to be preserved and accessible so that future generations could look back and see the critical turning points in psychology as a roadmap for the future.
This leads me to another thing I found interesting to learn – that Aristotle was the “official” philosopher of the Church. I want to learn more about Aristotle than the little that I already know. I want to know what shaped his ideas and which of those ideas his students may have tried to challenge or build upon. I am interested in going back and studying more information about Greece and Rome and the destruction of the great libraries.
The things I considered when reading this chapter were how many lives were lost and how much knowledge has been suppressed. Books were burned and many manuscripts were never published, and there was a suppression of the ideas of the great thinkers in history which we may never learn. How many times has our civilization been set back because of war and ideology? Granted, there have been times in history where great disasters have set us back, and in the vacuum of power after the great disasters there were probably stagnant periods of time where the greater part of society was more interested in order than in achievement. How many great works are still buried and salvageable in a desert or mountain somewhere? How much spin has been put on the history that we are learning today? These are the kinds of things I think about when reading about history.
Terminology: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, John Stuart Mill, Harriet Taylor Mill, Helen Taylor, Watson, Boring, Copernicus, heresy, Renaissance, heliocentric theory, gender equality, logic, (human) essence, Greece, Rome, civilization, ideology, liberal
The first thing that interested me about this chapter was the very fact that it stressed philosophy. I have had two experiences with psychology professors ridiculing philosophy. As a double major in psychology and philosophy, I have great respect for both fields, but I find that most sciences deemphasize the importance of philosophy. But all science has roots in philosophy, and if we are to pose any questions to further science, there is still quite a bit of philosophical work left. For example, at the end of nearly every psychological study, there is an “implications” section, where the psychologists discuss how the findings can be interpreted and applied. This is not psychological work—it is philosophical work. It’s amazing how it’s overlooked so often, and yet the field that is responsible for this work is continually disregarded and overlooked. It was refreshing to see emphasis placed yet again at the root of science and at the field that just may lead us in the direction of psychology’s future.
Another thing I liked about this chapter is the way it described the findings of the Renaissance. No matter which way you look at it, the renaissance was a fascinating period in time. There were so many discoveries-- including the shift from the geocentric to Copernicus’ heliocentric model, Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press, and Vesalius’ advances in the science of human anatomy. However much these single events impacted the world, they would have nowhere near such a grand effect if they had only been isolated incidents. All these events came together in such a way that they formed an entirely new mentality; faith was replaced with reason and Humanism was reemphasized. These findings and discoveries, grouped together to create one mass effect, remind me much of the gestalt theory of mind and brain—simply, that the sum is greater than its parts. Perhaps taken out of a given context, these isolated discoveries would have been meaningless. However, grouped together, they had the power to influence an entire mentality and succeeded in changing the way we view science today.
Another thing I found fascinating was Descartes’ idea of innate and derived ideas in comparison to psychology’s nature/nurture dilemma. Though I am familiar with both sets of terms (and also with the connection between psychology and philosophy), this relationship had never occurred to me. This example may serve as further evidence for Descartes notion that knowledge is interconnected. Perhaps we will never reach a Platonic ideal of truth that is universal among all fields, but there are certainly plenty of connections that can be drawn. This got me thinking—the only things that really get my attention (and, from what I’ve noticed, the only things that really get the attention of my peers) are not the learning new facts. Rather, it’s being able to see the relationship between all disciplines. Drawing connections between what we always considered to be “separate” fields is both a higher-level function (and thus has some degree of intrinsic benefit) and a more practical use of ones’ time and skills. After all, you can look up facts, but you can’t really search the process of understanding concepts.
I am currently in “The Human Person”, a philosophy class that aims to discuss and analyze the history of consciousness, so it’s essentially a philosophy of psychology course. Since this is not a philosophy course, its’ understandable that the book only dedicates one chapter to discussing philosophers. However, it’s worth noting that the philosophers discussed in all of chapter 2 are in the syllabus for an entire semester in The Human Person—and even then, we won’t scratch the surface. It’s amazing how much work these philosophers put into their ideas even before the birth of “new science”.
The most useful thing, like I said, was not learning about any specific philosopher, but learning about the intimacy of disciplines between psychology and philosophy. I think this chapter plays on the last chapter (and my previous blog post) about presentism and historicism. Chapter 2 emphasizes not Descartes’ flawed rationale for believing the pineal gland is the center of mind/body unity, but the contributions he made in stressing the physiological aspect of psychology. Using the historical approach and emphasizing the context, we can appreciate these offerings for what they truly were. One thing I would like to learn more about is the point in time when psychology and philosophy became two distinct fields. This is a fairly abstract question that is, I’m sure, controversial and based in semantics. Either way, I’d be interested in researching the opinions of scholars on the matter.
Terms: geocentric, heliocentric, Nicolas Copernicus, Johannes Gutenberg, Andreas Vesalius, Humanism, gestalt, innate idea, Rene Descartes, derived idea, nature, nurture, New science, presentism, historicism, pineal gland.
Hermann Ebbinghaus is quoted at the beginning of the chapter saying, “Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short.” I thought this was very interesting because I had never thought of psychology in this manner. It makes a lot of sense; psychology as a science and a studied discipline is very new, but the questions that are being looked into have always been around. Since man could speak and reason, we have been asking questions on human nature and behavior. The beginning was philosophy. Only in recent years did anyone look at these philosophical questions in a scientific manner. By applying the scientific method, a psychologist is looking at the world in a systematic and objective manner, using manner to understand who we are as humans. I do not think I have ever been told psychology has its roots in philosophy, but somehow I knew that these questions had always been. I had been taught psychology is a new discipline but also taught about Aristotle and Socrates and had always wondered where they really fit into psychology. I think I now understand that they truly were philosophers, but that is why we study them in psychology. They were the first to publicly ask the questions we study today.
I was very intrigued by George Berkeley’s views on perception. It really goes against the saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” His theory on vision says that we do not directly see anything at all. We only make judgments based on sensory perception and experiences. Berkeley held subjective idealism to be true as well. This is the idea that maybe nothing is real. We can only count on the fact that we perceive objects in the world, so the only truth we can know for sure is that we are perceiving them, not that they are actually there. Berkeley did, however, believe that reality exists, but only because of God. He stated that an event no human sees still happened because God witnessed it. Therefore, the only way one can be certain about the reality of reality is through faith in God.
Reading about Immanuel Kant was also very interesting to me. Kant believed that reality is based on experience, but that the only way to realize that experience, is to have some sort of prior knowledge that helps your brain to shape and organize the new experiences. He thought the human brain thinks in cause and effect, that these are innate properties of the mind, like space and time. I would have to agree with Kant in how our brain works, at least on a basic level. If not, why then do we always ask the question “Why?” Humans are always looking for a cause and speculating a cause for any event. In addition, we are curios creatures, and often think, “If I do X, what will happen?” Essentially, what will the effect be? I was surprised when I read that Kant did not think psychology could ever be taught and studied as a science. He does make a good point that mental processes cannot be directly observed.
I did not like reading about the history of the people we studied. While I do like learning and reading about their childhood and family background was pretty interesting, I do not see why it is at all necessary for my understanding of psychology. If I had the extra time to learn about these people’s personal lives, I definitely might look it up, but I do not think I should have to read about it when it doesn’t apply to what we are studying. It just made the reading longer.
I think learning about philosophy as the beginning of psychology will be very helpful in my understanding of psychology in the future. It helped me grasp the overlap in what the two disciplines study. I have never learned much about philosophy, but what I have learned sounds to me like psychology without science, just people making things up to understand the world and the people in it. I think I have gained a new appreciation for philosophy as well as a new take on psychology.
I would really like to learn more about Berkeley and his theories on vision and reality. Do people still believe this? It is just an idea that is hard to even think about. I don’t know where to start.
While reading this chapter, I thought about the people featured in it. It seems that most of them were normal people with big ideas. It is really interesting to think about what the history of psychology will be in 50 or 100 years. Will there be a section on Otto Maclin or Charlie Blair-Broaker, my teacher from high school?
Terms: Hermann Ebbinghaus, philosophy, Aristotle, Socrates, George Berkeley, perception, subjective idealism, Immanuel Kant
The main thing I enjoyed reading about was actually a person, or Descartes. I found his story and interests very intriguing. It was crazy to me that he was in his third year of college at the young age of thirteen; however, I’m sure their curriculum was a bit different than the one we have now. Also, the text tells us that he left college at age eighteen; so I assume they went to college longer, or maybe it was their name for what we now call high school. It was also strange to me that he wanted to hide his birthday (as I read in a cliff note in the text), and I did not really understand why he did that. I thought it was interesting that he “would only accept as truth only that which could not be doubted,” as well as that he was a rationalist. It made me think of my own ways of thinking and also made me think about the widely known court term: “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I wonder if there is any influence there. He also disregarded evidence perceived by the senses, which is way ahead of his time, I think. For example, when witnessing a crime, our senses can most often than not deceive us in the perception of what actually happened. People often think a crime they witnessed was longer than it actually was, and, if there is a weapon involved, spend less time looking at the perpetrator’s face than the weapon. In the end, we must be careful with eyewitness testimony when dealing with perceptions. Another example of that which I can think of is during the Casey Anthony trial when the prosecution brought in a human decomposition expert witness. He testified that upon smelling the trunk of Casey’s car, he definitely smelled human decomposition as well as took samples of the composition of the air. However, these type of samples had never been admitted in court, and were not considered a big piece of evidence. Finally, I like what he said about arriving at the truth on your own before accepting something as true. I think I really think like that most of the time. We had a discussion in one of my classes last year about whether the hole in the O-zone was real; most people believed this was correct, but there was a point made about whether or not we should believe everything we hear/our government tells us. I’m still wondering! I would really be happy to learn more about Descartes and more of his ideas from the past.
A second thing I enjoyed reading about was another person, John Locke, and his studies of human knowledge. His arguments about innate ideas were pretty interesting to me; I thought most of them were acceptable. The one about the “belief that some ideas are universal” got to me the most, because I have thought about this before. If the same idea is grown in more than one person’s head, for instance, on two opposite sides of the world, can it be considered an original idea? I feel like if I looked up every new idea that I had, there would already be at least one other person who has thought of this before. It is kind of a vague philosophical concept. The other argument that got to me was one about innate ideas appearing so early in life that we don’t remember hearing an idea from someone else, so we think that we came up with it on our own. A last thing I found interesting was Leibniz’s ideas on mental and physical reality, more specifically, different levels of perception. These include apperception, perception, and petites perceptions, which are the different “points” in our awareness on Leibniz’s “continuum of consciousness.” Finally, my least favorite thing to read about was most of the material on associationism; it was rough to read through, and I felt like there was way too much material to comprehend at one time.
Terms: Descartes, rationalist, apperception, perception, petites perceptions, Locke, associationism