Please
read chapter 2. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following
questions:
(Note: to
help with organization points please keep the numbering)
1a) What topic
did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
2a) What person
did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they
interesting to you?
3a) What
do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
4) What
did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in
understanding the history of psychology?
5) How,
in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already
learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in
other classes?
6a) What
topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?
7) What
ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading
the chapter?
8) Once
you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in
your post.
Let us
know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was interesting that Henry Goddard believed that he could identify defective immigrants by looking at them at Ellis Island. I was not aware that, in addition to the other tests (vision and health, to name a few) immigrants had to pass in order to enter our country, they were subjected to an IQ test. In addition, the textbook states that Goddard invented the term “moron” to describe these people. I would be curious to know how many people were deported due to this testing. I think this is somewhat unfathomable to us now, knowing what we currently know about IQ testing. However, when you consider the historical background, using an historicism perspective, you can see why this is something that happened prior to WWI. People were concerned with the large incoming immigration population and were focused on Darwinian thinking, which led people to believe that intelligence was directly inherited.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Before reading this chapter, I was somewhat aware that psychology research used to focus on animal research, but did not know why the focus had switched from animal research to research on humans. Yerkes, a comparative psychologist, was actually encouraged to stop doing (good) animal research because it was unpopular, and told to focus on human research in order to compete with Clark University.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I also thought the zeitgeist is interesting—the belief that inventions come about due to the overall social and intellectual climate of a society. This belief contracts the personalistic view, which states that specific people cause societal and intellectual climates to change. I think it is interesting because I can see both perspectives—on one hand, many different people are working on the same thing at the same time and are close to discovery around the same time frame. These are called multiples. This would support the zeitgeist, or naturalistic history theory. On the other hand, if these people were not working on certain discoveries within that time frame, or did not eventually make those discoveries, would we still consider that social context to be as relevant? I think maybe a combination of those views would be the best fit.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not think historiography was especially interesting. I already was familiar with primary and secondary sources as well as archives, so the information was not new to me. I also think that doing historical research sounds uninteresting, and so reading about it is not something that I am interested in knowing.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding the presentism vs historicism theories will be most useful. Although it will be hard to disassociate my own knowledge and life experiences from historical perspectives, this is important in order to understand what was really happening in that time frame. While the presentist viewpoint cannot be entirely avoided, in order to understand the discoveries we are talking about in class, I will have to try to understand the historical context.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It does not, since this is the first chapter.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would be interested in learning more about Henry Goddard, the American intelligence tester who worked at Ellis Island. I had never heard of him before, and intelligence testing is an area of interest to me—why did he believe that he could pick out defective immigrants just by looking at them? How many people were deported due to this testing? What did IQ tests look like at this time? These are all topics of interest to me.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was relating some of the chapter to things I already knew. For instance, the book mentions Mendelian genetics, which my biology class just talked about. I also remembered doing research in my college composition class and using primary and secondary sources to find information. I also recalled that the zeitgeist is not just a theory in psychological history, but also in other subjects. Many topics ask you to remember the societal context in which a discovery was made in order to fully understand it.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Zeitgeist, presentism, historiscism, multiples, personalistic.
NRS
Blake Wedeking
1)I found the concept of animal spirits to be very interesting as it depicts what people could assume about our body and how we react to different stimuli in our environment. I found this idea interesting as Descartes believed that these spirits were tiny particles in constant motion and were found in the brain, muscles, and nerves that cause muscle movement and reflexes to occur. Although, we now know different it is interesting to view other types of theories on how we can react and control our muscle movements. Descartes believed that the mind could initiate these animal spirits by activating certain nerves controlling particular muscles but also believed that certain muscles can in fact move automatically in response to the results of certain stimuli. I was surprised to learn that Descartes did not coin the term reflex but Thomas Willis actually did. I later found that Descartes concluded that the interaction of animal spirits occurred in the pineal gland as it was located in a place where he believed that animal spirits could be controlled.
2)I thought that the geocentric view of the universe and the heliocentric theory of the universe to also be an interesting read. It was quite interesting because for many years the church believed the geocentric view of the universe and disclaimed any other theories that may have challenged the church. Nichols Copernicus challenged the idea of a geocentric view of the universe with his theory of a heliocentric theory that proposed that the sun was at the center of the universe and the earth moved around it just like the other planets. I found it interesting that instead of publishing his results right away he waited until 1543 to publish his findings as he was close to death. I was intrigued to learn how much power the church has over its people and that if someone had a different view or challenged the church, their books would be put on a banned list.
3)I found Immanuel Kants work very interesting in which he tried to recognize the importance of our experiences for developing our understanding of the world, but he did in fact argue that experience itself was not possible without a basis in some prior knowledge to provide some framework for our experiences. Kant pointed out that we organize our experiences into space and time. I also found it interesting that Kant argued that psychology could never become a science like a physical sciences because he thought that mental phenomena could not be observed like physical objects. I find this individual very interesting because he goes against a lot of beliefs and even though he is not correct on everything, he has still played a significant role in the development and understanding of psychology.
4)Although I know that people in history are of high importance and should be named for their work. I found the parts of this chapter where they talked about each person to be kind of bland. I like learning about individuals achievements but it just seemed like our book didn’t interest me in history of them. I felt that these parts were in a way uninteresting as it presented one person after another. I am more interested in psychology concepts rather than people and dates. I did thoroughly enjoy the chapter but I felt that the sequence could be shuffled a bit to make it more appealing to the reader.
5)I think that just having a general background of this chapter will provide good means in studying the history of psychology and its systems. Many names and concepts were mentioned throughout this chapter so that psychology students will be able to relate past psychology with what is going on in the field right now. I do believe however that John Locke is worth noting when studying the history of psychology because he held strong beliefs that the mind at birth was like an empty white paper and parents should take an active role in educating their children, that children should be encouraged with praise rather than concrete rewards, and that punishment be avoided as an educational strategy. His concepts are important because we still use them today. Psychologists today suggest praise as a good means to reinforce a child’s behavior. By looking at these past models, we are making building blocks into current psychology so we can understand the present just a little bit more.
6)In Chapter 1 we learned that we study history because it helps us understand the present and also puts current events into a better perspective; without knowing some history, we cannot understand current events that are going on. Chapter 2 builds on this idea as it explains key individuals in history and their significant contributions to psychology and history in general. Without having this background knowledge of these individuals and concepts, we wouldn’t be able to understand present situations that are occurring around us. This chapter also builds on the idea of historicism as the author avoids imposing modern values on the past when we as the reader may be thinking of some criticisms.
7) I seen in this chapter where they briefly mentioned William Harvey and his discovery about the mechanical heart and his theory on how the blood moves. Harvey argued that the heart is like a mechanical pump in which the blood recirculates throughout the body compared to common belief that the blood is consumed by other parts of the body. I would really like to learn more about William Harvey and his contributions to the field of psychology. Just by reading his ideas, I have found him to be a very interesting person to look into as he is one of many to go against a common belief.
8) In this chapter it talks about Galileo and his contributions of his telescope that he constructed. What really spiked my curiosity is how this Italian scientist was able to come up with a telescope that had a 20x power in 1609. I think that this machine proved revolutionary in our discoveries about the world as Aristotle wasn’t even capable of seeing what could in fact be seen with the invention of the telescope. I like facts when looking into specific area and Galileo backed his facts with support compared to Aristotle. Now what baffles me is how long the church went along with these beliefs that people made claims about. Why couldn’t they support having proof on the topic? This may be a little bit of presentism thinking but it still makes a valid point in studying the universe.
9) Geocentric, heliocentric, animal spirits, reflex, pineal gland, white paper, presentism
JL
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found John Locke and his transformation of epistemology from a rationalist science to an empirical science
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Psychology students been exposed to empirical studies since their first Intro class, but it was not until reading about the history of empiricism that I truly understood what ‘empirical’ means. Rene Descartes’ breakthrough in rational thinking was an important predecessor to empiricism. Both seek truth but use different means to arrive there. Descartes did not trust the senses so his pursuit of the truth stems from logic and breaking down large problems into smaller ones, and carefully checking his conclusions to ensure that the logic properly revealed the truth. This is very solid and philosophical way of seeking the truth, but empiricists used experience to explain the world. They needed to be able to observe what truth it is they are seeking. John Locke took what empiricists were doing in other sciences and applied it to epistemology. John Locke believed humans learned from sensory perception and experiences; he stated that we learn simple ideas like color, temperature, size, shape, sound, etc and construct them into larger ideas like a yellow, odd-shaped guitar producing music. This idea that we learn from our senses and experiences is exactly why we set up psychological studies to measure observable phenomenon rather than using inductive logic.
2a) What did you find interesting?
David Hume and his philosophical furthering of British empiricism
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because he is taking the vague ball of clay that is empiricism and beginning to give it shape to what we now know as experimental and scientific methods. Hume combined Locke’s and Descartes’ approach to human learning by using “careful and systematic observation of human thinking and behavior…accompanied by a logical analysis of the process to uncover basic laws of the mind”. Here he is using Locke’s observation tool and Descartes’ logic, not to say Locke was not logical. Hume had three laws of association: resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. These laws are how Hume determined humans associate one object, event, or ideas with an impression. The impression could be basically anything the brain thinks of once stimulated by the idea. The most important of the three laws of association would have to be cause and effect. This is not the ‘cause and effect’ we know as a scientific technique; Hume was using it as an association process or how people learn from experiences. The last two paragraphs of this section in the book are in my ill-informed opinion the most important. Hume believed that humans are never able to come to true cause and effect relationships, but rather gain enough experience to make the best possible predictions. Some sciences are able to make cause and effect statements, but often psychology is not one of those sciences. We use inferential deductions about the data we collect. The book puts it best when it states “multiple factors contribute to all behaviors; the best one can hope for is to identify the factors that predict behaviors with probabilities greater than chance”.
3a) What did you find interesting?
It was very interesting how accurate the great minds of this era were when it came to predicting human behavior.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Throughout the entire chapter, on multiple accounts, these significant figures were explaining human behavior without the use of modern day scientific methods. We would call them crazy for making some of their claims without data to support it, but they did not have the means to measure human behavior the way we do now nor was it important to explain human behavior empirically. Descartes discovery of reflexes and how he used them to explain his understanding of the separation of mind and body is eerily accurate. Replace ‘animal spirits’ with the electrochemical process and ‘tubes’ with tightly wound nerve fibers. A non-physiological example is John Locke’s advice letter about raising children. He said, for a brutally brief summary, keep the child physically healthy, start young, minimized punishment, especially physical, and award behavior. When I was reading this I felt like a genius because I was saying to myself ‘this sounds just like behaviorism dashed with some Piaget’, but the following paragraph said what I thought so I no longer would look genius stating this in class.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Leibniz and rationalist responses to empiricism
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It probably stems from my disdain for calculus in high school and knowing Leibniz role in creating it, and probably being jaded and drained at the end of reading this chapter. I do like his “block of veined marble” analogy over Jocke’s “white paper”.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
The development of empiricism is the most important. I know that John Locke used empiricism to explain how humans behaved and how interaction with our environment, but I think it is more important to understand how this impacted how we now do science.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The book made it very easy to see both the personalistic and naturalistic histories of these time periods. Obvious we got a lot of prominent names from this time, but the book also explains what else was going on during at these times. Copernicus’ and Galileo’s astronomical discoveries were examples of non-psychological scientific advances to show us how the times were revolutionizing, and the turmoil going on during John Locke’s life may explain how he was influenced.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Descartes’ idea of the separation of mind and body
7b) Why?
It was briefly explained but very interesting. The book’s attempt to explain how Descartes’ logic behind it was more like an archaic neurology lesson. I want to know what drove Descartes to making this discovery and what made him so interested in it.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
What if rationalism was how we managed science today versus empiricism. Our studies would look different. We would not be determining if the results were significant, but rather if the results portray what is logical. Or would we be determining what makes these results logical?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
John Locke, Epistemology, rationalism, empiricism, David Hume, Rene Descartes, Laws of association, resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect, reflexes, personalistic history, naturalistic history
Chapter 2
1)What did you find interesting? Why?
I found the work that John Locke was doing very interesting. I love children and I do believe that education is important. I however would not want to sleep on a hard bed like Locke suggests. I find that “being buried every night in feathers” or my soft bed with foam cushion does not cause me to have a weakness, but instead a well-rested mind and a body ready for learning.
2)What did you find interesting? Why
Another topic I found interesting was George Berkeley’s empiricism applied to vision. When I was in high school, one of my freshman courses had an area where it talked about the function of an eye and some psychology about why the pupil gets bigger when we see something we like, so this area interested me in the same way. I enjoyed reading about Berkeley’s thoughts on judging depth, convergence, and accommodation. Convergence is when objects move closer or farther away and we alter the disposition of our eyes, by lessening or widening the interval between our pupils, while accommodation is when objects are perceived clearly when changes in the shape of the lens serve to keep objects farther away. I just found this to be cool and would not mind studying it more.
3)What did you find interesting? Why?
The last interesting thing I will mention is of what I found under David Hume. He believed in order to dissect human experience one had to discover the mind’s basic elements, which were impressions and ideas. Impressions are basic sensations while ideas are “faint copies” of impressions. I found this interesting as I read it. It is true that ideas are not as vivid as impressions. I believe a person holds on to impressions more than ideas and they make up and idea from their impressions.
4)What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
As a whole I found the chapter uninteresting. I loved reading about the people and the different things they did with their lives. I found this interesting. However, I found the chapter to be quite dry and just wrote everything so plainly. I found it difficult to focus on the chapter and read the whole thing in one sitting. I found myself wanting to lay down, cuddle up with my blanket and just fall asleep instead of reading. I do believe this chapter was very important, I just wish it had been a little more exciting read.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Well, I feel learning about the different people and what they did to help improve the psychology is important to understanding the history. It is useful in that it shows us who deserves the credit for being the first to discover or study a certain part in psychology, or to understand why they had the thoughts they did. For example, Locke thought children should sleep on hard beds in order to improve their education. Today we know that a good night’s sleep is needed to help a child be awake and ready for a new day of learning. In order for that to happen we need a nice soft bed that conforms to our body so we do not toss and turn in the night.
6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built on to the first chapter by showing us who is important to psychology and what they have done for our history. Chapter one taught us that history is an important thing to learn and chapter two showed us why. It showed us who was at the beginning of psychology, who was there to invent psychology because it did not exist until they came around and decided to start answering the questions some people were too scared to look into.
7)What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about John Locke and his thoughts on educating children. I enjoyed reading the section about him and his ideas and would like to learn more. He intrigued me when I read about encouraging children with praise rather than concrete rewards and that punishment should be avoided as an educational strategy. It made me want to read more and learn about any studies he might have done.
8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading I was wondering what it would be like to live back in the time when psychology was first being brought around. What did people say about it? What was it like to be a psychologist in that time? How were they thought of? How were they judged? It made me wonder what my life would be like if I had lived in that time. I probably would not being pursuing a career in psychology, not only because women did not work outside of the home in that time, but also because I do not know if it would have been thought of as it is today.
Terminology: John Locke, George Berkeley, Empiricism, Convergence, Accommodation, David Hume, Impressions, Ideas.
Courtney Wiese
Week 3 Reading Assignment
1a) What did you find interesting? John Locke
1b) Why was it interesting to you? I found the information on John Locke interesting because of his empiricist thinking on how humans understand the world. Locke believed that people made sense of the world around them through the experiences they had. He wanted to change epistemology into a subject that was not just thought about, but one that conducted experiments. He rejected Descartes theory of innate ideas, and I enjoyed his argument against Descartes about universal ideas, that the idea of God is not innate for all people, but perhaps that as all people worry about afterlife that the idea of a supreme deity is a result of this thought. I also agreed with his theory that children learn from experiences, rather than innate ideas. Children don’t know that lemons are sour, but learn after they have their first lemon that they are sour.
2a) What did you find interesting? John Stuart Mills
2b) Why was it interesting to you? First, I found Mills childhood very interesting. The fact that he did not attend school with other children, he learned Greek at three years old! I also found his relationship with his future wife and her husband to be strange. In the psychology field, he believed in the empiricist theory that people gain knowledge from experience, by filling up their “white paper”. As that is what he experience in his own life. Basically, he believed that all people have the ability to be extremely intellectual if they have the experiences, such as a smart father to educate them. I also found his ideas on meritocracy interesting; that only people who reached a certain level of education should be allowed to vote. As the text states, Mills wanted “a society that endeavored to fill everyone’s blank slates to the maximum”. I find this interesting because it seems like he based a lot of his theories off of his own life. As he was personally very smart, and he believed, as his father believed, that he was born with a “blank slate” like everyone else, that everyone could be as smart as he was.
3a) What did you find interesting? Leibniz
3b) Why was it interesting to you? I found Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to be interesting as he disagreed with the “white paper” metaphor. He believed, rather, that the mind was more similar to a veined marble. I liked this metaphor, as instead of everyone being exactly equal, like white paper, the mind can only be sculpted in certain ways. As I understand it, Leibniz takes parts of both the empiricist theory and the innate idea theory. There are “necessary truths” that cannot be discovered through experiences, such as Leibniz’s example of “intellect itself”. I also found it interesting that Leibniz’s concept of psychophysical parallelism to answer the mind-body question, and that the mind and body worked independently from one another, but that they worked in harmony to one another. I also liked how this helped legitimize the separate study of psychology from physiology. I also found his concept of consciousness and unconsciousness interesting, and that his ideas lent to Freud’s ideas in psychology. He believed there were three different levels of awareness. Apperception is when one is putting their 100% attention on the information, perception is one still paying attention but not giving in their 100% attention, and petites perceptions, which is said to be below the level of awareness, but very important to understanding, as the example of drops of water in a waterfall.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? George Berkeley
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? Although I found the part about Berkeley hanging himself to learn about the sensations involved, I found the part about Berkeley’s work on vision not interesting. I don’t really know why it was so boring to me, maybe it was the physiology that I didn’t like, such as the part about convergence and accommodation. However, once it got into the more philosophical issues, such as Berkeley’s theory of subjective idealism, it became more interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? I believe learning where psychology emerged from while be important in understanding psychology throughout the years. Psychology developed from philosophy, as well as the study of physiology. It’s also important to learn older theories, because some newer theories were based on the older ones, such as Freud theories based on Leibniz.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? The way I can see that this chapter built off of the first chapter was how one can interpret history. In parts of the second chapter the authors stated that these philosophical psychologists should not be viewed negatively for not pushing farther in the field, as in we should not use hindsight or presentism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? John Stuart Mills
7b) Why? I found Mills the most interesting psychologist in the chapter. His early life was very interesting, and he was very involved many different things throughout his life, such as politics. There was also a section on his work on women’s rights that I would be interested in exploring more.
8) What ideas related to what you were another reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I thought about the heavy interplay between philosophy and physiology and psychology; how in the beginning of psychology there really wasn’t any separation between the three; and that psychology was so deeply rooted in philosophy. A question I came up with while reading was: How would psychology be different if Hume’s first book would have been popular? Why wasn’t Hume’s book popular? Would psychologist taken Hume’s ideas, such as his ideas on association, and developed new ones off of Hume’s? Why was Hume’s book unpopular? I know the Church did not like his book, as he implied that the God’s existence could be questioned, did they encourage others to not like his book?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post: empiricist, epistemology, white paper, innate, apperception, petites perceptions, convergence, accommodation, subjective idealism, John Stuart Mills, George Berekely, David Hume, Gottfried Leibniz
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Learning about animal spirits was really interesting to me. I think it is cool to learn about old theories, disproven or not, just to have a sense of how people thought at the time or what their understanding of something was. It was interesting that Descartes thought there in minuscule particles in constant motion (this is true) but they were in the brain, muscles and nerves and this is how movement happened. He believed that we would then activate nerves and muscles from the animal spirits to move but they could also fire and move in response to an external stimulus. He concluded that these animal spirits could be controlled in the pineal gland. Interesting to think at one time this was the understanding of movement and it’s cool to see how he got some things kind of right and with a little tweak you can relate some concepts to current understandings.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought Immanuel Kant was an interesting man, while reading his part of the chapter. I like how he argued that experience were very important for developing our sense and knowledge of the world around us. He stated that we also needed prior knowledge to provide a framework for our understanding. This to me sounds like a great theory for the time and gives us a sense of how people around us and ourselves operate. He put our expectances into a space and time concept. However I don’t like how he argued against psychology becoming a real science, in my mind this makes him contradict some of his own thoughts about the world.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the back ground on John Stuart Mill to be really interesting. I did not know he endeavored into psychology, I only knew of his political life. I had to read his book On Liberty for another course and found his thoughts interesting. Although we were required to read his book we never covered his back ground. I never know he had a platonic relationship with Harriet Taylor and eventually married her and had a child. I thought his ideas that all knowledge coming from experience was interesting and this made his push for more of an equal schooling for people. But then we was not in favor of equal voting rights, he believed that one should obtain a certain level of education before being able to vote and even if some days we most likely agree, this goes against his ideas of equality.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This chapter had me questioning the “not all about names and dates” concept. Yes people are extremely important to psychology and I love history however I also enjoy psychology and want to learn more about psychology then the names of everyone and when they had a theory concerning something within psychology. I would like to move ahead and learn more about the modern psychologist and their views not the start of psychology and the views they had. Although their thoughts are of major importance to the field becoming what it is today, some of the ideas i.e. animal spirits we know are incorrect today.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think John Locke will help in the coming chapters. Locke was on the edge of something with his reinforcement techniques and how a child is born with an “empty” mind. This is information tools that are still used today. I agree with Locke’s thoughts on how a parent should take a more active role in their child’s education. I think people are becoming better but still don’t take an active role in the education of their child. We can help reinforce and promote better academic behaviors at a younger age if we actively help kids and promote such behaviors at home as well and set them up for success when they get to academic levels like college.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapter 2 builds on chapter 1 in a simple way, in chapter 1 it was the “why study the history of psychology” now we look at the origins of some information we use today. I understand that we need to know about some of the older stuff to grasp a better understanding of the stuff to come. As I stated in my uninteresting comment I want to know more about the modern stuff and didn’t enjoy the names and dates in this chapter I still understand why this is an important chapter for the stuff to come.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like learn more about James Mill and how John Stuart Mill raised him. I think it’s interesting that he never went to school yet by the game of 12 he was doing stuff that college graduates were doing. I think it is amazing that he was able to learn the Greek vocabulary at three then Latin at eight. He had read most of the Greek and Roman text by ten! How is it that he was able to comprehend so much by such a young age, I honestly can say that as a 21 year old I would find it difficult to comprehend some of the ancient works he was reading.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I thought about the educational affects we can have on kids. When I have kids to be honest I want my kids to be as smart as James Mill was but I know that can’t always happen. However I know we can take a more active role in children education to better help them learn and get ahead in life. I think far too many people take the task of fostering a child’s education and aiding them as much as they can, be it large amounts or little, for granted and it can have some major effects on the child in their learning abilities and priorities with academics
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Animal spirit, reflex, pineal gland
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Decartes to be interesting because he was around during a unique time in history. Decartes was a very rational person, and I find this interesting because he believed that to achieve true knowledge you should be organized and use reasoning abilities well. This is neat because I can relate to this type of thinking, and I do it on a daily basis. I think things happen in an organized manor and that there is a reason for everything that happens in that order. His work on the body and mind was interesting as well because although they are two separate things, they can still influence one another. The animal spirit concept about how people make assumptions about human bodies and how we react to different situations was interesting. Decartes thought the animal spirits were particles moving constantly that could be found in the muscles, nerves and brain. He believed that these particles were related to certain reflexes and movements that the body did. He also believed that once these animal spirits were initiated, it would activate certain nerves controlling muscles and cause movements; however he also believed that muscles could move automatically in reaction to certain circumstances.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
David Hume was interesting to me because he took empiricist beliefs and formed them into experimental and scientific methods that we know of today. He developed his system using “the basic premise that all of our understanding is rooted in experience.” He later came to the conclusion that the elements of the mind and analogues of physicist’s atoms are connected; ideas and impressions. His work about impressions was interesting because he combined Locke’s observation and Decartes’s logical thinking. He used his three laws of association (resemblance, contiguity and cause and effect) to determine that we associate certain objects, colors and ideas with a specific impression. When an object reminds you of another object, that is considered to be the resemblance law. The contiguity law means relating things such as eating corn in Iowa. The cause and effect law basically means something happened and another followed and that there was an association between them. An example is if you eat too much candy, it causes you to feel sick, but now whenever we see candy there is a reminder of the stomach why it happened.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
John Locke was interesting because of his work dealing with children. I find children to be very interesting and I do believe education is an essential part of life. Education teaches knowledge, understanding and how to handle certain situations. It preps individuals for success and gives them the basic tools they will need to function in the world. He believed that children should start learning early because they are more malleable. He also believed that children should develop good habits earlier otherwise they will develop bad habits. He did not believe in using punishment as children aged because they will start to hate learning and too much punishment could lead to bad behavior rather than good behavior. I feel that children should be able to learn in a fun and understanding environment and not be worried about punishments. An example is if a child does poorly on an exam. I do not believe they should be punished, but instead they should be encouraged to do better on the next one.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I was uninterested in a majority of this chapter because even though I find people of history and their work interesting, the way the author wrote the chapter was very bland and dry. The information in each section was informative, but it was hard to follow at times. I am a huge reader, but this chapter seemed too much like a textbook. I like when authors can make it an interesting read and make the student feel like they are not reading a textbook.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Although this chapter was hard to keep reading, the information in each concept was very informative. After breaking down each concept, I now have a better understanding of some new concepts and some people of history. I think knowing these people and their studies will be useful later in class discussions and in future chapters.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Since this is the second chapter, it is hard to relate it to previous chapters, but compared to chapter one this one contained more information about certain people. It builds on from chapter one because in chapter one it briefly talked about people and their findings and this chapter went into more depth and elaborated more on their studies and findings.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about John Locke and David Hume because I found both of their studies interesting. I think John Locke was a very intelligent man and I agreed with his studies and beliefs about education and children. David Hume’s laws of association were interesting as well because to put it simply, they made sense. When you think of a certain item it could be from resemblance, contiguity or cause and effect. Having this understanding makes you wonder how often we do this in a day. Such as how often do we associate objects with other objects and which law are we using when we do.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While I was reading the section about the laws of association, it made me think about how often we use each law in a day. There are so many situations we come in contact with daily and so many people. I was also wondering if we use any of these laws when we try to remember peoples’ names or birthdays. For example, you go to class every day for a whole semester and sit next to the same person all semester long. A year later you run into them at the mall and you associate them with being in a certain class; therefore, it helps you remember their name or where they sat.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect, animal spirits, Decartes, John Locke, David Hume, laws of association.
J.P.
1a) What did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing that I found interesting in Chapter 2 was that John Mill who wrote the book “On Liberty” was discussed in this Chapter. I was a little surprised to see John Mill in this text. Although I was initially surprised I began to remember that his book was pretty philosophical. I thought this was interesting because I really enjoyed “On Liberty” when I read it several years ago. It was a great combination of political ideas along with philosophy.
2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing that I found interesting was George Berkeley and his ideas about materialism and reality. I thought his ideas about materialism were oddly interesting because he wrote a book regarding his beliefs on godless materialism. Berkeley’s beliefs about God conformed his ideas on reality and materialism. I thought Berkeley’s ideas were interesting because of his interest in God and how most of his work revolved around Gods presence and his approval.
3a) What did you find interesting? 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing that I found interesting in Chapter 2 was Descartes different ideas about geocentric and heliocentric. I found out that geocentric means that the earth is the center of the universe and that heliocentric refers to the sun being the center of the universe. I found Descartes and his ideas interesting because I had never heard of Descartes before I read about him in this chapter. He had some very original ideas regarding a humans mind and soul.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One thing that I found least interesting in Chapter 2 was when chemistry and physics were discussed in short areas of the chapter. For example atomism was mentioned and I automatically wanted to turn away from the section. This wasn’t interesting to me because im not a huge fan of the biology and chemistry side of psychology.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
One thing that I read in the chapter that I automatically liked was what one man by the last name of Ebbinghaus said right in the beginning. Ebbinghaus wrote that psychologists need to realize that philosophy started psychology’s history. That without philosophy we wouldn’t have psychology and it wouldn’t be what it is today. I think this will be most useful to understand that history of psychology because it puts into perspective how psychology has grown and where the roots of psychology come from.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapter 2 builds on Chapter 1 because much of what Chapter 1 discusses is about why we should study the history of psychology and this chapter starts off by stating importance’s that psychologist need to recognize. This was only one main related topic that is discussed in Chapter 2. As we continue to read the text I am sure there will be several more topics that will build off of each other.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 7b) Why?
Some topics that I want to learn more about are the topics relating to the great philosophers who had ideas different from any other person from that time. I love reading about all the different psychologists and philosophers from the beginning of psychology. I want to learn more about these philosophers because their ideas are raw and original. I don’t read or hear anything like what ive read about so far in this text.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
What were the reasons for Berkeley’s beliefs in reality and materialism? What were his other beliefs? Did all of his beliefs revolve around God? Did a lot of people think highly of his ideas? Were his ideas seen as legitimate? If so who liked Berkeley’s ideas? What else did John Mill write? What were they about? Did he relate to Berkeley’s beliefs? If so, what did he agree with?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terms: John Mill, George Berkeley, materialism, reality, On liberty, geocentric, heliocentric, Descartes, atomism, Ebbinghaus, history of psychology, and philosophy.
J A
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One of the first things that I found to be interesting is in the section about John Locke when he had the theories about the white paper and the simple ideas and the complex ideas. Even though I found the white paper idea to be interesting, I have to take the same side as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and say I do not agree with it. I believe in genetics, so technically I do not think that we are born with a white sheet of paper that we basically create our own future, we have certain genes that are passed down to us and that we are stuck with no matter how hard we try to change that. I do somewhat agree that we start off to the world as blank paper, but when our genes start forming us into what we were born with then the idea of the blank paper goes away. The idea of the simple and complex ideas is a unique way to look at things. One can have a simple idea of a color, but have a complex idea like taking a drink of water on a hot day due to thirst can separate into many different simple ideas. I can see where he was going with this and I do agree that many complex ideas can separate into simple ideas.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found to be interesting is in the section about John Stuart Mill and when he was talking about the method of agreement, method of difference and the joint method. Basically they are summarized as the method of agreement means that if x happens then it is possible y will happen, the method of difference means that if x does not happen then it is possible that y will not happen and the joint method means if x happens then y will happen and if x does not happen y will not happen. I think that this is an interesting thought due to the idea of cause and effect. Everyone knows about cause and effect and I think that sometimes we feel that if it has happened once if the cause happens again then the effect will for sure happen also. With history it shows us that it is possible, but it does not always happen like that and there are different effects at times. So, the logic behind the method of agreement and the method of difference made cause and effect make more sense because it states that there is a possibility not that it is going to happen.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found to be interesting was the section of Locke on Education. Being a secondary education major, anything to do with anyone’s view points on education brings interest to me because I would like to know just about everything when it comes to how to be a better teacher and understanding education. I agree that in order to have a sound mind you also need a sound body, the definition of sound body for me would be making sure you are healthy and feeding your body and exercising enough to get blood pumping to the brain. The training must begin early section also made sense to me, this is because I tend to remember things that I learned at a young age a lot more rather than things that I learned in high school. Anything as simple as learning a language was easier when I was young. The next two sections I found to be interesting because I did not know that they were how he would have viewed education. I would find making concrete awards when someone has done good and punishing someone when they have done something bad would be a normal act in getting them to learn what it is that they are supposed to know. Now that I have read through the section I can see where he was coming from, but I stick to my beliefs that punishment and rewards are fine within reason.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found the section from Rene Descartes about the pineal gland to be the least interesting. It was the least interesting to me because I googled pineal gland as soon as the word came up in my reading so I could get an understanding of where it was in the brain. It came up with the center of the brain and it causes sleepiness and helps with the pigment in the skin, which is different from the definition that he had. I then lost interest in the section because I was confused on which is the real definition and if it was a false statement why it was in the text book. I then kept reading to find out that he was wrong about physiology and the pineal gland secretes the hormone melatonin (helps with skin pigment), which was the definition that google had for it. I did like that there was a section that reassured me and let me know what the right definition was, but I found it to be not interesting due to the confusion that it caused.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the most important thing that came out of the chapter that is the most useful in understanding the history of psychology is actually two things. The first one is that not all psychologists were famous for being a psychologists when they were alive, this is useful because it shows that even though they did not get the fame that they deserved in their lifetime, they still made a huge contribution to the studies and are the reason why we know that much more about why we do the things we do. Another important contribution was the talks of cause and effect. It is important because in history for everything that has happened there is a cause, but not all of the events have just one cause, they have multiple leading up to one effect. In order to understand the history of anything the knowing of each cause is needed and they will all fit the effect in a puzzle format, not just because of this event this is what happened.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The last chapter was based off of why study history and why study history of psychology, so it built off of the last chapter by introducing some of the famous psychologist of history and help understand why they were important. This also tied in with naturalistic history, I say that because there was not just one famous psychologist that had all the ideas and knew everything, or not one hero. There were a lot of events that built off of each other, psychologists disagreed with the theories of other psychologists and that is what the theories that we know about today become.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
A topic that I would like to know more about would be the dualist idea that Descartes had. That is because I view sound mind and sound body to intertwine and form into one. Because you cannot have one without the other the way I see it. To fully work your body you need to engage your mind and have your mind push you and this is vice versa with sound mind. I would like the explanation into more depth of why he thought that there was a clear separation between these two.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
An idea that I had when I was reading through the chapter was how were these guys not seen as psychologist and/or philosophers when they were making these theories and thought processes? I understand that most of them were not represented as being an important contribution to the study of psychology, but I do not see how everyone saw their thought process and did not think of them being psychologists or people that would help with the science.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
White paper, simple idea, complex idea, method of agreement, method of difference, joint method, pineal gland, duelist, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Staurt Mill and Rene Descartes
1a) What did you find interesting?
Finding out that someone had thought that the earth was at the center of the universe and that the sun moving around the earth; but yet Nicolas Copernicus had challenged this theory with a heliocentric theory and stated that the sun was at the center and that earth along with all of the other planets had moved around the sun.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I find this quite interesting because I have never heard about the heliocentric nor the geocentric theory in any of my studies and to find out about it in a history of psychology class is quite interesting. Never in a million years would I think that I would be learning about it in a psychology book.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Finding out what a dualist is and also finding out that Descartes was one.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Again I find this rather interesting because I have never heard the term dualist. How it refers to the mind and body being a separate and that there is a clear separation of the two of them. Obviously I knew that the mind in a spiritual way took up no space like the book talks and when it states that the mind possesses neither extension nor movement. I just have not heard the word that refers to this before.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Reading about the animal spirits and reflexes caught my attention.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
How someone could think that movements in the body could be coming from animal spirits and the heat of the blood.
Just reading about how someone could think that the movement in their body could be coming from animal spirits just really blows my mind. I guess back then anything could be possible, but when reading more into it, it sounds just like our reflexes which they later on discover. Descartes discovered the pineal gland which he talks about in chapter two and how the strands of nerves stretch out to the brain transferred these signals and created movement in the body.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Reading about the pineal gland was the least interesting to me out of this chapter.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Reading about the pineal gland and learning new information about it is always interesting but when I read the same things over and over again it gets kind of old and my mind gets tired of it. I know with this being a psychology course I am going to hear a little bit about it but it just gets boring after reading the same stuff all of the time. That is why I believe that this part of the chapter was the least bit interesting to me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This entire chapter will give me a great understanding the history of psychology because not one thing that was read in this chapter referred to anything but the history of psychology. It gave me a great background of the beginnings of things being studied like animal spirits and the reflexes that our body creates, the British and what they looked into. From John Locke to George Berkeley, learning about their accomplishments and what they researched for us to understand is going to be a great background for the rest of the semester I believe.
Finding out what a lot of these people did during their time will create a backdrop on what we are about to learn the rest of the week and even the semester.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to the previous chapter by giving us some deeper information about the people who have put their time and effort into the field of psychology. It cannot really build on the previous chapter because we just started the section and the last chapter was just a brief overview of what is going on and what the beginning of psychology was like.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about George Berkeley and his ideas of materialism and determinism.
7b) Why?
Reading about George Berkeley and his ideas about these makes me more interested in the subject of events having a prior cause and that we may or may not be able to be held accountable for our actions according to determinism. It is kind of cool to think about that in such ways that my mind starts turning and I want to know more about what he thought about that.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was honestly thinking about how many different people I read about in this chapter and how many others that I will be learning about in the upcoming chapters that we will read throughout the semester. My mind was racing about the different people who influenced psychology and who actually brought something to the table even though some people may have thought their idea was a negative or positive one.
A few questions that were in my mind while I was reading were if we were not held accountable for our actions what kind of world would we live in and what would the reactions be of the people around us? These questions came to mind after reading about George Berkeley, he seemed like a very interesting man while I read through his section.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Geocentric theory, Heliocentric Theory, Dualist, Pineal Gland, Animal Spirits, Materialism, Determinism
1a) What did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the section on John Locke interesting. For one, his name stood out to me since I have learned about him a bit in the past but I couldn’t quite remember what all he had done. Specifically, I found that he described a social contract between the government and the people to be so relevant as it related directly to what Thomas Jefferson modeled the Declaration of Independence on. I really like that the book made this direct connection for the reader as I did not know how much of an impact John Locke had made not only in Britain but directly to the United States.
2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I also found Locke’s view on education intriguing. I think that his four main ideas that stressed the importance of physical health, training must begin early, arguing against the use of punishment, and to concentrate on rewards should be avoided are all still being discussed to this day. America is unfortunately one of the most obese countries in the world and as my job of a fitness instructor I am always trying to think of ways to keep not only myself motivated but others as well. So many products such as various exercise programs, diet plans and pills have come out and depending on who you ask, may or may not be good for you. As for learning early, most children start school at least from my experience, between the ages of 3-5. My mom threw me into dance lessons at the age of 3 and by 4 years old I began pre-school and was on my way to learning the ABCs. Also, I found it surprising that even as early as Locke’s period of time, punishment was not promoted. I suppose my surprise came from my limited knowledge of what my parents and grandparents have told me about back in the day of how teachers used to hit them with a paddle if they misbehaved. Lastly, that concentration on rewards should be avoided. I found this interesting because over the summer I was a nanny and in my duration I was helping train the dog to not go potty in the house. I was told to give the dog a treat every time he went potty outside so he would know that it was a good thing to go potty in his proper place. However, I noticed after weeks of doing this, he would just look at me and try to see where I was hiding the treat or even after he went, he was anticipating his treat.
3a) What did you find interesting? 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
A third thing I found to be interesting was the section on David Hume. The idea he had about the premise of our understanding is rooted in experience particularly stood out to me. It made me think of how that is relatable to everything from schoolwork to going to a new country and experiencing a culture that is different from your own. A lot of what I go off of is my experiences in life and it is hard to stray away from my past. Then the book goes to separate experiences into impressions and ideas; impressions being the basic sensations and ideas are the faint copies of impressions. Also those ideas can be broken down into impressions and gives us the example that even if we have never found a four-leaf clover, we can picture it on a basic level of impressions. I thought of that kind of like how when learning something in class, especially about topics that are historical, I have to have a good imagination of everything was put together and although never experiencing it, I can use visuals and descriptions to envision the event.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
A topic I found myself zoning out on was the section on Descartes and the Rationalist Argument. I think a lot of what made this uninteresting to me was that it was a lot about mathematics and sciences, and to me I could not really relate or visualize.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Honestly, there was a lot of information included in this chapter and I noticed that there would be a pattern of talking about one idea or person and then it would tie right into the next section. This question always puzzles me because the author thought that there a reason to include all of this information in the book so what wouldn’t be useful in understanding the history of psychology?
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Well the first chapter discusses a lot about why we should study history, then more specifically why we should study the history of psychology, it brought up ideas about presentism vs. historicism and at the end of the chapter, Goodwin again mentions the danger of presentism and that we should realize that these people included in the text were among the brightest of their day and to take their perspective and time in special consideration
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about John Locke because while reading the section about him specifically with his ideas on education; I found ideas that he had very applicable to present day and his ideas of education really got me thinking and questioning how things are today.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Did Locke’s views on education affect other places and more specifically the United States?, Why did I not remember learning that John Locke’s social contract was a model for Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence? Hey, there are other familiar names in here I see, why have I never been able to have information stick in my head?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
John Locke, Social Contract, Locke on Education, David Hume, Impressions, Ideas, Descartes and the Rationalist Argument, Historicism vs. Presentism.
Please read chapter 2. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought the white paper concept was interesting—when we are born our minds are a blank slate, and every thought one has in his or her lifetime comes from either sensation or reflection. Sensation would be any information taken in by the senses, and reflection would be mental activities, such as concepts.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought Sir Francis Bacon's idea of inductive science approaches to science was interesting. He was adamant that a scientist must observe nature carefully and systematically. If a scientist observed many scenarios on different occasions and observed the same thing happening, a general conclusion about nature could be made.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought John Stuart Mill's childhood was especially interesting. Mill's father trained him at home and taught him, among other things, Greek and Latin. Mill was held to an extremely high standard as a child by his father and was extremely educated. I think it is interesting that Mill did not believe that he was intelligent due to natural ability, but rather because of the opportunities his father was able to give him.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Hartley's ideas of synchronous and successive (now called spacial contiguity and temporal contiguity) were uninteresting to me. I was a little confused by the definitions of these words and the entire concept and the book, but as I understand it, they mean that the events of contiguity must occur either at the same time or in quick succession in order for the association to occur. While the concept of association is intriguing to me, the spatial and temporal contiguity were confusing and hard to understand, which lead to my interest level dropping.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think getting a general overview of philosophy is important to understanding the history of psychology. Understanding the concept of a long past, and the fact that other scientists, such as philosophers, have dealt with the concepts that we are learning about, is important to understanding the history of the concepts. By learning about Descartes' work with reflexes and the pineal gland helps us to understand what people believed about the mind in the 1630's and 1640's. Although he was wrong about the pineal gland and animal spirits, by doing this work he became the first physiological psychologist and created the concept of reflex action.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The last chapter was chapter one, which discussed why we should learn the history of psychology, as well as some key themes and ideas that will help us study the history of psychology. This chapter started delving into the content of the class—the actual history of psychology. In order to learn this material, it was important to discuss why we even should be learning it first and to learn what the history of psychology is.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would be interested in learning more about Hume's three laws of association, which are resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. I am unsure of what psychologists believe today about association—are they still the same three laws of association? I think that it would be interesting to learn if these ideas are still the same today and whether or not they have gone through any major changes or criticisms.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I took a humanities course in which we discussed some of this information because we focused on philosophy for part of the course. Because psychology and philosophy are somewhat linked, it makes sense to me that we would learn about some history of philosophy and some key issues. The chapter also discusses correlations, which is a huge part of psychology and has been discussed in depth in every psychology class I have ever taken.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
White paper, inductive, reflex, animal spirit, spatial contiguity, temporal contiguity.
NRS
1a) What did you find interesting?
Nicolas Copernicus and the heliocentric theory.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought that reading about Copernicus and his great discovery opened up a new door to many ideas. He challenged the idea of geocentric theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe and in fact the sun was the center of the universe while Earth along with other planets moved around the sun. This was the idea of the heliocentric theory. Copernicus pushed the envelope of what was always told. His curiosity lead him into a new world with many ideas that come from the Heliocentric Theory. At the time this theory was invented it was the time that the church had pure authority. This was slowly changing.
2a) What did you find interesting?
John Locke’s thoughts on Education.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I am an education major so anything that has to do with education and how it evolved always spark a light to me. I especially liked the ideas that he argued that if you punish a child they start to soon act out against it. At the time punishing a child in school with violence was okay. If the child did not do as they were told, they were punished and with the punishment they soon became to dislike what they were learning. The punishment on a child only hindered the child’s learning and only put the child downhill instead of up. I also thought that his idea of rewards was very true. A child soon learns that if they behave they will receive a reward. They soon learned this and put up a front to receive a gift. The students were not learning and were more focused on getting a reward.
3a) What did you find interesting?
John Stuart Mill and his step-daughter Helen Taylor’s essay on feminism.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
As a women, I could never imagine a life that some women had to live before me. They had no voice and could not do what they wanted to do. This essay that Mill and Taylor wrote was a great stepping stool for the new world women were immerging in. They were able to now able to own and inherit the land that should have been theirs, and all of this happened because of this essay. This opened the world for women. Now we are able to vote, work, take charge, and not be discriminated against. This was interesting to see the works for women to grow.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I thought there was so much history that it was not going anywhere. There were some things that were interesting, but this chapter was very hard in grabbing my attention. I would have liked to see more examples of psychology instead of history.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter gave a sense of how history developed the ideas of psychology. The chapter tried explaining that all of the theories of history can be found in a lot of the theories of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter helped build on chapter 1. The second chapter had more names and dates the then first one. This chapter seems to be a stepping stone for many chapters to come.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
How psychology and philosophy are related.
7b) Why?
I thought it was interesting that the book stated that many of the concerns or ideas of psychologists of today also were noted by philosophers. I have never taken a philosophy class before and to see how it can be seen in psychology would give me a new outlook on psychology.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
My main question throughout was how do all of these historians fill into psychology? A lot of them did not create theories for psychology but more for the world itself.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Nicolas Copernicus
Heliocentric Theory
Geocentric theory
John Locke
John Stuart Mill
Helen Taylor
Feminism
Philosophy
1a) What did you find interesting?
Nicolas Copernicus and the heliocentric theory.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought that reading about Copernicus and his great discovery opened up a new door to many ideas. He challenged the idea of geocentric theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe and in fact the sun was the center of the universe while Earth along with other planets moved around the sun. This was the idea of the heliocentric theory. Copernicus pushed the envelope of what was always told. His curiosity lead him into a new world with many ideas that come from the Heliocentric Theory. At the time this theory was invented it was the time that the church had pure authority. This was slowly changing.
2a) What did you find interesting?
John Locke’s thoughts on Education.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I am an education major so anything that has to do with education and how it evolved always spark a light to me. I especially liked the ideas that he argued that if you punish a child they start to soon act out against it. At the time punishing a child in school with violence was okay. If the child did not do as they were told, they were punished and with the punishment they soon became to dislike what they were learning. The punishment on a child only hindered the child’s learning and only put the child downhill instead of up. I also thought that his idea of rewards was very true. A child soon learns that if they behave they will receive a reward. They soon learned this and put up a front to receive a gift. The students were not learning and were more focused on getting a reward.
3a) What did you find interesting?
John Stuart Mill and his step-daughter Helen Taylor’s essay on feminism.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
As a women, I could never imagine a life that some women had to live before me. They had no voice and could not do what they wanted to do. This essay that Mill and Taylor wrote was a great stepping stool for the new world women were immerging in. They were able to now able to own and inherit the land that should have been theirs, and all of this happened because of this essay. This opened the world for women. Now we are able to vote, work, take charge, and not be discriminated against. This was interesting to see the works for women to grow.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I thought there was so much history that it was not going anywhere. There were some things that were interesting, but this chapter was very hard in grabbing my attention. I would have liked to see more examples of psychology instead of history.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter gave a sense of how history developed the ideas of psychology. The chapter tried explaining that all of the theories of history can be found in a lot of the theories of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter helped build on chapter 1. The second chapter had more names and dates the then first one. This chapter seems to be a stepping stone for many chapters to come.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
How psychology and philosophy are related.
7b) Why?
I thought it was interesting that the book stated that many of the concerns or ideas of psychologists of today also were noted by philosophers. I have never taken a philosophy class before and to see how it can be seen in psychology would give me a new outlook on psychology.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
My main question throughout was how do all of these historians fill into psychology? A lot of them did not create theories for psychology but more for the world itself.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Nicolas Copernicus
Heliocentric Theory
Geocentric theory
John Locke
John Stuart Mill
Helen Taylor
Feminism
Philosophy
I.B.
1a) What did you find interesting?
I enjoyed reading about the conflicting views on religion.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I was interested because of how significant it was to everyone, yet how so many people had to work around it. Copernicus delayed his publication so that he wouldn’t be attacked for heresy. The church condemned Galileo and Descartes also delayed a publication. Locke went out of his way to say that God is not an innate idea, but could very well result from everyone’s uncertainty about an afterlife. Berkeley, on the other hand, relied all of his thought on God. He said that you couldn’t trust your perceptions, so the only way to be sure that reality exists is to put your faith in God, as he always perceives everything. These trains of thought lead me to wonder what these people would think if the Church hadn’t been such a dominant superpower.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I was actually very interested in reading about Descartes and the philosophical background of psychology.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This interested me for many reasons actually. It was interesting to see how the philosophy contributed to the psychology of today. It was cool looking at how they answered, or tried to answer their queries without the resources of today. It was interesting to see how they made the jump from philosophy to “New Psychology”, and all that really changed was the way they integrated scientific methods.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I thought Descartes four basic rules for arriving at a truth were fascinating.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Its odd to think that someone had to think of the fact that you should double check your work and break down tasks, but in that day that would have been groundbreaking. I enjoy reading about people finding new ways of thinking.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I didn’t like all the labels they placed on people.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It seemed like all the author was doing was trying to work in terms that define schools of thought, which certain philosophers may have dabbled in. I think it’s a little weird to define someone in terms of ‘dualist’, ‘mechanist’, ‘interactionist’, and so on. It gives some insight into the way they thought, but then it seems to me it also overgeneralizes it.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the thing that will help me most in my psych studies is simply looking back at the philosophy aspect. In recent classes I’ve been focusing on the problems of getting into grad school, or some specialized fields, or how to properly conduct research. I find it refreshing to look back at the great minds of their time and see what puzzled these men. It reminds me of some of the bigger questions and gives some nice perspective.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The last chapter looked at the history of psychology as a new science. This chapter just jumped back before this. It was out of chronological order, but makes sense to the format of the book.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about philosophy in general.
7b) Why?
Philosophy is super interesting to me. It seems like it just teaches the ability to question things, but that’s exactly what I love about it. Philosophy is prevalent everywhere, and everyone has shared some of the thoughts of philosophers before. Is there a purpose to life? Why are we here? What distinguishes us from animals, and animals from lesser life forms like bacteria? It’s fascinating and I think it can help one get in a mindset to think a little more independently.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I actually thought about what I thought about last chapter, the distinction between presentism and historicism. I tried to think about Descartes, Galileo, John Locke and John Mill in terms of their own time and the dominant thought forces of their day. I thought most about the church and it’s holding back of the progress of science and of people. I also thought about that John Lennon song and I tried to imagine what it would have been like without the religion. The other things brought up in that song present as many problems as religion, they just aren’t applicable to this.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Presentism, Historicism, dualist, mechanist, interactionist,
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the work of Nicolas Copernicus to be interesting. He challenged the geocentric view of the universe which states that the earth is at the center. He developed the heliocentric theory that the sun was the center. I find this interesting because he was so worried about what the religious groups would think or do to him that he delayed having his work published until he was close to death. Even today, an argument can be made by someone who believes that man and dinosaurs lived together. They can’t explain away dinosaurs, so to make sense of the time frame, they believe that in the earth’s history, humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time. This is without a bit of evidence on their side but plenty of evidence on the other.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found John Locke’s life and work to be very interesting. Like most of the people (scientists) we have been reading about, his work encompassed many arenas. His work Two Treatises on Government was used by Thomas Jefferson as a model for the Declaration of Independence. His theory that when a child is born, it is born with a blank slate to be filled with one’s own life experiences is something I learned about in my Human Development class. The events that he lived through were quite extraordinary. He witnessed the parliament taking over for the monarchy, the execution of a king, religious changes, and a fire that destroyed most of London. He also fled England when his political views made it unsafe for him to stay. This is exactly what we were talking about in class with German scientists coming to America during World War II.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the work of David Hume to be another interesting area. After he admitted to trying and hating law and business, he set out for a career as a scholar. Even when his first book was not received well, he still forged on. He also upset the church with his cause and effect theory. The church saw it as questioning the existence of God. What I found most important about Hume is that modern psychologists still follow him when searching for the causes behind human behavior.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
George Berkeley was not interesting to me. Maybe it’s the author’s fault in the way he presents Berkeley’s near self-hanging as a legend that puts me off. Either it happened or it didn’t. Berkeley’s work on the eye and how humans see things, while important, is a dry read. He also seemed to want to have the church on his side which is opposite of his peers.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the way the author is introducing the important individuals in a timeline manner is very helpful. I get the feel of what was happening at the time in history they were writing and producing their work. One person seems to feed off of the ones before him and expands on the body of work.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The first chapter was more about how to research psychology history and who has worked in that field. This chapter goes more into the pioneers of psychology, who they are, and what work they did. It also includes how their work compares to others and if it was accepted or condemned by various groups.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about the church during the historical times that are talked about in this chapter. The church is at odds about almost everything that is discovered and put the books published on a do-not-read list. The church did not believe that the sun was the center of the universe or that the heart just pumped blood and did not produce blood. I would like to know why the church went as far as they did to discredit these theories at the time.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking about the Human Development class that I took. In that class we only touched on some of the pioneers of psychology. Many of the men talked about in this chapter were barely mentioned in that course and that textbook did not go into the depth that our current author does. I took my Introduction to Psychology course so long ago that I only retained the basics.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Nicolas Copernicus
John Locke
David Hume
George Berkeley
Geocentric
Heliocentric
1a) What did you find interesting?
Descartes
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it very interesting because this way I was able to connect previous people I had learned about and relate them to my field of study. Descartes was a philosopher that I had learned about in Humanities II. For Descartes he grew up in a time with lots of changes. I think it’s amazing how much these people question the world around them and the authority and rulers of this world. I think it’s amazing that he did leave his schooling and felt that philosophy was where he would excel. It was important to know the things that happened in the time period surrounding Descartes and how that impacted him and also how those things make him stand out. So historicism I believe is a very big part of understanding these people. The fact that he decided not to continue with his schooling I think is a pretty big deal. He also had some very interesting views on things. Dualism I believe is an interesting topic. I guess sometimes I think the mind and body can be separate, but then sometimes they just move so well together that I don’t think that anymore. For example I currently am jamming out to some music, but it’s not just my mind that’s going crazy currently, my legs and overall movement are crazy too! I also did not know that he tutored the Queen of Sweden. This fact popped out to me when reading it because I am about half Swedish, so any mention of Sweden makes me really excited. He was overall a very knowledgeable person and was knowledgeable on a variety of subjects.
2a) What did you find interesting?
John Locke
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I also found the information on John Locke interesting. We learned about him in Humanities II as well. It is very interesting to learn how these people contribute to psychology. His focus was finding out how knowledge is acquired and how empiricist thinking can apply to education. And empiricist believes that knowledge of the world is constructed from our experiences in it. Locke was a strong believer in empiricist thinking. He also believed in simple and complex ideas, and believed that you can reduce things to a simple more basic form, atomism. I also liked his beliefs on education. He had some very good ideas that did not conform to the normal beliefs of his society. Such as being against the use of punishment, even my parents and grandparents were punished in school and received even more punishment at home. I completely agree that we need to take away the negative in schools and instead push encouragement and verbal rewards. It’s exactly like behaviorism, so he basically created that before anyone knew what it really was. We talk about B.F. Skinner when we should talk about John Locke.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Overall I found the empiricist belief interesting
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the empiricist belief interesting because in a lot of ways it’s almost like the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate, even though we know that they are both equally important and both influence the person. Since empiricists believe that environments create a person’s knowledge it’s similar to saying that environment or how you grew up influences who you are as a person. It’s very similar to behaviorism as well.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I didn’t really find one thing the least interesting, if I had to say it would be Leibiniz.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It wasn’t really him it was more that I got tired of reading and just got a little bored. It also was a lot of famous people to talk about and it became difficult to differentiate between the different people. It was hard to figure out what was different about each person and find out exactly how they contributed to psychology.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding empiricism will be important. I think it is almost the start of the nature nurture debate, we just didn’t even know at that time. It started those thoughts of environmental influence and Locke did seem to start behaviorism. In this reading I felt lie I realized how modern some people are in their thinking.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think this chapter builds on the previous chapter from the historicism point. We really begin to realize the influence of the time period and the impact that has on what people are contributing to the field.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Kant’s influence on psychology.
7b) Why?
I have previously studied him, but I’m not sure how his thoughts would fit into psychology. It’d be interesting to see though what exactly he contributed to the field. He wanted to learn how the process of knowledge occurs, but I didn’t know what else he did for the field, so I’d like to learn more.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
For a lot of this reading I asked questions about the Queen of Sweden. How did she discover Descartes? Did she have feelings for Descartes? What was her schooling like? How much influence did religion have on these philosophers? How did religion hold them back from making more controversial discoveries?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Empiricism, historicism, dualism, simple ideas, complex ideas, atomism, John Locke, Descartes, Immanuel Kant
1a) I found the information on Descartes very interesting. A past look at his ideas of rationalism make one thankful that psychology did not stop with his ideas. He went as far as to reject the idea of the human senses. All because of the belief that anything that is not perfect cannot be trusted. This idea that the senses aren’t real because they have a chance for failure is absurd.
1b) It was interesting to me because it shows us how ideas of the past aren’t always accurate. As psychology continues to evolve it is good to see what kind of ideology we have come from, and it also is a warning to modern psychology to make sure the claims that are being made, actually have scientific evidence.
2a) Continuing with the ideas that Descartes had, sparked interest when it got to the dualist approach to thinking about the human body and mind. This idea has been a question throughout most people groups and still continues today. While it is not an easily defined subject, it was interesting to hear what those from the past had to say.
2b) It was interesting because the fact that it is a still debated topic makes of present day importance to us. This is a prime example of a subject that still has implications for modern psychology.
3a) The information on John Locke was intense. His reasoning closely resembled thoughts from modern psychology. While some of his ideas such as primary qualities and secondary qualities are not applicable, there are others, such as simple ideas and complex ideas that still hold some merit within scholarly circles today.
3b) His ideas were interesting to me because he was really close in describing some of the basic human functions of both mental and perceptual forms. However, the ideas that were present in his time as well as not having advanced technology kept him from making accurate descriptions on several areas of his research.
4a) I didn’t enjoy reading about George Berkeley, especially on his ideas of materialism and consequently determinism.
4b) It wasn’t interesting because I do not think about the world around us on these terms. It may be a little short sighted to not find interest on a certain topic simply because I don’t think the same way. However, in this case it simply is a difference of thought completely and it’s just not easy to read about something that totally conflicts with your ideas on the world.
5) I believe that the best part of this chapter that will be most useful in the future of this course simply has to do with the great overviews of the many individuals who influenced psychology throughout history. By having their ideas out on the table before tackling this class over the semester, it will really help us to think back on how they came upon the ideas that they contributed to the field. Just because some of them had really different ideas on how the mind and body work etc, doesn’t mean that their contributions are of any less significance. There is always something to be learned or observed from happenings from history and I know that this chapter will be referenced all semester.
6) In the previous chapter we were given reasons why history is important to us and why we should continue to make observing it a reality in our study of the field of psychology. This chapter built off those ideas by giving short biographies of many of the great individuals who contributed much to the study of psychology. We were able to have firsthand experience of reading their histories than make judgments on the accuracy and research methods decided upon that helped them come up with their ideas.
7a) I would like to learn more about how religion (or the rejection of it) influenced psychology in the past and how those thoughts carried into the modern area of psychology.
7b) I just have a lot of interest in the evolution of religion and how it influences cultures just in the way people respond to it, both positively and negatively.
8) I really just thought about how far we’ve come as a society when dealing with the psychology field. However, at the same time we are still battling it out over some of the same issues they were trying to solve hundreds of years ago. I wonder what kind of thoughts they would have had if they had a chance to live during our time, and vise versus.
9) Terms: Rationalism, ideology, dualist, perceptual, primary qualities, secondary qualities, simple idea, complex idea, materialism, determinism.
B.H.
1a) What did you find interesting? I found that when Ebbinghaus said that psychology had a long past but a short history and I wanted to find out what he meant exactly.
1b) Why was it interesting to you? Psychology has been around for a long period of time so how is the history so short? Basic human nature and the causes of human behavior are not new. Ebbinghaus describes how a lot of psychologist’s ideas have already been discovered by philosophers. But he goes on to explain that even though they are the same ideas sometimes psychology and philosophy are not the same. Instead of attempting to study behavior and mental processes through scientific methods rather than philosophical analysis, logical reasoning, and speculation by working in a lab rather than in the armchair. Thus the idea of new psychology emerged.
2a) What did you find interesting? The idea of geocentric and heliocentric theory interested me being catholic and all. Being catholic we were taught to not believe in evolution.
2b) Why was it interesting to you? I sought geocentric and heliocentric theory to be interesting because since no one ever taught us about it in regards to evolution I had no idea what it meant. The geocentric view of the universe placed earth at the center of the universe. Heliocentric theory placed the sun at the center of the universe and the sun moved around it just like any other planet. Obviously it brings up concern in religion with earth possibly not being the center of the cosmos.
3a) What did you find interesting? I also found that Lockes ideas interesting in regards to describing how our ideas originate.
3b) Why was it interesting to you? Lockes rejection on the idea of innate ideas interested me. I didn’t really think about it but every idea I have come up with seems to have some sort of string attached or reason it has popped up into my head. It just doesn’t randomly fall into my brain (innate idea). He stated that ideas come from other sources requiring only the use of our basic mental abilities. In the absence of certain experiences, we would not arrive at a conclusion because it would not even occur to us to think about it. For example, kids can learn language because they are profiting from experience. This was one of many ways Locke described the way our minds develop ideas.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Humes idea regarding absolute certainly being unattainable, and making him a skeptic didn’t interest me.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? His ideas are credible but everytime someone discovers an important idea, it always brings on conflict with the church. Because overall, Humes basically implied that the existence of God could be questioned. The church always has their beliefs but when it comes down to it, the church judges us on everything we do, even when it boils down to that the church is a business and all they want is money and to tell us how to believe in God.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? The statement that Ebbinghaus made regarding that psychology has a long past but a short history. I am sure we will go over how psychology and philosophy are different and how they are similar later on.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? The chapter builds on chapter one by introducing the Ebbinghaus statement I stated in the previous paragraph. A lot of issues and ideas that concern psychologists have already been addressed by serious thinkers and philosophers long ago.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? I would like to expand on the geocentric and heliocentric model of the universe in regards to evolution.
7b) Why? Being from a catholic school and being catholic I have no idea what evolution is and what it means.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? An idea that struck me was in relation to Humes three laws, we experienced contiguity when the world trade center was hit. We experience two things together because we got the world trade center being hit which came to bring on the cause (world trade got hit) and the effect of war in afganistan. In terms of Syria, they have to start an event or we have to start an event to bring in the 2nd event regarding contiguity.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Contiguity, heliocentric, geocentric, ideas, cause and effect, innate idea
I found it interesting that Hermann Ebbinghaus is known as the first person to study human memory experimentally. I think it’s fascinating to learn about anyone who was the first to do anything. I found it interesting that Rene Descartes was skeptical of the scholasticism he received as a student. This was interesting to me because the book mentioned that although he was skeptical about it, he was always grateful to the Jesuits for teaching him. It gave me some insight on how his personality might have been. Just that piece of information lead me to believe that he could see the good in certain situations, and although something may not have gone how he thought it should go or how he intended for it to go he still was able to look on the bright side. I thought it was interesting how Descartes was history’s best-known dualist, and the way he tried to separate humans and animals. The implication is called Cartesian dichotomy. I found this interesting because he argued that animals were simple machines and unable to understand reason or language. He said that humans combined a mechanical body with a mind that could reason. It’s interesting to see how today people would argue that animals are just as intelligent as humans. The empiricist idea was the least interesting to me. This idea just seemed so cliché to me. I feel as though the fact that it’s based on the idea that our knowledge of the world is constructed from our experiences in it is another idea that we are trained to believe. So seeing it again made me feel like it’s been said for so long that we being taught to go with it. I would like to learn more about the animal spirits that was referred to by Descartes. I’ve never heard of anything like it. The whole idea is interesting to me, and how it was supposed to somehow relate to the driving force behind movement is also interesting and I would like to learn more about it. The idea of someone having connections with several different categories came to mind while reading this chapter. Descartes was known as a rationalist, dualist, mechanist, and interactionist. No one is limited to just one category. In fact, I believe that since he was able to relate to so many different areas it made his life more interesting and that is why he’s in our text book.
Animal Spirits, Cartesian Dichotomy, Rationalist, Mechanist, Interactionist
C.M.
1)What did you find interesting and why?
I enjoyed learning about Descartes’ early contributions to philosophy and how that translated (at a later time) to psychology. Descartes was optimistic and believed that things about the body and mind could be discovered, possibly in his lifetime, whereas the traditional belief was that everything was a mystery. His distinction between innate and derived ideas foreshadow the topic of nature vs. nurture, which is still heavily debated to this day. I thought it was fascinating that someone who lived in the 17th century, so long ago, could have been on the verge of discovering things that we still do not fully understand. He brought to the surface many different topics, like dualism, machinist thinking, and interactionism.
2)What did you find interesting and why?
The different views on what a reflex is and how the nervous system works is really interesting, and kind of comical (pardon my presentist mindset). Descartes believed that nerves were a hollow tube, through which animal spirits traveled to cause muscle movements he called reflexes. Later, Hartley stated that nerves were not hollow tubes, and they communicated by vibrations. It is exciting to learn that we have come such a long way in our understanding of how the human body functions, yet there is still so much that is unknown.
3)What did you find interesting and why?
The topic of the mind-body debate has been of interest to me ever since I took a philosophy course my freshman year. It is interesting that there are so many different views. Do we have a soul? If so, it doesn’t take up space and it can’t be seen, so where is it? How do we know it exists if we can’t see it? Are the mind and body two different entities, or are the inseparable? I liked being able to read about it in the text. Without a mind, would we really just be machines? Are animals just machines? Are animals capable of logic and reasoning? All these questions are so interesting, and still completely relevant today.
4)What did you find least interesting and why?
I started to get bored while reading about the two German philosophers because it was getting toward the end of the chapter and I was ready to be done reading. I also felt like it was a repeat of what I had read and learned earlier, it was just relating those two to the terms presented earlier.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think it is very important that psychology students realize that our field branched off from philosophy. I find it odd that some psych students hate philosophy. To me, this does not make sense because, in a way, we are studying philosophy. Instead of asking the “why” questions, however, we now ask “how” questions. Knowing how philosophy has evolved will help us understand how psychology started.
6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The first chapter laid the foundation for why we should study psychology and why knowing our past is important. This chapter built on that by diving into the origins of psychology, and going back far enough in the past to include the philosophical questions on which psychology is formed.
7)What topic would you like to learn more about and why?
I would really like to learn more about J.S. Mills. He seems like a pretty fascinating man, and I would love to learn more about his upbringing and how that shaped his adulthood. I also think it’s interesting that, instead of adopting his father’s approach to holism, he developed his own thoughts and made it more related to chemicals. I also thought Berkeley was pretty interesting, so I wouldn’t mind learning more about him as well.
8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I did not realize it before taking this course, but philosophy and psychology are so closely related. After reading the chapter I can now clearly see that. While reading, I was wondering how much adversity each of the men highlighted in the text faced, when proposing new ways of thinking. A big stumbling block for a lot of them was the Catholic Church, and they waited to publish their works until after their death so as to not have to face being persecuted. I also wondered why, if they faced so much adversity from the Church, how they were still able to cling to their Christian beliefs and faith in God.
9)Innate vs. derived ideas, dualism, machinist thinking, interactionism, reflex, “animal spirits”, vibrations, holism
1a) What did you find interesting?
Locke’s distinction between simple and complex ideas
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because these two ideas helped describe atomism. Atomism is defined as the idea that complexity in nature can be understood by reducing objects to their most basic elements. At the end of this section the book states that atomism underlines many of the early systems in psychology. I found it this to be very interesting. Simple ideas are caused from experiencing basic sensory qualities and making simple images (examples: blue, cold, white, and etc.) Complex ideas contain several additional ideas, which could be a combination of simple and complex ideas (example: a hot cup of coffee on a very cold night).
2a) What did you find interesting?
Locke on education
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because Locke gives advice on how to raise and educate children. I want to work with children one day and think education is very important. Locke focuses on the type of environment and behaviors occurring. Locke believed parents should start teaching their children good habits before developing bad ones. Locke also argues against the use of punishment on children. In my behavior modification class we learned using reinforcement is more successful than punishment. Locke also argued concrete rewards should be avoided. Children should not be rewarded every time for good performance. I found Locke’s concepts interesting because it focuses around behaviorism.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Close-up Raising a Philosopher (John Mill)
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because I have not learned about John Mill’s background and was stunned after reading it. His father did not waste time educating him and had him learning the Greek vocabulary by age 3. Education was Mill’s whole life. His father didn’t let him socialize with other children. Mill’s never really got to experience being a kid. In his quote Mill’s explains how exhausted he was from figuring everything out on his own. I could not imagine growing up and not being allowed to socialize with other children. I believe education is very important, but Mill’s father took it to the extreme.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
George Berkeley: Empiricism Applied to Vision
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I had a difficult time reading the section about George Berkeley. I just didn’t find this section interesting and had difficulties learning from it. I remember learning about vision in another class and I hated it! From the reading I can remember reading about Berkeley’s work on the eye and how people can see things. Other than that I do not remember anything else.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think it is important to have a general understanding of philosophy to help appreciate the history of psychology. In the book it states that all the important issues that concern modern psychology have been addressed by philosophers. It is important to learn the concepts and theories that took place in the past. It gives you a better understand of what we know today.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In chapter one it discussed why we should study history and history of psychology. This chapter builds on providing information about philosophers and their findings. It is significant to know that psychology comes from philosopher’s concepts and theories.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
John Locke
7b) Why?
After reading this chapter I found John Locke to be the most interesting. I would like to learn more about his theories to human understanding. I think the section about Locke on education was the best. I like reading about topics dealing with behaviorism.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I questioned which individuals were more important to remember and learn about. There were a lot of new people discussed in this chapter. Is there a certain individual who is more important? Or are all the individuals equally as important?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
John Locke, simple ideas, complex ideas, atomism, punishment, reinforcement, John Mill, George Berkeley, behaviorism, and philosophy
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found the section discussing Descartes on the Reflex and mind-body interaction to be interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Descartes thought that the spirits of animals were found in the brain, nerves and muscles and that what caused muscles to move were these animal spirits. The thing that decided which muscle was to move was the mind, it could pick which spirit to initiate and that would cause the muscle movement to occur. Another thing is that some muscles can move in result to sensory stimulus. I found this to be incredibly interesting because I find anatomy and physiology to be very fascinating, to me learning what makes the body work in the ways that it does is exciting. This view on the brain and the nervous system is vastly different from the one that we have today so it is just fascinating to see how far science has come. Animal spirits is also a very imaginative and interesting way to look at the human body.
I thought this section was particularly interesting because of the discussion of animal spirits.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I think that Immanuel Kant and his ideas were incredibly interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
In the text it said that Kant believed that we required knowledge prior to the experience and that knowledge helps shape the experiences that we have. This struck me because I think that this idea has some validity within it. There have been many times I have gone into an experience with a negative attitude towards it and that attitude shaped the experience that I had. Going in with this view that things are going to be awful makes it so that you are not as willing to let the experience be a good one.
3a) What did you find interesting?
David Hartley
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Hartley interesting because of his idea of psychophysical parallelism. This means that he saw psychological and physical events to be separate. But they act parallel to each other. This idea interested me because I did not even think to view it in that light. I have always just viewed the body and mind to be interconnected so it is hard for me to think of it that way.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Empiricism applied to vision
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found this section to be incredibly dry and uninteresting, I commonly found myself skimming through the section and not fully reading into what the textbook was saying. I also found the section to be very choppy with information and it was hard for me to follow along.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the thing that I learned that is most useful is that some of the concepts in theory will not make sense to us now. So I have to read the text subjectively in order to understand what the theory or idea was.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The last chapter we read about was telling us why we should study history, this chapter is giving us some of the key players in the history of psychology. So the way that it builds on is just by telling us why we should study it, and then giving us some brief history on psychology.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Animal spirits
7b) Why?
All in all I found this section the most interesting to read and learn about. I didn’t find myself thinking of other things while reading it. I also think that it was the most far fetched idea and it is interesting to think about what made Descartes stumble upon that conclusion
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I honestly did not have much to apply the reading to. I continuously found myself in awe that at one point in time these ideas were held to be scientific and true.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Animal spirits, Descartes, Kant, David hartely, psychophysical parallelism, Empiricism
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One topic that I found interesting that was discussed in this chapter was the section on animal spirits. When I first read this, I pictured the Native Americans and their idea of animal spirits. In the Native American culture, it was believed that when people died their spirit lived on in a chosen animal. Relating back to psychology, animal spirits are the “driving forces behind movement.” I think that this is interesting in and of itself but also with how it relates to the Native American type of animal spirits. I think that both senses of the term show how people are driven. The psychological description relates animal spirits as to how they influence the muscles of the human body to move. The Native American animal spirits were used to influence the personality of the person it represented.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The second topic I found interesting in this chapter was David Hume’s three laws of association. These laws are resemblance, contiguity, and cause-effect. The first law, resemblance, talks about the way most people make associations and that is by thinking an object is very similar to another one. The second way, contiguity, is kind of similar because it talks about how, by experiencing two things together, one experience may remind us of a second one. In one of my French classes, there was a French saying that talked about how people create “lines” with other things, and that how some people associate an occurrence may differ from what other people associate with that same occurrence. I always found this idea very interesting and would love to learn about what drives people to think about certain aspects of their lives and how they differ around the world. The last law of associate is cause-effect. I found this law interesting as well because it reminded me of Pavlov and his work. The cause-effect associate focuses on how because people experienced one event right after another, looking back they will start to associate them together. This is very similar to the experiments that Pavlov did with training the dog to salivate at the sound of a bell.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The third piece of information that I found interesting in this chapter was the differences between innate ideas and derived ideas. Innate ideas are those that are formed due to our native reasoning. Derived ideas are brought on by our experiences. I found these two topics to be interesting because we never think of where our ideas, thoughts, or inferences come from, we just think of them. So sitting down and thinking about how or when we learned something is an interesting idea to me. I think it is fun to see where things originated. I enjoy hearing about people’s pasts and why people think the way they do. I think it would be interesting to see what ideas of people’s were innate and which were derived and how they came to be that way.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One topic I did not find interesting in this chapter was the primary and secondary qualities of matter. Primary qualities are an inherent property of an object while secondary qualities are dependent on a person’s perception of that object. For me, it’s that I don’t find this information interesting, seeing as how it deals with how a certain object may make a person feel, but rather I was uninterested in this section of the reading due to other factors. I thought that this section of the text was very wordy and I really just skimmed over it because it didn’t seem like it had anything to do with psychology. Also, the information before it was not very interesting, making the rest of this section not very interesting to read in the end.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
One of the things that really struck me as helpful to understanding the history of psychology was the opening quote by Hermann Ebbinghaus. He stated that “psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short.” This quote is discussed in the beginning of the chapter as well. I found this quote to be very intuitive and really show how psychology’s history has come to be, with such little words. This quote is basically saying that trying to figure out how human’s work and why they do what they do is something that people have been studying and trying to figure out for many years, but the science of psychology has only been around for a couple hundred years. This quote really sums up the history of psychology and how it has come to be one of the most popular sciences of this day and age, and I think this quote also helps in understanding the short, but long, history of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Because this chapter is only chapter two, it can only be compared to chapter one. In chapter one, we learned about the very broad history of psychology. In chapter two, the history of psychology was focused on one main aspect, philosophy. The philosophical side of psychology played (and still plays) a pretty big role in the development of the science of psychology. The many ideas founded on the principals of philosophy were the starting blocks for the research in psychology. Many hypothetical ideas in philosophy create the ideas that can be tested in psychology. Because of this, philosophy is a very important part of psychology and without philosophy, the science of psychology and its history would be inexistent.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
One topic that was briefly mentioned in the chapter reading was epistemology. Epistemology is the study of human knowledge and its acquisition. I think this would be very interesting to learn about because it is basically the study of how, what, and why people learn. I would love to study why some people learn in different ways than others. I think it would also be interesting to learn about why I want to learn about that. I think that in epistemology, everything can be questioned. You would constantly be learning new information, which when learning is what you are studying in the first place, you are only helping yourself. I would also be interested to find out how people know what they know. It would be cool to go really far back in history just to find out how people first learned something that everyone today finds to be common knowledge. I think that studying the study of human knowledge, the possibilities would be endless as to what could be learned.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
There were a couple other topics I thought about while reading this chapter. One of the first things was astronomy. I took astronomy last semester and found it to be very interesting because of how much we are still learning and how much we still don’t know about space. I think that this is comparable to psychology because we are still finding out new information on the human brain and still don’t have many answers to every question we have asked so far in this field of research. So I am curious as to how these two sciences correlate with each other especially alongside the field of philosophy. Another topic I thought about while reading this chapter was Winnie the Pooh. One of the guys last name in the chapter was Mill, so I started thinking about A.A. Milne (whose last name I thought was Mills), the author of Winnie the Pooh. I then started questioning how Winnie the Pooh, and all childhood stories in general, use psychology and philosophy in their story lines. I think this would be a very interesting topic to study because it something almost everyone can relate to.
Terms: animal spirits, philosophy, resemblance, contiguity, cause-effect, innate ideas, derived ideas, primary qualities, secondary qualities, epistemology
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
In this Chapter, the book references several times where psychology, astronomy, etc. were challenging the traditional beliefs of the times, especially in reference to the Catholic Church. Several times it goes out of its way to mention that the Church struck down the theories without explaining why. With Galileo, for example, the Church didn't simply reject his theories or try to throw them under the rug like the book seems to imply. Rather, they rejected Galileo because he insisted his heliocentric universe was factual, but could not prove this through scientific means. I will have to go back and take another look back into what I had researched on the subject before to give more information about it, but it seems the author doesn't give a fair representation of the Church, which actually helped the research of science by not simply accepting theories, but challenging the scientists to prove them. It was interesting to see how in our presentist minds, we forget the details of why institutions such as the Church did not accept such new discoveries.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the discussion between innate ideas and learning from our own experiences to be very fascinating. Much like nature vs nurture, neither one is complete without the other. A newborn baby (emphasis on newborn) does not learn to cry or grab objects or put things in their mouth. Yet they learn that crying helps them get the attention they need from their mother, so they continue to cry whenever they are hungry, have a full diaper, or are simply upset. Thus, it seems we do have some actions or impulses automatically built into our being, but we learn very much from our environment and experiences. The ability to learn and speak a language fluently, for example, from work with a couple children who were isolated from much human contact, has been discovered to be a learned cultural tool rather than a natural, innate ability. There were a couple studies on this from a previous Psychology course that I found very fascinating.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I rationalist mentality caught my eye because as humans, we have a natural tendency to react irrationally based upon emotions, previous experiences, or biases. It is quite a challenge at times in relationships to disregard emotions as reasons to act one way or another. Thinking rationally, we can come up with solutions based on logically solving problems rather than reacting to our previous experiences and biases. This pursuit focuses on discovering truth based on the logical pursuit of it.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't find some of the drawn out descriptions of Descartes' theories on how reflexes, animal spirits, and the pineal glands work very appealing. At first I found it interesting, but then it went too far in depth in the details, just to say that they weren't correct later anyway. I have a general curiosity about such matters, but I think my lack of understanding and familiarity of human anatomy keeps me from enjoying the fine details.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Though a little overwhelming, I think the introduction to many different theories about how and why humans think, act, and react the way we do will help greatly to understand how ideas and theories have started, developed, and been improved upon through history. For a young study, there are so many different aspects and areas of psychology that are only beginning to be explored. Since many of these theories compare and contrast, it helps us to understand that psychology is an ongoing learning process that won't necessarily ever reach a general conclusion or "correct" standard because of how complex the human mind and body are.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter takes us from why we study psychology in the previous chapter to how psychology has been developed over the centuries and how it has continuously been associated with other areas of science such as anatomy, physiology, astronomy, etc.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to look more into why the Catholic Church rejected many of the scientific ideas centuries ago. As previously stated, it seems that the Church is blamed for preventing progress, when one can easily say that the Church actually helped to advance science and psychology by challenging these thinkers to effectively argue and support their position without insisting truth when their own methods cannot prove said truth.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I thought about how confusing it must have been centuries ago with all these new theories conflicting and comparing each other against or in cohesion with traditional thinking. It is confusing enough now with all the advances in science, because we still cannot explain nearly as much as we'd like to.
Descartes, innate idea, heliocentric, Galileo, rationalist, pineal gland, animal spirits, reflex
"A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can." -James Mill Jr. (love it!) Paraphrased I think it says this: "A person who is never challenged to do the impossible, will never do all he can."
“Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.” -Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers Coach in the 1960s
1a) George Berkeley and his application of empiricism to vision.
1b) Two things I enjoyed from this man. One, his ideas on convergence and accommodation. And two, his ideal that the only reality "for us is our own perception." I really thought about the idea of experiences effecting how we judge distance. Clearly, he didn't do much with assimilation, but assimilation was there in his teachings. Looking out a window, I could judge the distance of the UNI dome based off of experience of being right outside of it and inside of it. The idea that I assimilated the experiences of being near it and the image I see out my window conclude that it is far away from where I am. The other thing was the perception. It made me think of the old "there is no spoon" from the Matrix. It also makes me think of cultural differences (a little of Locke's philosophies). One's experience allows them to see a chair in front of them; however, Hojo from Wonderland, might see nothing but a Gookly Booke (something not used for a chair, I guess). This makes a chair a secondary quality to those that visually see it.
2a)Locke on Eduation
2b)I appreciate Locke's views on education (although with some minor disagreements on "hard beds" and the like). I find it interesting because the "right way" to do education is still being debated today and I am sure his influence in history still helps heat up the debate. Today in the classroom, you can see Locke's legacy. As a teacher in training we are taught that the environment in which a student is learning will greatly increase/decrease positive behavior and increase/decrease actual learning depending on how the contextual features in the classroom are set up.
3a)David Hume and the cause-effect relationship
3b)I found David Hume's cause and effect interesting because it is something that truly revolutionized psychology's ability to analyze patterns and behaviors. It also revolutionized the empiricism by running away from Descartes' absolute answers. Cause and effect reminds me of the "hot" and "cold" game. By analyzing patterns with cause and effect we can get "hotter" to the experience we have not uncovered yet. We may never find the hot steel rod sitting among the field of pattern, but we can at least predict where and when the next "field fire" will start (if that makes sense). This hot and cold game has greatly advanced psychology and other disciplines.
4a)I didn't find anything not interesting, but...
4b)It did take a few rereads of a sentence or several sentences at times to understand what was going on. Not necessarily a bad thing either.
5)I think the one thing I assume will help my understanding of psychologies history would be James Stuart Mill Jr.'s workings. He really set the forerunner standards on analyzing psychology.
6)It definitely relates to the previous chapter because it builds off of "how to analyze history" to "the basic foundation of early psychology."
7a)Rationalism
7b)It really wasn't addressed much until the end. And I happen to agree more with them then the "blank slate" mentality. In general I would like to see a big compare and contrast of both the "blank slate" vs the "marble veined" people.
8)Shoot, what didn't I think about? I enjoyed the educational segments. The segments that talked about or narrated about someone's education. The last thought I had was a good one: we live in a society that says teaching kids advanced English grammar and vocabulary at a younger age is bad, yet Mills suffered through much more complexities then us. We see 13-year-old kids these days as little babies in diapers, but back then they were completing college! So why couldn't the young mind go though more vigorous training? Because it goes against the cultural stigma for the present time. Home tutoring your child would leave him worse off than Mills, because if a child as intelligent as Mills Jr. at age 13 came to be, he/she may not survive without going insane in present times.
9)Empiricism, John Locke, Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, Mills
1a) What did you find interesting? Locke’s advice on education
1b) Why was it interesting to you? All of his ideas were very much useful in my mind. The first being physical health, he advised that a sound mind requires a sound body. Something as simple as a firm bed instead of a soft one was something he mentioned. Knowing this we can acquire the information that he truly believed in being the best you. The next piece of advice was to train the children discipline. I am also a firm believer in this. Children are so easily moldable and just like he mentions it needs to be continually practiced. Without repetition the act will not be remembered. Another thing that I plan to use when I have children is something he talked about next: not using punishment. The use of punishment is often not taken properly, such as a child getting punished for not doing studies will soon learn to hate them. And last mentioned in the book is the negative use of rewards, and how they will continue to be expected for good behavior. There is a fine line between good and bad punishment and good and bad reward.
2a) What did you find interesting? Hume’s cause and effect belief
2b) Why was it interesting to you? This reminded me a lot of correlations. He mentions using clues to predict regularity, and this evokes thinking in our self. We ask does A only happen when B is present, or does A act before or after B. He was a firm believer that nothing is certain, which I believe as well. Things like this can get a person in trouble however. He for instance was judged because of his skepticism, implying that even God’s existence would never be certain and could continue to be questioned.
3a) What did you find interesting? James Mills experience raising his son
3b) Why was it interesting to you? I think his story is incredible because not only of his mental capacity but also his humility. At a young, young age he was taught different languages, algebra, geometry, everything and had no contact with other children in their schools. His father personally tutored him and impressed on him the value of learning by himself. Every day he would have to summarize something he had read the day before to his father, which of course was a great aid to learning. He also had education in logic and politics. While many would consider him a prodigy, he didn’t know any better than to learn a great deal. That being said he was very humble in his intelligence. He didn’t credit himself any innate ability or gift but rather he was just grateful that he had a father who was so involved and had the desire to teach him. I just think this is a beautiful story, not only incredible but also humbling.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Descartes animal spirit theory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? When something seems really farfetched to me it’s hard for me to keep my interest. So this theory that these spirits are found in our brain, nerves and muscles and are able to determine movement didn’t really come as much of an interest because it’s something I cannot bring myself to believe.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? All of these people that I read about in this chapter had theories and ideas. I think that is the most important part of it. They all had so many opinions and some were able to base theirs on fact while others still only thought of them as hypothesis. That is something to always keep in mind; that all of these people may think differently but also that they were real to them.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? In the first chapter we talked about how philosophers were a big part in the history of psychology and now we are learning about quite a few on an individual basis. Many of their theories were bases for many psychological theories we learn and know about today, this simply proves that history does in fact teach us about what is happening in our present.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? James Mills life
7b) Why? I think the way his father raised him was truly fascinating and I would love to read more about his life in order to know how he acquired so much knowledge along with learning about why his father took the initiative to teach him this way.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? What makes people like Descartes believe in animal spirits leading our thoughts and actions? Why do some people not agree with Locke’s theories knowing the outcome of children being reared improperly?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Innate idea, animal spirits, cause and effect, ideas
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found the concept of innate ideas interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it interesting because I think it is kind of cool to think about how our ideas form and where our knowledge comes from. It is also interesting to hear the different ideas that the different philosophers had. John Locke and Descartes are the first two big philosophers who tried to find answers to the same questions about knowledge and how mind and body come into play when it comes to knowledge.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I found John Locke interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
One reason I found him interesting is because, unlike him, I believe in innate ideas to be where you learn through your experiences. I find it interesting to disagree with him so I can see it his way and my way. I don’t understand how someone can believe his way though.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I found Descartes interesting.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought Descartes was interesting because his main thought principle was: I exist. I also thought his famous quote was very thought provoking, which is “I think, therefore I am.” I also find it interesting how he looks at his senses. He says that they come to him involuntarily and are not willed to him. He says that since they are external, it shows evidence of being outside your mind. He thinks it shows that an external world exists, which is the main idea that I find interesting.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Honestly, I found most of the reading pretty boring.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Again, just being honest, but I don’t really care about past psychologist’s history. I care about the important terms that have been created but reading about all of the different Psychologist’s and learning their background is not something that I find interesting. I don’t understand why it is necessary to know exactly how every philosopher’s thoughts came to be. It is hard for me get into a book where I am not passionate about the subject.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think knowing the history of John Locke and Descartes will be the most useful to me in the future. His theory of innate ideas and learning from experience was very influential. Thinking about how we form ideas is very interesting to me. Trying to learn how we form ideas can be very helpful in learning how our minds work.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
From what I noticed, the only way this chapter relates to the last chapter is that it is still teaching me new things about the history of Psychology. I can’t think of any other ways on how the two chapters relate to each other.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
This might sound bad, but I do not have a desire to learn more about any of the topics that were discussed in this section. If I had to pick a topic to learn more about, I would choose Locke or Descartes because obviously that is what I am interested in and that is what caught my attention from this section. However, like I said, the topics discussed in this section are not of interest to me.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Like I said before, I liked the section in this chapter that talked about innate ideas. It is kind of interesting to think about where knowledge comes from. This is the idea that I thought about the most while reading. I definitely don’t agree with Locke. I think it is obvious that knowledge comes from the experiences that we experience in life. Just like the book said, even though babies cannot talk, they still have experiences that they learn from. I believe that you get your knowledge from the experiences that you have.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Innate Ideas, John Locke, Descartes, External, Knowledge
1a) What did you find interesting?
- Descartes' four basic rules:
1: Accept nothing as true unless there's no reason to doubt it.
2: Break problems into sub-problems
3:Work from simple sub-problems to more complex ones
4: Review conclusions to make sure nothing's omitted
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
- Because these rules are still a part of our scientific model today. This is how people conduct research (with a few modern changes of course), but I think it is absolutely astounding that Descartes theory of science is still relevant in today's scientific society. I also find it exceptional that Descartes was willing to refute authority while making these rules. While living in a society highly regulated by church, and state governments; it was a bold leap.
2a) What did you find interesting?
- Empiricist: Someone who believes that our knowledge of the world is constructed from our experiences in it; school of thought associated with such British philosophers as Locke, Berkley, and Mill
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
- This is particularly interesting because how are we to know which behaviors, are innate, and learned? The idea that language is innate has been proposed, and to refute that we have no knowledge when we are born is something that the scientific method cannot explain. This question is based in philosophy.
3a) What did you find interesting?
- Sir Francis Bacon's scientific model
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
- Much like Descartes this scientific method is similar to the one that we use today. The idea that Bacon created the early form of the Inductive Approach, is amazing. In a time period when people only used the Deductive Approach this was probably one of the most scientifically significant
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
- Convergence: Visual phenomenon described by Berkeley; the tendency of the eye muscles to make the eye move in the direction of "crossing" as objects move closer to the person.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
- Basic explanations of eye function that don't really have any relation to the brain or psychology seem like trivial knowledge to me. What does it matter if we know something, but not why it happens?
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
- Knowing that psychology was originally a field of philosophy. Seeing how people were asking questions about human behavior, and it brought out the field of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
- This chapter builds on the previous because we are still covering the early sciences. We have traveled to the beginning foundations of psychology.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
- Contiguity
7b) Why?
- Because this topic is a little unfamiliar to me, and its confusing.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
- Honestly, I kept thinking about my Humanities II class, many of the people featured in this chapter; are large names in the philosophy field. These people were doing things during their time periods that were big improvements to the scientific community. Not only did a majority of these people contribute to science, they also bettered religion.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
- Contiguity; Convergence, Empiricist,
1a) What did you find interesting?
Decartes theory of dualism was something of interest to me.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
What interested me was that up until this time no one else that we know of had really considered that the mind and body were two different entities. Although he was wrong he looked at the body like a machine being controlled by the mind. While it is obviously a little more complicated than that he was not far from wrong and because of his questions many more discoveries and questions were asked about the mind and body.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Decartes stumbled upon reflexes.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This notion was interesting to me because he was investigating animal spirits and how the mind is in control of movement in the body but that some muscles can move automatically in response to the result of certain stimulus. He thought of reflexes in terms of mechanics, tiny filaments in the body open pores in the brain to release these animal spirits that produce the reflexes. Obviously this is wrong but once again he was onto something way before anyone else.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Locke’s idea of a white paper at birth.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
When we are born we all essentially have a clean slate and start from scratch, what was interesting to me is that Locke was one of the first to realize it was not these innate ideas that shaped who we are but rather our experiences in life. While I believe that experience plays a huge factor in the shaping of our lives, we also know today that genetics can also have some factors.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
David Hume and his theories of impressions and ideas.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I just felt the whole time I was reading the section he was wrong and we wouldn’t be such an innovative civilization today if ideas could not be created from something other than experience.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I thought understanding all of these men and how they came to their conclusions, right or wrong, will definitely help my understanding of history and where psychology came from. If we know where we came from we can get a glimpse of where we are going.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In the first chapter it kind of tells us why we study the history of psychology and why it is important today. This chapter builds on that notion by giving us background of the fore fathers of psychology and how they came about their theories.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
John Stuart Mill
7b) Why?
He seemed like an interesting guy who had a very tough life and didn’t want others to fall into his misfortune. He favored government universal education and felt it was every person’s right to a good education and not only the rich and elite of society.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about all the different research that went into all the theories described in the chapter and how many years of their lives these men spent to revolutionize the way we think.
Terms: empiricist, animal spirits, impressions, ideas, white paper, reflex, association
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found interesting to learn more about where the phrase, “I think, therefore I am”, came from.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The simple meaning is that doubting one’s existence, in and of itself, proves that an "I" exists to do the doubting. This proposition became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, as it was perceived to form a foundation for all knowledge. While other knowledge could be a figment of imagination, deception or mistake, the very act of doubting one's own existence arguably serves as proof of the reality of one's own existence, or at least of one's thought.
I also liked how he came to the conclusion. First he would accept nothing as true unless it was absolutely clear in his mind and there was no doubt. Second, he would take the problem, or question, and break it down into sub-problems, to see if there was any part of the problem that could be disproved. Third he would work on the easiest problem and work his way up to the more difficult ones. And finally based on all of this we would draw his conclusions. I found this interesting because there is nothing special or complicated about it, I believe this is the way most break down and solve problems. Coming to a logical conclusion like this can be described as an innate idea.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Another subject I found interesting was John Locke’s argument against innate ideas.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this to be interesting because it conflicts or goes against what I just read and understood from Descartes, I am interested in the other side of the argument.
After considering the existence of innate ideas, Locke completely rejected them. Locke believed that we do have innate “faculties”, the example give was the ability to think, but ideas derived from reason are not to be considered innate ideas. Locke argued that there is no need to propose innate ideas because ideas originate from other sources, like our experience, it required only our mental abilities, which he referred to as “faculties”.
Locke’s main argument against innate ideas was based on the experiences every person gains throughout their lives. He argues that the existence of God is not an innate idea but a natural consequence from a line of thought stemming from the worry of death, a universal experience. Locke even argued that innate ideas appearing early in life cannot be innate because as children, even before the acquisition of language, benefit from experience, for example, learning the difference between bitter and sweet.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Rationalist responses to empiricism.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found these responses interesting because it ties all of the previous arguments together.
Gottfried Leibniz challenged Locke’s white paper analogy; the mind at birth is a blank sheet of paper. Gottfried said the mind was more like veined marble, meaning our experiences in life can shape our minds in so many ways. He also argued Descarte’s interactionsism, stating that the mind and physical body work parallel to each other, believing that the mind and body worked separate from each other but in agreement. Immanuel Kant also argued that experiences itself was not possible it there was no prior knowledge to provide the framework. This argument was geared towards our understanding of the world.
These arguments were a response to empiricism, but they also help us to see the path, to thinking and gaining knowledge, that was taken.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I found the setup of the chapter overall uninteresting
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It focused too much on too many different people. All of the information related well, and I found it entertaining of how the next person discussed would disagree with the ideas of the person discussed before. I’m not completely sure what the focus of the chapter was, besides the people discussed in it.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter lays out how information processing has changed in that short period of time discussed. If the chapter discussed where we are now compared to back then, it would be a tremendous difference. In that difference we would see a thread of commonality, and be able to trace back the origins of a certain way of thinking.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The first chapter mainly explained why we should study history, or the history of psychology, the second chapter demonstrates what can we accomplished and how we can build upon our history. All new arguments or ways of thinking were built or created using previous ways of thought.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn about in what ways Locke, Descartes, Gottfried, and so on changed our ways of thinking.
7b) Why?
It would be interesting to see how things have really changed since then. It is easy to collect all of this knowledge and say this is what this philosopher meant and this is why we think this way. I want to know how specifically things have changed and how one person’s idea affected another’s and theirs affected the person proceeding them and so on.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading the chapter I was amazed at the amount of influence one person’s way of thinking influenced the next person. The following person would take the same idea spin it on its head or improve on it.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Innate idea, white paper,interactionism
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the idea that the British tradition was known as being strongly empiricist. I thought this was interesting because I find this to be true as well. I strongly believe that our own knowledge of the world, shapes the experiences we have. I think that there are other factors as well, but knowing about our world gives us a better understanding on how to live in that particular world. For example, living in today's world, I know that our society revolves around technology. Knowing this about my current world, I know that it is important to be technologically savvy in order to be shaped into a person who can survive and succeed in it. I also believe that being taught about the world also helps shape the experiences we will have in it. The British tradition still seems to hold true for me at least, but I do believe in a lot of other theories as well.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The idea that Locke had about training children early and often is the best way for the child to develop in the proper way. This is because when we are younger our brains are the most malleable and it is easier to learn and obtain things when we are younger then when we are older. I find this to be extremely interesting because logically it doesn't make too much sense to me. I would personally think that we could learn more once our brains are completely developed and once we can learn more age appropriate things. But then again one must learn how to learn in order to learn so it does make sense. I think it's so interesting that the brain is the one thing that can determine if you develop or not. It's also crazy to think that if we are taught to be good at the start, then we will be good. Conditioning is a spectacular thing. I don't find it hard to believe that children who were babied as children, will have a higher chance of having bad habits later in life because they were never taught the right way from the start. More the reason to make sure you teach children the right way, right away.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
"Kant argued that psychology could never become a science like the physical sciences." I find this statement to be very interesting because I disagree with him completely. I think that psychology is most definitely considered to be a science just like a physical science. In psychology, theories, data, and ideas are all important in proving something about something. Just like a physical science. I personally consider psychology as a type of science because people have to study and figure out certain things in order to fully understand them. Science to me is about experiments and so is psychology. In psychology there are experiments taking place all the time that's how they figure issues out. It's how they make sense of our world and issues that are taking place in our world today and always. I feel like it might be classified as a different type of science, but it is definitely a science in my personal opinion and it blows my mind that someone disputes that notion.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't find the section about Berkeley in regards to accommodation and convergence to be the least interesting in this chapter. This is because I have learned all about this before in my development classes and even then I didn't find it to be interesting. It seems to be common knowledge and not that important to me personally. I was informed though that Berkeley was the one that came up with these concepts and I didn't know that before. I just feel like these two terms seem minor compared to the other information and it was just a refresher for me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I feel like learning about the different theories and psychologists will help me better understand the history of psychology because they are some of the people who helped shape the history of it in the first place.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapter two relates to the first chapter because it still talks about the history of psychology just in a different way then the first chapter. In chapter two it talks about the history of the psychologists that involve the history of psychology. The different people who have come up with theories that apply topics and issues of psychology. It still talked about different concepts that pertain to the history and makings of psychology. I think the author did a great job with transitioning to the next chapter and with still integrating the original topics as well.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about why they switched from animal research to human research. I feel like both could still be beneficial to this day, which in some cases it is still taking place but I would like to learn more about why it was unpopular even though it was considered to be good research. I feel like animals and humans are both good ways to research on.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
The idea of "white paper" was something that I could relate to as an Elementary Education major because we learned ALL about this concept in two of my previous classes. I believe in this concept because I think that at birth, every child is born with a blank slate, or empty paper. Every child has the ability to learn, even if it is at a different rate or different ability. Even children with special needs have the ability to learn something. By one's experience and external influences are children able to learn and write their own sheet of papers. I remember learning all about this and I think it will always be true and important in understanding how to help children develop which is important to me since I'm wanting to be a teacher. I think that Locke was dead on when it came to this concept.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Empiricist, British Tradition, White Paper, Locke, History of Psychology, Theories, Psychologists, Kant, Science, Animal Research, Berkeley, Accommodation, Convergence, and Human Research.
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the idea that the British tradition was known as being strongly empiricist. I thought this was interesting because I find this to be true as well. I strongly believe that our own knowledge of the world, shapes the experiences we have. I think that there are other factors as well, but knowing about our world gives us a better understanding on how to live in that particular world. For example, living in today's world, I know that our society revolves around technology. Knowing this about my current world, I know that it is important to be technologically savvy in order to be shaped into a person who can survive and succeed in it. I also believe that being taught about the world also helps shape the experiences we will have in it. The British tradition still seems to hold true for me at least, but I do believe in a lot of other theories as well.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The idea that Locke had about training children early and often is the best way for the child to develop in the proper way. This is because when we are younger our brains are the most malleable and it is easier to learn and obtain things when we are younger then when we are older. I find this to be extremely interesting because logically it doesn't make too much sense to me. I would personally think that we could learn more once our brains are completely developed and once we can learn more age appropriate things. But then again one must learn how to learn in order to learn so it does make sense. I think it's so interesting that the brain is the one thing that can determine if you develop or not. It's also crazy to think that if we are taught to be good at the start, then we will be good. Conditioning is a spectacular thing. I don't find it hard to believe that children who were babied as children, will have a higher chance of having bad habits later in life because they were never taught the right way from the start. More the reason to make sure you teach children the right way, right away.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
"Kant argued that psychology could never become a science like the physical sciences." I find this statement to be very interesting because I disagree with him completely. I think that psychology is most definitely considered to be a science just like a physical science. In psychology, theories, data, and ideas are all important in proving something about something. Just like a physical science. I personally consider psychology as a type of science because people have to study and figure out certain things in order to fully understand them. Science to me is about experiments and so is psychology. In psychology there are experiments taking place all the time that's how they figure issues out. It's how they make sense of our world and issues that are taking place in our world today and always. I feel like it might be classified as a different type of science, but it is definitely a science in my personal opinion and it blows my mind that someone disputes that notion.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't find the section about Berkeley in regards to accommodation and convergence to be the least interesting in this chapter. This is because I have learned all about this before in my development classes and even then I didn't find it to be interesting. It seems to be common knowledge and not that important to me personally. I was informed though that Berkeley was the one that came up with these concepts and I didn't know that before. I just feel like these two terms seem minor compared to the other information and it was just a refresher for me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I feel like learning about the different theories and psychologists will help me better understand the history of psychology because they are some of the people who helped shape the history of it in the first place.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapter two relates to the first chapter because it still talks about the history of psychology just in a different way then the first chapter. In chapter two it talks about the history of the psychologists that involve the history of psychology. The different people who have come up with theories that apply topics and issues of psychology. It still talked about different concepts that pertain to the history and makings of psychology. I think the author did a great job with transitioning to the next chapter and with still integrating the original topics as well.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about why they switched from animal research to human research. I feel like both could still be beneficial to this day, which in some cases it is still taking place but I would like to learn more about why it was unpopular even though it was considered to be good research. I feel like animals and humans are both good ways to research on.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
The idea of "white paper" was something that I could relate to as an Elementary Education major because we learned ALL about this concept in two of my previous classes. I believe in this concept because I think that at birth, every child is born with a blank slate, or empty paper. Every child has the ability to learn, even if it is at a different rate or different ability. Even children with special needs have the ability to learn something. By one's experience and external influences are children able to learn and write their own sheet of papers. I remember learning all about this and I think it will always be true and important in understanding how to help children develop which is important to me since I'm wanting to be a teacher. I think that Locke was dead on when it came to this concept.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Empiricist, British Tradition, White Paper, Locke, History of Psychology, Theories, Psychologists, Kant, Science, Animal Research, Berkeley, Accommodation, Convergence, and Human Research.
AS
posted for a. h.
1) What did you find interesting? Why?
One thing I enjoyed about reading this chapter was how George Berkeley hung himself so he could feel what it was like. I think the reason I found this interesting was because I’ve never heard of someone wanting to feel death. If Berkeley were my friend, I don’t think I could let him go through with the hanging in the first place. I think another reason why I found it interesting was because someone hanging themselves seems to stand out from the rest of the chapter.
2) What did you find interesting? Why?
Another person I enjoyed reading about was John Stuart Mills. Specifically, I found how he helped the Women’s Rights Movement by writing his essay The Subjection of Women. Upon coming to college and attending Dr. Bellingtier’s Psychology of Gender Differences class, I found out that I am a feminist. I haven’t heard a lot about the Women’s Rights Movement, so I thought the little information that was in the text was exciting.
3) What did you find interesting? Why?
The last thing in the textbook I found interesting was John Locke’s concept of simple and complex ideas. I think I enjoyed reading about it because it made me thing about things in a way that I don’t normally think. I love hearing different ideas and the reasoning behind them. I love educational debates because it challenges me to defend my beliefs (with educational information backing it up). When I am put into that position, it allows me to better understand myself and what I stand for.
4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
One thing I did not enjoy reading about was Descartes’ idea of animal spirits in the body. I thought this section was confusing to understand. I could not quite comprehend what Descartes’ beliefs were on this subject.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the concepts of simple and complex ideas are going to be important to know for understanding the history of psychology. I believe this because every idea or concept can seem very simple at first. However, once you begin to look further in depth, it begins to take on more details. This is important because it gives us a deeper understanding of what is really going on. For example, we can look at a car and say, “Oh. It’s a car.” However, once you begin to take the car apart, it’s no longer a vehicle with red paint and wheels. It’s a machine that has an intricate engine with breaks and a radio. You begin to see the car for what it is comprised of, not just what it looks like. As a psych major, I think this is important because people are full of both simple and complex ideas. A person’s outward appearance may be nothing like their personality or the problems they face from day to day.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about Mills and how he was involved in Parliament. I would also like to know what it was like to be a woman in the time when the Married Women’s Property Bill was passed. I think this would give me a better understanding as to how I got my rights as a woman and what women before me had to go through to get theirs.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I don’t remember thinking about anything specific. My thoughts varied while reading this chapter. My main thought was, “Concentrate!” I did not think the main points of this chapter were interesting at all. I found most of the material quite dull.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
George Berkeley, John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, John Locke, simple ideas, complex ideas, Descartes, animal spirits, Married Women’s Property Bill
1a) The part about Descartes arguing for a separation between mind and body which is known as dualist.
1b) To me this was interesting because he stated that bodies take up space and move through it and the mind doesn’t possess extension or movement. He also wanted to make a clear difference between animals and humans. His difference is that animals are a simple machine because they can’t reason or use language like humans can which they are a more complex machine.
2a) Next the part on animal spirits was interesting.
2b) This was interesting because it sounds like total nonsense. Descartes believed that muscle movement was from the action of animal spirits deriving from the brain. These spirits can activate nerves in the brain to control certain muscle movements.
3a) John Locke was pretty interesting.
3b) A theory of his was that all of our knowledge about the world derives from experience. He referred to our mind at birth being a blank slate ready for experience. He also felt strongly about sensation and reflection. For example he believed that we develop a concept about green because we have a lot of experiences with the color green.
4a) I couldn’t find anything that was the least interesting because I like learning about the different ideas each person has.
4b)
5) All of this chapter will be useful because we learned a lot of information about psychology’s history and everyone’s ideas.
6) The part about personalistc and naturalistic history could relate to this information because we could look at the information and see if it is personalistc or naturalistic.
7a) I would like to learn more about John Locke and his idea of all of our knowledge about the world comes from experience.
7b) I would like to learn more about it because I would like to know why he believed that.
8) When reading this chapter I thought about our mind being like a blank slate when we are born and how we develop all of our knowledge as we grow.
9) John Locke, personalistic, naturalistic, Descartes, animal spirits, dualist, sensation, reflection,
thanks for the post. overall it could benefit from more detail and more examples. For example, in Q8 you said, "When reading this chapter I thought about our mind being like a blank slate when we are born and how we develop all of our knowledge as we grow. Q - and how did that impact you? Do you believe it is a black slate? Etc?
1a) What did you find interesting?
Reading chapter 2, I thought that Descartes was an interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I have never heard of Descartes until this class and I did not know that he was a figure based in the time of Galileo. He receives scholastic education, combining the received wisdom of Church authority withe careful use of reason. He was instantly a star and was granted special privileges. He seemed to have gone AWOL for quite some time in the 17th Century, but once he was back out in the open, he seemed to have been more of scientists, than a philosopher. He studied physics, optics, geometry, and physiology. He pretty much was a rocket scientist of the 17th Century, which is remarkable.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Descartes studies on the reflex and mind-body interaction was also very interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Before Descartes' death, he published a book called The Passions of the Soul which established his status as a pioneer psychologist and physiologist; he seemed more intrigued about human emotions. A reflex, an automatic stimulus-response reaction was a topic that interests Descartes. He wanted to figure out how humans work and why we do the things we do, which is still a topic that psychologists study now. Descartes believed that animal spirits in human’s brains was the reasons for our reflexes to stimuli. Descartes concluded that the interaction occurred in a part of the brain called the pineal gland, since this was strategically placed where animal spirits could flow through.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Jon Locke on Education was an interesting part of the chapter.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
His empiricist thinking concerned how to raise and educate children. He had four basic rules of raising children. Discuss the importance of health and medicine, children must being training early because young children are more malleable, and if they don't develop good habits early in life, they will develop bad ones. Locke also argued against the use of punishments, especially as children get older, and concrete rewards were to be avoided. Empiricism and behaviorism are very close topics.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought that most of the chapter was interesting
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Reading about Immanuel Kant's theories and logic was interesting to think about. Although I did not believe in everything he thought, I liked seeing all the different points of views. That goes for Jon Locke's empiricists thinking as well. These two people believed in opposite things, but I did not agree with either of their ideas/
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on chapter 1 because we are now learning about actual figures that had major impacts over psychology and other sciences and how their logic still exists today.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I thought Descartes was an interesting guy.
7b) Why?
The pineal gland is something that I am curious about and Descartes believed that animal spirits were running through our brain leading right into the pineal gland. I did not know that Descartes was a first to think of the pineal gland and animal spirits.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Learning about all the ideas different major figures had in the field of science makes me think that everything that has researched is neither right nor wrong. Anything can be disproved or proved.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Pineal gland, Descartes, Jon Locke, animal spirits, empiricism.
A.V.
thanks for the post - in Q8 you said, " Learning about all the ideas different major figures had in the field of science makes me think that everything that has researched is neither right nor wrong. Anything can be disproved or proved. Q - what might be some specific examples of this?
1a) Rationalist/Rationalism
1b) I found this interesting because of what Descartes said about only accepting truth that could not be doubted. So he doesn’t accept the knowledge of the senses, because the senses can be deceived. When the book talked about how to arrive at the truth there were four steps, it really grabbed my attention. It had to be so clear to him that there was no reason to even doubt it at all, I didn’t agree with that thinking totally. When I doubt something it makes me want to search for the correct answer and see if it is true, if you never accept something as truth just because you doubt it, there will be very few things you believe to be true. I do, however, like the next three steps of finding something to be true from Descartes, breaking each problem down to sub-problems then working through them to the more complex and difficult problems, then check his work. I really like the last part of it, because every good scientist will not accept the answer they get on the first try as the correct one, they will do it over to see if the results are the same.
2a) Descartes take on Reflexes
2b) This really caught my attention right when I started reading the section, Descartes was a very forward thinker in his time, he wanted to solve the question of the mind-body interaction. I loved how when he started his studies he got his first lead due to William Harvey’s mechanical heart discovery, he knew that the muscles were controlled by the nerves, was controlled by the brain and that causes movement. The most interesting part about the whole section in my opinion was about the animal spirits in the body. Thinking about that time period when they believed that everything was controlled by a different spirit is so interesting. Just how Descartes wrote that there all of the different animal spirits in the brain and muscles that they control the movements of each muscle based on function. I just thought how everything about that culture and the thinking behind all the movements and how much of a revelation it was when he wrote his book astounds me.
3a) John Stewart Mill
3b) I thought the close up on John Stewart Mill was very interesting, just how his life was modeled for him to be a genius. His dad didn’t let him play with other children; instead he had to study for his whole childhood. His dad would take him on walks and basically quiz him and John would have to recite it back to him in his own words. I just really thought it was interesting that he was molded to make a difference with his mind from when he was born. It is very intriguing as to how someone from birth can be fed all of this information and retain it, then make a big impact on society like he did. I liked how he said that he has a natural ability to be this smart, but he doesn’t give that all the credit, he put a lot of hard work into being this smart.
4a) Immanuel Kant
4b) I didn’t find this interesting, just because it felt like the book really gave a brief overview of his life and who he was. I felt like he wasn’t very appreciated in this chapter, I’m sure he had a very interesting life but we didn’t get to hear about it. If there was a bigger section on what he did I feel it would have captured my attention more.
5) I think that knowing about Descartes is the most important thing to take away from this chapter. The forward thinking he had about Rationalism, Nativism, and Mechanistic Interaction. He really changed the way people thought about how people come to the answers and how to question everything to just be positive.
6) This builds on the previous chapter because in the first one we were learning about how the history is written and how it comes to be. In this chapter we learned about people who influenced history and made a lasting mark to change how we study the sciences.
7a) I would like to learn more about Descartes
7b) I want to learn more about his mind-body connection theory. I just found how he came to the animal spirits controlling our movements was such an interesting thought. I would love to know more about what his views on life would be.
8) I was thinking about how much the times have changed with all of the different thinking each person had and how it all helped us arrive to where we are now. Without each and every one of these scholars we could potentially be at a completely different spot in our thinking.
9) Rationalist, Nativism, Mechanistic Interaction, John Stewart Mill, Immanuel Kant, Descartes
good job with your post. quick questions about Q8 - you said, "8) I was thinking about how much the times have changed with all of the different thinking each person had and how it all helped us arrive to where we are now. Q - what would some specific examples be?
"...Without each and every one of these scholars we could potentially be at a completely different spot in our thinking." Q - imagine one of the scholars didn't exist, what do you think would be different?
I think if anyone of these scholars there wouldn't be as much of an opposing view or opinion. Each one, even though they might have been apart of the same view point, will bring an extra element to it, so if one of them didn't exist, who knows if anyone would have thought about that certain element. It really could have the potential to change the infrastructure of our society.
1a) What did you find interesting?
One thing I found interesting was that I had not heard of Hermann Ebbinhaus in any of my previous psychology classes.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was very interesting to me because I have always found the study of memory to be very interesting. Reading that he was the first to study memory experimentally was alarming to me, having not heard (possibly, remembered hearing) his name prior to reading this chapter.
2a) What did you find interesting?
The second thing I found interesting was the “animal spirits” described by Decartes, regarding what we think of today as reflexes.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I frequently find myself thinking about how the mind relates to the body. Decartes study on the mind-body connection, (although, later proven wrong) was a very advanced way of thinking and putting together such ideas, which we now know of today as “reflexes”.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Lastly I found the idea of empiricism very thought-provoking.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I have learned about the idea of empiricism in the past, but the reminder in this chapter made me think again about how rational or irrational the thinking behind it is. Thinking that the knowledge we have of the world comes from our experiences within it. I very much so agree that our knowledge comes from our experiences, but I also believe that without prior knowledge of a place or a certain field of study, one cannot draw correct conclusions.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
While everything in this chapter was rather interesting, I found the section describing the geocentric and heliocentric theory to be review from previous classes.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I have learned about this not only in other psych classes but in many of my classes throughout my college career. I know the theories are important to understanding our past and how it was interpreted, but I found that section to be rather uninteresting due to already having read about it so many times.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding Locke and his studies, ways of thinking, and contributions to understanding psychology today, will be the most useful when trying to apply history to the here and now. He contributed so much to human understanding, that is relevant today and lead the path to many ideas that I find most interesting when studying psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
From the previous chapter in our book, chapter two goes more in detail about how psychology and philosophy mesh together and have built off of each other over time. It also went into more detail about the psychological “firsts”, such as, connecting the mind-body interactionism, thinking about how our minds or our experiences set the basis for our knowledge, and how modern behaviorists interpret their findings.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Locke and his empiricist way of thinking when educating and raising children.
7b) Why?
I am most interested in psychology, in behaviorism, specifically how children deal with emotions, how their experiences affect their lives, and how the traits they are born with define or affect them in the future.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I related many ideas throughout the chapter to my personal opinions and my past knowledge of the subjects. I thought about what type of psychological views I would have identified myself with if I had been a psychologist at that time, and I thought about how much of the ideas from the past have helped shaped what we know about psychology today.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Hermann Ebbinhaus, animal spirits, Decartes, reflexes, mind-body connection, empiricism, geocentric and heliocentric theory, Locke, human understanding, mind-body interactionism, modern behaviorists, behaviorism
Thanks for the post. Quick question - in Q8 you said, "I related many ideas throughout the chapter to my personal opinions and my past knowledge of the subjects." Q - what is an example of the opinions you are referring to?
"...I thought about what type of psychological views I would have identified myself with if I had been a psychologist at that time, Q - Such as?
"...and I thought about how much of the ideas from the past have helped shaped what we know about psychology today. Q - what ideas and how have they shaped psychology today (examples)?
1a&b) One thing I found interesting within the chapter was Descartes’ ideas on reflex and mind-body interaction. I was drawn to this section because of the strangeness of the bolded words ‘animal spirits’ that seemed very out of place in a chapter dedicated to philosophers and scientists of the past. Delving further into the section proved that this term was one that originated from the ancient Greeks and referenced what were believed to be the forces behind movement. Descartes theorized that reflexes were filaments within the body which led to the brain, which upon stimulation would release these ‘animal spirits’ from pores in the brain and cause the body to react to stimuli. I also found the various illustrations from Descartes of reflex and the action of the pineal gland directing animal spirits to be fascinating and a great addition to the text.
2a&b) Recognizing John Locke from having read his work in high school, I was interested by how this chapter chose to highlight his thoughts on education. Since I am interested in possibly becoming an educator one day this was relevant in terms of some basic principles and history that I could build on in order to have a better understanding of teaching. I also found it remarkable that Locke’s ideas from over 300 years ago, such as the benefits of early education and practice, are still very applicable in the classroom today.
3a&b) Finally, I was drawn to the history and views of John Stuart Mill mentioned near the end of the chapter. After reading the close-up I was fascinated by Mill’s upbringing and prodigy and wanted to learn more about him and how he related to the history of psychology. His thoughts on psychology, while briefly mentioned in the text, showed that Mill was a firm believer in the power of experience as opposed to innate ideas. I also found it empowering that Mill suffered from depression early in life but was able to overcome this obstacle and persevere. I was also impressed by his activism in feminism and his impact in Parliament regarding women’s rights to own property.
4a&b) One of the parts of the text I wasn’t interested in was the introduction to the chapter. Just like the intro to the first chapter, I found it out of place and loosely related to what the chapter covered. While this one had a little bit more pertinent information, like the paragraphs about New Psychology and the outline of the chapter, the Ebbinghaus quote and background seemed like it was just thrown in for filler.
5) It is difficult to pinpoint just one thing from this chapter that would help in understanding the history of psychology, seeing as all of these philosophical viewpoints build from or improve on one another. If I had to choose just one school of thought highlighted in the chapter I would have to say that the contributions of the British empiricists were extremely influential. The empiricist basis for the ideas of the great minds of the time shows dedication to the scientific aspect of the discipline. Through striving to be able to explain action through experience as opposed to accepting innate ideas as the source of behavior these philosophers paved the way for following psychologist-scientists.
6) This chapter built on the historical framework set down by the first chapter and allowed me to understand what I was reading from the perspective of a historian as well as an aspiring psychologist. The historical lenses of presentism and historicism presented in the first chapter challenge the reader to view the writing within the text through different contexts. Chapter two built on this by explaining the philosophical basis for psychology through history and added the first building block to the framework of the historical context.
7a&b) I wished that some of the more ancient history of psychology would have been expounded upon a little more. While it is briefly mentioned in the introduction, the history from the middle ages to the renaissance is never really mentioned in this chapter. I would like to learn more about if there were any philosophers from this era which attempted to ‘shine a light’, as it were, into the ignorance of the dark ages. This time is also of interest to me personally because I am interested in disorders which could cause symptoms often purportedly attributed to demonic possession, and since this was a time where demons were the main explanation for abnormal behavior I am attracted to it historically.
8) The whole while I was reading this chapter I was thinking about how understated the importance of philosophy is within the discipline of psychology. While it may seem obvious that an appreciation of basic philosophical concepts is needed to accurately understand psychology, it seems like the more scientific side of the community is trying to alienate the disciplines from one another in an attempt to substantiate the scientific nature of psychology. The idea that the two are unrelated is nonsensical; however I found it interesting that I have rarely heard of the relationship of the two before in any of my classes before.
9) Descartes, animal spirits, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Empiricism, presentism, historicism, philosophy
nice job with the post - thanks
PS - I like your response to Q8
1) I thought that the little teaser about the Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting was very interesting. In the brief mention of this topic, the text says that it is impossible to reading about memory in psychology without coming across this idea. This struck me as very shocking because I have taken many psychology classes in which we have talked about memory and read the accompanying text, and have never once come across this idea. I have also never encountered any text about the man who created the idea, and I am looking forward to reading more about him when it is time to read the appropriate chapter.
2) Another thing that I thought was very interesting was the long section of text on Rene Descartes. I have previously taken a philosophy class at UNI where we read one of his works, Discourse on Method. It is exactly this work which is emphasized in this chapter. The idea of Descartes’ Discourse on Method is the finding of a system on which to base all of our knowledge so that we accept only the things which cannot be doubted. In this class, our professor presented the idea of the “great deceiver” to us. This is a phrase that Descartes presents himself when he is trying to decide if his previous knowledge can be trusted. My philosophy teacher used this idea to present the hypothetical concept of the mad scientist. It goes something along the lines of: what if, instead of being alive, we were all brains in a vat on a shelf, and everything we see and think that we experience is actually the result of electrodes emitted by a mad scientist; but what if that mad scientist was just another brain in a vat on a shelf and it was actually being controlled by another mad scientist. The basic idea is that somewhere there might be a “great deceiver” who can control the way that we think and everything that we think is real. It is because of Descartes’ Discourse on Method that we have the idea of rationalism.
3) The last thing that I found interesting was the rationalist responses to empiricism. I find it really fascinating that quite frequently when a new theory is presented, there is also all sorts of backlash to it; people who have the opposite perspective reporting all of their beliefs and findings. For empiricism, the opposite perspective was rationalism. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was best known for the invention of calculus, but he was well known in the psychology world for his response to Locke’s empiricism. He disagreed with Locke’s “mind at birth = white paper” metaphor. In contrast to this idea he believes that the mind was more like veined marble at birth, it can be shaped and sculpted, but the veins do limit the possibilities. He also believed that the mind has innate concepts, which he called “necessary truths” that are proven with logic and reason rather than experience.
4) The thing that I found least interesting was the section on John Stuart Mill. I found this the least interesting topic because he is such a hard man to understand. In my same philosophy class we also read a work by Mill, On Liberty, and I was confused almost the whole time. He sets all sorts of odd restrictions on society which will obviously not be followed. And it seems to me as though he didn’t really come up with any new ideas for his psychology; he tended to follow the ideas set in place by others before him. Yes, he did believe that the mind was more active in understanding our experiences; however, I do not believe this is a radical enough idea for him to have an entire section of the text devoted to him.
5) I think that the most important thing that I read in this chapter was basically the idea that people other than psychologists are important to the history of psychology. Many names and concepts were briefly mentioned in this chapter and I think that it will be helpful in the remembering of them later.
6) This chapter helps to build on the ideas of the previous chapter by continuing to look forward to future chapters in the text. Many ideas were expended on in this chapter, like the ideas of Rene Descartes; however many more were alluded upon, like Herman Ebbinghaus and the Ebbinghaus curve of forgetting.
7) I would like to learn more about Galileo’s idea of a heliocentric model of the universe as compared to the previous idea of universe being centered on Earth. I know about this idea very briefly but I think it would be very beneficial, and interesting, to lean more.
8) The majority of what came to my mind was my past knowledge and how relatable this information was to what I had learned in previous classes. It also surprised me how important philosophy was on the science of psychology. I had no idea that it was have such an important impact on all of psychology as we know it.
9) Terms: psychology, Ebbinghaus curve, memory, Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, philosophy, rationalism, empiricism, John Stuart Mill, rationalism, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Locke, “necessary truths”
good job - good use of terms! Quick question, you said, "8) The majority of what came to my mind was my past knowledge and how relatable this information was to what I had learned in previous classes." Q - what would be an example?
"...It also surprised me how important philosophy was on the science of psychology. I had no idea that it was have such an important impact on all of psychology as we know it." Q - what thing surprised you the most?
KAB
1a) What did you find interesting?
Although this chapter seemed a bit hard to get in to, I did find a few things interesting. First off I found Nicolas Copernicus’ heliocentric theory to be quite interesting. The heliocentric theory states the sun is at the center of the universe instead of the previous theory- the geocentric theory which places the sun in the middle.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I always find ideas that question authority interesting. This theory questioned what everybody already thought was right and stirred things up. I hate the idea that we are supposed to just go along with things we’ve learned and not question or think for ourselves. After coming up with this theory, the church made his book off limits and went against everything he said. I think this is an important point to see how the church will go against truth to keep people from questioning what its taught us about God.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Another thing I found interesting was John Locke, and his idea on social contract. Locke felt it was the people who should be able to lead their lives how they wanted- in a sense of government and spirituality. He came up with the idea of social contract- which states the government is to protect the common good of the people and maintain a safe environment. People who go against the government will be punished. Also the government will be held accountable as well. If a government is taking advantage of the people or not doing its job it should be held responsible as well.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this piece interesting because that’s exactly how I feel things should go. Jefferson felt this way as well, and that’s why he modeled the Declaration of Independence on it. I think this idea is the most logical way to go about a government, because it is in the best interest of the people. I think this is so interesting that this idea came about so long ago and is still not how everybody thinks. It seems so simple and obvious that its crazy to me that it is still not implemented everywhere.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Another topic I found interesting was impact the church had on education and what was considered okay to learn and what wasn’t. I see that this came up a lot and people were second guessing their work due to being in trouble with the church.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I just like seeing how religion impacts things such as this. I think it’s sad people weren’t/aren’t encouraged to think for themselves or question things they’ve learned due to fear. This interests me because it isn’t a thing of the past but still goes on today, hundreds of years later. Even if it doesn’t seem as obvious, it still does impact what we do and learn.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I felt this chapter wasn’t even allowed in a psychology textbook. It was extremely hard for me to read because philosophy is not a interest of mine. That being said, I would say the least interesting thing in this chapter would be intense information on Descartes. The continuous categories he was put into, (rationalist, dualist, nativist) seemed like a bit much.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This wasn’t interesting to me because I am just not interested in philosophy. I understand this is a history class and I know there is some connection between this information and the beginning of psychology, but I feel it just goes a bit too deep for me to even understand. It’s things I will read and never remember or think deeply about again. I felt all the information about Descartes was too in depth and not needed to understand psychology. Or maybe I am just not interested in how psychology came to be in the first place, or at least that far back, more so things that have happened more currently.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I guess I would have to say that I didn’t think of psychology in the same sense before reading this chapter. After reading this, I feel more of a basic sense of psychology of how the mind works, instead of just problems associated with it. When I think of psychology I think about how things work, or explanations of why people act the way they do. This chapter makes me see how basic questions of how things work in the brain and where thoughts form are the beginning, or the history. This gives me a more insightful look into how these thoughts even came about. From a time where people we not even able to think for themselves if it was outside what they were taught- to a time where we are able to study behavior and the brain in so much detail.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The first chapter seemed a bit more of an introductory chapter to me. Summing up things about history and psychology. This chapter seemed a bit more like the beginning to me. Showing that psychology can be traced back deep into the past.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the religious aspects. About what books were considered off limits and not allowed. I’d like to know the people who were exiled from the church and what exactly their ‘findings’ or theories were and why they were so bad. Religious aspects interest me when it comes to how it influences peoples thoughts and behaviors.
7b) Why?
I just like to see how religious impacts people’s lives. Not only does is impact their values and morals, or their behaviors, but all the way down to their education and what they can and cannot believe. I think its outrageous people get controlled by religion and choose religion over free thinking and learning things for themselves. It interests me because it isn’t something of the past but continues on today as well. There are still people there who would rather go along with what they are taught in Sunday school than question it and think for themselves.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought a lot about how glad I am that I didn’t take a philosophy class. How I read about these people in my art appreciation class and was bored to death. I also thought about the Amish. How I’ve watch documentaries on how the kids aren’t allowed to think if it doesn’t go along with what they were taught. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where I wasn’t encouraged to think on my own. I was not brought up religious, and was raised to question authority and make sense of things myself in my own way. Reading this chapter makes me more grateful I was brought up how I was and not in a strict religious environment where I wouldn’t be able to challenge questions and things I didn’t believe in.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Geocentric, heliocentric, social contract, rationalist, dualist, nativist,
thanks for the post. good job. I have some questions about Q8. You said, "I thought a lot about how glad I am that I didn’t take a philosophy class. How I read about these people in my art appreciation class and was bored to death."Q - why was it boring? Are the people boring or is it the way the class was taught? Do you think they were boring people? etc.?
"...I also thought about the Amish. How I’ve watch documentaries on how the kids aren’t allowed to think if it doesn’t go along with what they were taught. I couldn’t imagine living in a world where I wasn’t encouraged to think on my own." Q - how do you think you are different from kids that aren't allow to think?
"...I was not brought up religious, and was raised to question authority and make sense of things myself in my own way. Reading this chapter makes me more grateful I was brought up how I was and not in a strict religious environment where I wouldn’t be able to challenge questions and things I didn’t believe in." Q - what about some of the people you read about, the church had a great deal of power and frowned upon them "thinking." Why might they not want people to think?
DRB
1a) & 1b)
I really liked the quote by Descartes stating to, “seek knowledge in the great book of nature.” The nature of the world really is a giant book and I think we still have so much to “read”. There is still a lot we don’t know and have yet to discover but we have knocked out several chapters in a sense. I also liked learning about Descartes view concerning innate and derived ideas. He thought that several concepts stem from our experiences. I believe that a lot of what we know we learned through self experiences. If we were personally affected by something it sticks with us much better. I have learned a lot in school but much more coming from my own experiences and learning through them. I remember things better if I’ve gone through them versus solely reading about it. It all kind of relates back to the nature vs. nurture debate which I love learning about, especially concerning children and more of the developmental psychology side of things. This also links with the book discussing innate ideas, those ideas which are found in all people and appear early in life which Locke argued against. He stated the mind at birth is an empty sheet of paper. I think it is a mix of both experience and innate characteristics within us.
2a) & 2b)
It was interesting to read about Aristotle and his ideas of the geocentric view of earth as the center of the universe even though there were no observations regarding this. Finally Galileo came along but had to recant his claim of the heliocentric universe as this idea went behind the back of the church. I love learning about history. The church seemed to have such a big influence back then and its crazy to think that many ideas, some great, had to be held back in fear of it.
I found Bacon and all of his views to be very interesting as well. He influenced the inductive reasoning aspect of science. These days it is all about careful observation, direct experimentation and valid support to our theories and he played a part in that. The book discussed his influence on B.F. Skinner who eventually adopted his view. This is extremely cool as we learn over and over about Skinner in several psychology classes.
3a) & 3b)
One of the most interesting things I read was concerning Descartes concept of animal spirits. This whole idea he came up with was really crazy to me that there would be these tiny particle animal spirits in the brain and from that the mind can influence the body. Some of the ideas people had back then to explain certain phenomena were just wild. Also Locke’s ideas about education were interesting as he had views which I never thought of before but made a lot of sense. He thought that in order to have good outcomes one must go through some type of suffering and that kids should have hard beds versus soft as it would toughen them. I think parents could learn a lot from him. He discussed how giving out rewards for god performance only makes them interested in getting the reward and those who are punished will start to dislike learning.
4a) & 4b)
I found the section discussing principles of optics the least interesting. It talked all about Berkley investigating the eye and looking into convergence and accommodation. I took a biopsychology sensation and perception class where we learned a lot about the inner workings of the brain and eyes and it is all a little more challenging and less interesting to me. With it being a bio type class it gets a little too far into science for me. However, his theory that we do not see objects directly but rather make judgements about them based on visual information about our experiences was an interesting concept to me. I remember that from my past class. It gets more interesting when you connect this information for optical illusion reasoning. Overall though the rest of the chapter was pretty interesting and kept me entertained. The first chapter was more of an introduction and this one actually got going with major individuals, their ideas and connecting it to stuff we learn and know of today.
5)
I think a lot of the information and works by Mills will be helpful as well as the whole argument for a more scientific approach to studying psychology and how it came about. The logic of methods of agreement and difference influenced todays experimental method. Learning about the links of ideas in psychology today and tracing them back helps in our understanding. The book stated that his concomitant variation underlies todays correlational method. It helps to have a basic understanding of some of the philosophical supports of psychology today. Reading about simple terms like resemblance, contiguity and cause and effect help us learn about ideas being formed. This is all a major part of psychology. Hume’s lead regarding causes of behavior and Hartley’s model of the mind were other things we read about which can aid in understanding psychology and its history.
6)
The last chapter talked briefly about the nature vs. nurture debate. This chapter brought the argument up once again when discussing empiricism and innate characteristics. One section was on Descartes theory of Dualism and how he thought that animals were simple machines and humans were made up of a mechanical body with a mind which could reason. He saw the body operating like a very complex machine. This relates to the previous chapter which discussed how the mind works like a computer.The section on Berkley discussed how he was interested in sensation and arranged to have himself hung, almost dying from the experience. This can relate to the previous chapter of Boring who also put himself through pain. It shows their dedication.
7a) & 7b)
Overall I was very interested in James Mill. He seemed to contribute a lot of great ideas to the psychology field and his life seemed extremely interesting. The fact that by the age of 12 he had the intellectual accomplishments of a university graduate is amazing and proves his intelligence. He knew several language, learning latin at the age of three and eventually mastered algebra and geometry. It is cool that he went on to be a part of the married women’s property bill. I found his view interesting as well regarding people becoming knowledgeable through circumstances and therefore anyone could become knowledgeable. I tend to agree more with Leibniz and his theory that, “the sculptor can take a block of marble and shape it in many different ways but the way the marble is veined limits the number of shapes that are possible.” I would enjoying reading more about his life and all he did for this area of science.
8)
This chapter mentioned Leonardo Da Vinci. I used to be big into art and only think of him in that way. I never considered him as an intellectual with many scientific interests. Another thought I had while reading was regarding Descartes discourse on method. It is kind of like an old scientific method which we use now. Its cool seeing the influence the past plays on todays knowledge. It is cool to think how simple questions concerning our human nature and behaviors have been asked ever since humans began to ask questions. Our human body and mind are so complex that we are still learning and discovering new things so many hundreds of years later. I thought the part of determinism was neat. It discussed that how all events have prior causes. This reminded me of everything happening for a reason and fate.
9) Terminology: Geocentric, Heliocentric, Inductive, Innate idea, Nativist, Animal Spirits, Associationism, White Paper, Simple Ideas, Association, Determinism, Convergence, Accommodation, Ideas, Resemblance, Contiguity, Cause and Effect
Nice job with the post. You clearly put a lot of effort into this. I was wondering if knowing how people in the past used logic and other methods to find knowledge.
Q - do you think it is still necessary for us to use these methods and tools to help us find knowledge? I mean with all this information on the internet, can we just take it granted that everything is correct? what about controversial things like gun control, war, Isis, birth control, immigration...etc.?
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found the relation to philosophy to be interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I am a double major with philosophy as my second major. Reading all the philosophers names, such as, Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, Descartes, and many others in the chapter, made this reading easier and I was able to understand much more since I had previously touched on it in my philosophy courses.
2a) What did you find interesting?
On page 36 of the chapter it mentions that Rene Descartes was a tutor to Queen Christina of Sweden.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I knew Descartes was a brilliant mind, but I never knew he was a tutor to royalty. This fact just stood out to me and was interesting to read.
3a) What did you find interesting?
The last thing that interested me was that Locke rejects the idea of innate ideas.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
As I previously mentioned, I have done a lot of philosophy coursework so some of the older ideas that were presented I had already touched upon. Innate ideas have been taught and discussed many times and each time it’s always interesting to me. However I had never known that Locke was against the idea of innate ideas, instead arguing that knowledge comes from ideas.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Not necessarily least interesting, but the passages on John Stuart Mill.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Mill has always been difficult for me to read, especially the title “On Liberty.” Every quote from him or his passages are just difficult and mind numbing for me to get through which causes me to just not look forward to it.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Understanding the connections between philosophy and psychology will probably be the most useful to understanding the history. They work hand in hand and philosophy has always been an intriguing science that has developed many different areas of study, psychology included.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It builds on chapter one by giving a history of psychology and philosophy after giving us different examples of how to view history in a more objective sense.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Descartes.
7b) Why?
So far in my philosophy classes he is one of the philosophers that I have not had much exposure to.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I related a lot of the names to prior classes I’ve taken in philosophy such as, in Medieval Philosophy, we did a lot of readings on Thomas Aquinas. In Philosophy: The art of thinking, we read “On Liberty,” which is done by John Stuart Mill. So many names I have had exposure to in the past.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Rene Descartes, Queen Christina of Sweden, Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Innate Ideas.
Thanks for the post. Quick question, in Q8 you said, "I related a lot of the names to prior classes I’ve taken in philosophy such as, in Medieval Philosophy, we did a lot of readings on Thomas Aquinas. In Philosophy: The art of thinking, we read “On Liberty,” which is done by John Stuart Mill. So many names I have had exposure to in the past. Q- were these people treated differently in the two different classes? I mean does philosophy look at different contributions of TA then does psychology? Does having a philosophy class previously make you think about what you are reading differently?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found John Locke interesting because he went through many different experiences and was so knowledgable on several different topics. Locke proposed the idea of social contrast between the U.S. government and its citizens. This was basically a checks and balances system that kept the government from too much power. It was also interesting that Thomas Jefferson took this concept and included it while writing the Declaration of Independence. His concept of white paper also interested me. this was the idea that at birth, the mind was a blank slate ready to be written with experiences of one's lifetime. This concept makes sense. I never seemed to think of it that way, but the idea that the mind is blank at birth intrigues me. Along with these two interesting items, I did not realize that Locke went to the extent and brought association into his work. He described association to be the glue that held together one's experiences in life.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The next thing that interested me was David Hume. He interested me because he entered university at the age of twelve and left after three years without a degree. First, he went into school studying law, then quit and went to obtain a business degree, and quit that too. He quit college altogether and decided to write a book, which ended up being a dud. Hume interested me because with all of this failure regarding his schooling and his book not selling, Hume did not give up. It excited me that Hume was determined to become a scholar and do something with his life while being surrounded by negativity. Hume proposed three laws that struck my eye: resemblance, contiguity, and cause-effect. I did not realize that he was the one who created these laws that are household phrases. For contiguity, the textbook say the example of lobsters are associated with Maine, and how while eating lobster, one can experience the things purists in Maine will at that time. Out of the three concepts, contiguity was the least familiar to me.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The third thing I found interesting was John Stuart Mill. Mill was brought up by his father to be successful at a young age. He started as a clerk in a store while he was a teenager, and worked his way up to an executive position in the company. One thing that I found comical about Mill was that he fell in love with a woman named Harriet Taylor. This love was quite unfortunate for Mill considering Taylor was happily married to someone else. The funny thing about that is, these two lovebirds got their shot at marriage two years after Taylor's husband died. Mill was an interesting character to me because during his time, women had zero rights. Women could not own land. They could not vote. It was almost impossible for divorce to happen at that time. Mill broke out of this mold by writing a book regarding feminism with influence from his daughter.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found the geocentric view and the heliocentric view least interesting. Geocentric refers to the Earth being at the center of the universe, while heliocentric refers to the sun being the center of the universe. I am not that interested in this topic because space and astrology is not my strong suit. I find space to be quite tedious and too detailed to follow. While reading this insert of the book, I had to push myself to keep reading to finish the chapter. I understand that in the 1500s when these views were first established, it was highly important but this just does not interest me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe that knowing that there are numerous psychologists that established their thoughts and theories which brought us to where we are today in the field. before reading this chapter, I did not realize all of the other researchers and psychologists that helped mold psychology along the way. This chapter talks about Descartes, and how his findings help mold modern science. I think that is the most useful, because without his theory of the sun being the center of the universe, the knowledge and findings could not have expanded as rapidly as they did.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Chapter one focused on the reasoning behind psychology and why we study it. It was like a preview of the course. This chapter seemed like the beginning to me. It started out talking about science and how science sculpted psychological views. Descartes was also mentioned to be a dualist. He believed there was separation between the body and the soul. This was basically the beginning of psychology and how people first started becoming interested in this field.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about John Stuart Mill because he seem like his knowledge was before his time. I mentioned above that during Mill's time, women were not allowed to own property, to vote, or to even divorce their husbands. Mill changed the tables and came out with a piece of literature talking about feminism. A year after this was published, the Married Women's Property Bill was passed. This bill gave married women the right to own property.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I thought about how my previous psychology classes stressed on a lot of important people in psychology, but those classes did not stress on the people in this book. It is amusing that intro to psychology was packed full of important psychologists and doctors, but this textbook brings back the basics and introduces important people that might not have been famous psychologists, but they did help mold psychology into what it is today.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Social Contrast, White Paper, Association, Resemblance, Contiguity, Cause and effect, geocentric, heliocentric, dualist
good job with your post. in Q8 you said, "While reading this chapter I thought about how my previous psychology classes stressed on a lot of important people in psychology, but those classes did not stress on the people in this book." Q - like who were they talking about mostly (for example)
"...It is amusing that intro to psychology was packed full of important psychologists and doctors, but this textbook brings back the basics and introduces important people that might not have been famous psychologists, but they did help mold psychology into what it is today." Q- why do you think they talk about different psychologists in the two classes?
DeAndra Mahrt
1a) Descartes and the rationalist argument based on his learning in the scholastic tradition.
1b) The scholastic tradition combined the learning from the Church authority along with the careful use of reason. The learning relied heavily on the rational argument established by Aristotle, which in turn supported the decisions and rights of the Church. Descartes studied this particular type of study at the College de la Fleche. Excelling quite early on allowed him to receive special treatment and rewards not given to others. However, in 1614 he became unconvinced this was the only way to become educated. He questioned the tradition knowing and observing no much had been further established since he started studying it. It didn’t seem to be able to give him clear answers to the questions he began to have about life. Descartes began to abandon the tradition and start finding answers for himself. In 1619, it is said Descartes experienced a conversion experience, which is a series of dreams that effectively told him to get serious about making a meaningful contribution to knowledge. During Descartes’s time, an era of revolutionary developments in science, many significant people were establishing meaningful contributions to the world of science, knowledge, and mathematics. Through Descartes era he was able to thrive. During this time in the world it was okay to stray away from tradition and produce something of your own, based on your own ideas without any authority guiding you.
2a) John Locke and Empiricism.
2b) John Locke is said to be a reasonable man who lived in an unreasonable time. Not only did he witness the English Civil War, the execution of a king with the overthrow of another, changes to the religion, a fire which destroyed almost all of London, and a political alliance which caused him to flee to Holland, Locke was still able to benefit from these experiences. He was able to develop a liberal political philosophy based on tolerance of dissent and the right of the people to determine how they would lead both their worldly and their more spiritual lives, especially how they were governed. By establishing this view, Locke essentially formed the social contract. This allowed the citizens to agree or disagree with the government’s decisions, which in turn could alter what the final decision was. If either part decided to go against their commitments they could be executed or overthrown. The interesting thing about Locke is that he mirrored Descartes in some ways. Both were individuals who rejected the scholasticism. Locke was known for his epistemology, or the study of human knowledge and its acquisition. In his well known publication An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke spoke freely of innate ideas. He had specific arguments, which supported his essay. He argued that there is no need to propose innate ideas, some ideas were universal, and some ideas seem to appear so early in life that they must be innate. Locke was able to find a separate way to look at the way humans understand throughout their lives. The idea of innate ideas and everything being learned from experience is interesting. On one hand I understand Locke’s point knowing quite a bit of my behavior and knowledge came from experiences through my childhood and adult years. However, not all that I know today is merely based on experience. When it comes to education, a strict program based on empiricism should in turn produce the ideal citizen. But not everyone follows the rules, not everyone finds a deeper meaning within things, so therefore, an experience may be taken in one way by someone and interpreted in a whole new way by the next person. Locke broadened the way we come to conclusions.
3a) British Associationism
3b) Berkley and Locke both briefly spoke about the meaning and importance of associations. But through more investigations by others, Associationism would become of great importance to Britain and its British philosophers. David Hume was well known for his contributions to Associationism. Hume built his system on the basic premise that all of our understanding is rooted in experience. He believed it consisted of impressions and ideas. Impressions were basic sensations, and ideas are faint copies of impressions. Similarly, Locke expressed there are two methods sensation and reflection. Hume noted that it is possible to reduce all of our ideas to impression, even complex ideas that have never been experienced directly. The book used the example of finding a four-leaf clover, even though we may never have found one we have the complex idea of it by combining simple ideas such as the four, clover, and green. Hume had three laws of association: resemblance, contiguity, and cause-effect. All we can know is that events occur together with some predictable regularity. He was labeled as a skeptic, which caused conflict with the authority of the Church. Later, David Hartley took on association. Hartley took on the belief that psychological and physical events were separate, but operated in parallel. For Hartley, the main law of association is continuity, also known as the events experienced together. Furthermore, this is important because of its consistency. Each man came up with a common sense of experience, but twisted it in some way to make sense.
4a) Animal spirits by Descartes
4b) I didn’t find this interesting for a couple different reasons. From my understanding today, there isn’t any driving force from the heat of the blood, which is behind movement. He believed there were tiny particles found in the brain and muscles that were in constant motion. He believed that the brain could activate these particles to move muscles. I have no true belief in such a thing. It makes sense to talk about reflexes and sensation in such ways, but when he throws in the notion of animal spirits it becomes far fetched.
5) The book started off with the question of whether or not psychology is just another name for philosophy. However, following that question was the explanation that by studying human behavior and mental processes through the application of scientific methods rather than philosophical analysis, logical reasoning, and speculation, it because psychology. It was put to the test instead of just theories without much research or experiments supporting them.
6) By understanding the philosophy of psychology allows us to continue on our journey though its origins and how we have come to a point where it is a separate department and a separate field of study all together. Understanding the way well known philosophers and historians studied human development and learning through experience will help us find some sort of understanding how the history is important. Without the philosophies explained in such great detail we may not understand the current events.
7a) Gottfired WIlheml Leibniz and his findings.
7b) I haven’t heard much about this man until I read chapter 2. I find his thinking interesting and would like to look further into his thoughts of monads. Also, deciphering his apperception, perception and petites perception explanations and his thinking for these ideas sounds interesting. I feel as if I could gain a better understanding for how philosophy is important to study based on its influences in psychology.
8) I kept in mind that psychology did not start as merely psychology. From the previous chapter I found that philosophy and psychology were intertwined for years and years until it was known they were not all that similar. However, by understanding the philosophy aspect can allow me to better understanding where exactly psychology stemmed from and how it is important to decipher the difference between the two fields of study.
Philosophy, Descartes, David Hume, David Hartley, associationism, contiguity, resemblance, sensation, reflection, innate, social contract
Excellent job with your post - thanks.
PS - I liked how you answered Q8.
1a) Descartes and animal spirits
1b) It was unexpected. I had never heard of the idea that little bitty animal spirits controlled movement. It was cool because, although there are no animal spirits flowing through the human body, he had the right idea. Descartes believed that animal spirits were located in the nerves. He believed that the spirits could be controlled by the mind which would create movement in the part of the body they went to. Reflexes could also be explained by using animal spirits. According to Descartes, automatic movement, or reflexes, occur when a certain part of the body senses a trigger, and “filaments” move within the nerves, sending a message to the brain. The little holes in the brain open up, setting the animal spirits loose. This then causes the certain part of the body to react to the stimulus.
2a) John Locke’s position on how a child should be educated
2b) I thought his ideas were interesting because they somewhat related to what I learned in my diverse learners class. As a teacher, the goal is to get the students interested in what you are teaching. If you are constantly punishing them by giving out detentions or sending them to the office, they will gradually become uninterested in your classes.
A child should be rewarded for a job well done, but using physical rewards such as candy can lead to the child expecting candy every time they do well on something. If the child does not receive a physical reward for their positive actions, they will quit trying to do well.
Despite the fact that physically punishing a child to teach them a lesson during his time and for a long time after was socially accepted and welcomed, Locke believed otherwise. He thought that punishing a child when he/she is trying to learn can damage the learning process. It can cause the child to become uninterested in the topic or lose interest in learning altogether. Also, rewarding a child with a treat or present would have a negative effect on the child’s education. However, rewards and punishments in the forms of praise and scorn were acceptable. These would allow for the child to appreciate verbal rewards and learn how to act in a way that would keep him/her from being yelled at.
3a) Copernican model of the universe
3b) I thought this was interesting because whether or not the sun is the center of the universe isn’t even a question anymore. At the time, however, this was a huge deal. As the book explains, not only did this challenge the views of the public, it also challenged the Church. Back then, people did not question the Church. Because of this, Copernicus waited to reveal his idea until he was on his death bed. Little did he know, his idea would completely change the way people looked at the universe.
4a) I had a hard time reading through the sections on Leibniz and Kant.
4b) Both of these names were unfamiliar to me, so I had no prior knowledge on who they were. The book did an okay job explaining, but I think that if I would have researched the names before reading, I might have been able to pay closer attention.
5) There were a lot of important people listed and explained in this chapter. I think that having some general knowledge about people like Locke and Descartes will help to expand my learning beyond what they accomplished. It will help explain how their studies affected psychologists’ studies later on.
6) The first chapter explained that we need to understand the past before we can try to understand the future. As I said before, in this chapter, many important figures in psychology were introduced. By explaining what these men did will aid us in learning what psychologists after them did, and sew on.
7a) I would like to learn more about John Locke and his theories on education.
7b) I like to learn about how education has changed throughout time.
8) At the beginning of the chapter, the book talked about the geocentric and heliocentric views of the universe. This made me think back to elementary when my teacher explained how people actually thought the earth was the center of the universe. I thought the people that thought that were crazy. I now understand that, during their time, it was they way they saw things. There was no science to prove them otherwise.
9) Descartes, animal spirits, reflexes, filaments, John Locke, Copernicus and the Copernican model, geocentric, heliocentric
Thanks for the post - nice job. You said, "7a) I would like to learn more about John Locke and his theories on education. Q - Why would you want to know more about Locke?
7b) I like to learn about how education has changed throughout time. Q - why?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One of the things I found interesting was the heliocentric theory versus the geocentric theory. Heliocentric is where the sun was at the center and the earth moved around it just like the other planets. The geocentric view placed the earth at the center of the earth. This was interesting to me because it brought up a lot of controversy. It’s interesting to see everyone’s ideas and point of views and to know why they thought something was a certain way.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it interesting that Descartes seemed to be recognized as a rationalist, a nativist, and a dualist. He had different opinions about a lot of different things. He had a lot of philosophies and was obviously taught very well to be precise and logic with his thinking. With his dualism I found it interesting that he separated that idea when it came to animals and humans, known as Cartesian dichotomy. He thought of animals as machines, hence why he use to cut open live cats because he thought they were only pretending to be in pain. Descartes is just a very interesting person.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found interesting was the animal spirits that were referred by Descartes. He thought that there were spirits that were tiny particles in constant motion and were of animal spirits deriving from the brain, the nerves and the muscles. This is interesting because it was something way different that I would ever believe and it is a concept that I would never consider myself, but it is kind of fun to read about because it is so different!
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
A lot of this chapter was pretty interesting, so I guess the least interesting thing was the British association and the rules and other information that came along with it. It just didn’t attract my attention. It wasn’t a new and interesting concept that I hadn’t heard of before like the other sections I read were, so that is why I would choose it to be the least interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think everything contributes to learning about the history because it is all a part of the history, so knowing where the history started out from helps us understand why it goes to the places it goes to.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
this chapter could be compared to it by giving different examples of those types, or examples of how we would have some of the views that were mentioned in the first chapter. For example, I have read some things and thought to myself, what were they thinking? That is because I didn’t think about the knowledge they had back then compared to the knowledge I have now. This is an example of presentism vs historicism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
One topic that would be cool to learn more about is psychophysical parallelism because I didn’t quite grasp the concept of it and it didn’t go into too much depth on explaining what it was and it seems like an interesting topic.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When it mention that Descartes thought of animals as machines I remembered learning about that in another class and they said that he would perform open surgery on cats and that they only pretended to be in pain because they were mechanically engineered to do that.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Geocentric, heliocentric, rationalist, nativist, dualism, animal spirits
Thanks for the post. in Q8 you said, "When it mention that Descartes thought of animals as machines I remembered learning about that in another class and they said that he would perform open surgery on cats and that they only pretended to be in pain because they were mechanically engineered to do that." Q - And what do you think about that?
I think it is awful that Descartes would perform surgery on live cats,i hate cats and I wouldn't even do that. But then I am guilty of presentism because I am not keeping in mind that he honestly thought the cat was only a machine and not really in pain.
1. I found Descartes very interesting.
a. Frist and foremost, I found Descartes so interesting because he was like a kid genius. I thought it was very fascinating that by the age of 13, he was already in his third year of college, performing better than most of his peers. Another thing I found extremely interesting about him was his Discourse on Method and how much of an inductive as well as deductive reasoner he was, which most likely helped to him get to where he was. The last thing I enjoyed reading about him was his concept of derived ideas, the reason I like this concept is because I do believe that a lot of people base their premises off of their own personal experiences.
2. To piggy-back off of that, the implication of dualism known as the Cartesian dichotomy was also very interesting.
a. The reason I found this so interesting was because this concept divides humans and animals, but we have been taught our entire lives that we are basically animals. This states that humans are able to combined a mechanical body with a mind that could reason, thus animals consist only of bodies and no minds.
3. The last concept I found extremely interesting was the concept of apperception.
a. Defined as the highest level of awareness, in which we focus our attention on some information, apprehend it fully, and make it personally meaningful. The reason I found this concept so interesting is because I personally suffer from extreme anxiety and I believe that the mind is a very powerful thing. I feel as though if we were able to do this properly, we could cure ourselves of any mental illness and perhaps solve problems that are seemingly impossible.
4. The chapter in general.
a. I didn’t find the chapter itself that interesting, because I felt as though I was being bombarded with information of people, their history’s, what they did for psychology, etc. and it was hard for me to keep it all straight and it began to get a little redundant and boring.
5. In retrospect to the last question, I do feel as though learning of the important figures within psychology’s history is very VERY useful, which is probably why so much of it was included in this chapter. This will help us understand the history because it kind’ve gives us a timeline of events as well as who did what and why.
6. This builds on chapter one because chapter one kind’ve briefed us on some of these important figures and important concepts of the history of psychology and this chapter went wayyy more into depth with each person and their contribution to psychology.
7. Although a bit irrelevant, I would like to learn more about John Stuart Mills, but specifically his personal life. The reason I want to learn more about him is because it seems as though he grew up very different than most people and he ended up being a very influential and important person.
8. Honestly, while reading this chapter about all these important figures (mainly men) just made me motivated to devout myself more to where psychology has been and where it is going, so perhaps I can one day be an influential person like one of these guys.
9. Discourse on method, deductive reasoning, Cartesian dichotomy, apperception.
thanks for the post. Your post may benefit by using examples. For example, you said, "8. Honestly, while reading this chapter about all these important figures (mainly men)..." Q like who for example?
"...just made me motivated to devout myself more to where psychology has been and where it is going, so perhaps I can one day be an influential person like one of these guys." Q - like which one and why?
1a) What did you find interesting?
-Rene Descartes
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
-I found his life to be very interesting. I also found the part in the book about him leaving college in 1614 because he wasn’t satisfied with his education to be relatable. Descrates was receiving an education in the scholastic tradition. From my experience, sometimes I don’t think some of the classes I have taken have been very satisfying and sometimes I have been very disappointed. Descartes decided that he wanted to find things out for himself and not through authority.
2a) What did you find interesting?
-The Passions of the Soul
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
-I found this interesting because of how his theories of the body were explained. Like how Descrates explained reflexes by proposing the existence of thin, wirelike ‘filaments’ that existed within the nerves and extended to the brain. And when these ‘filaments move, they cause ‘pores in the brain to open up. I find this stuff to be interesting because it’s neat to find out these theories and how the information has changed over time.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Immanuel Kant
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
-I think his idea about experiences is very true and I agree with parts of it. Kant said that it is important to gain experiences for understanding the world. He also argued that experience itself was not possible without some prior knowledge. And I think that is true, I think prior knowledge and gaining experience go hand in hand. I also found his belief that science is on a high statues than psychology to be very interesting. His reason for this was that it cannot be viewed and observed objectively.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
-geocentric and heliocentric
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
-I didn’t find anything to be overly dry in this chapter. But these concepts I don’t find to be that interesting because I don’t find many of scientific concepts to be that interesting. Science isn’t a subject I enjoy very much. I did though find it interesting of heliocentric model was controversial with religion.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
-I think that it was useful to look at the different theories and how they have changed. I think it’s interesting and useful to look at how each of these people have challenged one another and always improving their ideas. I don’t think one is always right and we always have to be thinking and evaluating.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
-The first chapter talked a lot about looking at the past through a historic view and I think that is important during this chapter. When looking at geocentric view of the world, they viewed the world this way because of the importance of religion and it was immoral to question religion a lot of the time.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
- Rene Descartes and The Passions of the Soul
7b) Why?
- I think that there is so much more out there and I would like to learn more on how he developed his theories and also how his theories have changed overtime.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
-I related a lot to what Rene Descartes said about education. I think that it is important to experience things for ourselves and not just through others. I think it is important to go out there and teach yourself things and to do things on your own and not rely on others to tell you.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
- scholastic, geocentric, heliocentric
Thanks for the post.
I have a couple questions. in Q8 you said, "-I related a lot to what Rene Descartes said about education. I think that it is important to experience things for ourselves and not just through others. Q - what would be an example of one RD's ideas about education that you though of most? And what would be an example of an experience you had?
"...I think it is important to go out there and teach yourself things and to do things on your own and not rely on others to tell you." Q - what are some examples of something that would be better to learn yourself and not by others? Can learning from other be useful too?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
- scholastic, geocentric, heliocentric
Q - You talked about some interesting topics in your post,what would be some more terms you could have used when writing your post?
J.F.
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found Descartes’ life to be very interesting. Descartes from the beginning was an extremely exceptional individual. He was the son of a prosperous French Lawyer and by age 13 was in his 3rd year of college! The type of education he received was scholastic in tradition. This type of education combined the wisdom of the church authority with the careful use of reason. He was such a good student that he received special privileges, such as his own class room for studying and advanced assignments. After graduating Descartes felt disgruntled by his education. He found it disturbing that the greatest minds in history had formed these concepts of philosophy but none of them were without dispute. He wanted clear answers to life’s significant questions. He resolved to find the answers himself. He thought he could produce a “unity of knowledge” grounded in mathematics. He experienced a series of dreams in his early twenties that urged to do just this and he spent the next 10 years of his life in Paris studying and forming concepts of his own. He kept a very private life and not much is known about his personal life. He wrote many texts on his work, a lot which were released only just before he died because the texts were in direct conflict with the beliefs of the church and he did not want to bump heads with the church authority from which his formal education had come. During the end of his life he went to tutor Queen Christina of Sweden in Sweden at her request. He died shortly after moving there after contracting pneumonia during a particularly harsh winter.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Descartes’ life was interesting to me because no matter which perspective you look at (historicism or presentism) he was a genuinely exceptional person. He pushed the envelope of science and directly contradicted the established theories of the time
2a) What did you find interesting?
The next thing I found interesting was the section on the Cartesian system. It continues with Descartes’ journey and elaborates on the ideas he used to expand the scientific field. Descartes, who found his scholastic education to be lackluster, still used the mind set of precision and logic to deduct truthful answers as the Jesuits taught him to do. His careful use of reason marked him as a rationalist. He only accepted truth as what could not be doubted. The implication of Cartesian rationalism is that the ability to reason is inborn or innate and that certain types of knowledge do not rely directly on sense experience, but result for the our natural ability to reason. The book gives the example that we know the properties of wax by our innate ability to reason, i.e. when wax is heated it melts and expands. We deduce this naturally after seeing a candle burn. This is what Descartes called an innate idea. On the other hand there are some things we have to experience before we form concepts of them, such as how long it would take a candle of certain size to burn for 10 hours. This is what’s called a derived idea. Descartes’ position on innate ideas made him a nativist too. His distinction between innate and derived ideas are similar to the nature vs. nurture issue that reoccurs in psychology. Descartes also was a dualist! He believed there was a clear distinction between the mind and the body. The book gives the following example: One’s body moves and takes up space, the mind possesses neither extension nor movement. His dualism led to what is called Cartesian dichotomy, which divides humans and animals. He believed that humans were simple machines without minds, incapable of reason and language. He believed that the body was nothing but a complex machine, which can also mean that Descartes was a mechanist. He was also an interactionist! He believed that the mind could directly influence the body.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This section was interesting to me because this is all completely new idea and terminology for me. Usually in a psychology course you come across reoccurring ideas and things you’ve heard before, but while reading this section I found everything to be fresh and very interesting.
3a) What did you find interesting?
The next thing I found to be interesting was the section on Descartes’ belief on the reflex and mind-body interactions. Descartes published a book the year before his death that had to do with human emotions. In it he tries to explain the human reflex, in other words our automatic stimulus-response reaction. In the book he introduced his concept of the distinction between the body and the mind which referenced a finding that said the heart was mechanical in nature. He described muscle action as relying on nerves which resemble little tubes which proceed from the brain. He believed these tubes contained a subtle wind he called animal spirits. The wind came from the heat of the blood and was the driving force behind reactions. Descartes believed that the mind could drive the animal spirits in the brain by activating the nerves controlling certain muscles rather than to others. He also believed that certain sensory stimuli could activate the animal spirits to make other muscles activate automatically, or in other words a reflex happens.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because this was a very interesting way to describe how reflexes work. If you look at the historical context and the time period it is a very intriguing and impressive description as well.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I found section on John Locke and the orgins of British empiricism to be the least interesting. John Locke’s life was greatly influenced by events that occurred in his life. He was present for the English Civil War which overruled the British Monarchy in favor for a civilian parliament, the execution on one king and the overthrow of another as well. In his lifetime he also experienced several changes in London’s official religion as a well as great fire that consumed two thirds of London. These events impacted him in a way that led him to develop the science of empiricism.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Locke’s life is very interesting, but I’ve already had to read up on Locke before and did not read anything I did not know before. I had never really read on Descartes or George Berkeley before so their sections I found to be more interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding that all the concepts talked about in the chapter have developed in some way into what we now know as scientific truth will be the most valuable. These people (Descartes, Locke, Berkeley) all set into motion these complex ideas that have evolved into our current understanding.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter adds to the historical context of the previous chapter. It puts into motion concepts we learned last chapter including how to think about things from a presentist or historic point of view. It provides us with big names in history while giving us the context of time period.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would say I definitely would like to read more on Descartes.
7b) Why?
His life was very interesting. He yearned to expand knowledge and did so. He brought about many amazing ideas and did not stop pushing the envelope until his death.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about the things I knew about the time period. I tried to keep in mind the context of history while reading. I thought about how amazing it is that these people formed these concepts hundreds of years ago and were not too far off the mark from people think today.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Scholastic, rationalist, innate idea, derived idea, nativist, dualist, Cartesian dichotomy, mechanist, interactionist, reflex, animal spirits
JF
Good job. I have a couple of questions...
In Q8 you said, I thought about the things I knew about the time period." My question - Like what things?
"...I tried to keep in mind the context of history while reading." Q - what was the context for example?
"...I thought about how amazing it is that these people formed these concepts hundreds of years ago and were not too far off the mark from people think today." Q - Which people for example and what concepts for example?
PS - have you tried to get an account yet?
1a) what did you find interesting?
I found Leibniz’s idea of awareness was very interesting. He uses three levels of awareness, Apperception, Perception, and petites perception. Apperception is the highest level of awareness, where one focuses their attention on information and apprehend it, and make it meaningful. Petites perception is below awareness, but essential for other levels of awareness to occur. Perception is awareness of something, but not as sharp as apperception.
1b) why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was really interesting because I didn’t really know that there were any other kinds of theories about awareness or perception before Freud’s theories about the subconscious. I guess me just kind of thought he pulled it from thin air. I think that by answering questions like this, maybe we are attempting to reach apperception of the material that we are reading, which is an interesting thought. I think Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was pretty interesting in himself, but I decided to focus on this, as it stuck out to me. I thought the idea of thresholds and being mentioned in with levels of awareness was also very interesting.
2a) What did you find interesting?
David Hume’s Rules of Association I also thought was pretty interesting, and he touches on Impressions as well as Ideas, and breaks the laws of association into three parts: resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. Impressions are basic sensations and raw experience, while ideas are copies of these impressions. Resemblance is when an object reminds us of something else because it is similar, contiguity is experiencing things together, and cause and effect is when something happens that causes something else.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was really interesting, because I thought about how I associate things with other things. For example, I dated a guy in high school who always smoked Camel 99s, and now whenever I smell that particular scent, it reminds me of him. I didn’t realize at the time that I associated that smell with him, but the impression it left on me gave me the contiguity to think about him when I smell it now. I think that it is pretty cool how that works. There are a lot of things that bring to mind past memories (Zucchini bread always makes me think of my grandma), and I never really thought about how that worked before.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that the concepts of Materialism and determinism were interesting, because materialism wants to only focus on the physical aspect of things, and only concreteness, including mental events, and that everything can be measured. Determinism is the belief that all events have prior causes.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was interesting because the idea of determinism leaves us not in control of our actions, and thus, can our actions truly be punishable? And if there was no proof as to why we did something, as the materialism concepts push for, than did we even do it? I find these kinds of ideas really interesting, because it is hard sometimes, knowing what we know now, to look at the past at these theories and seriously believe that people thought this way. If someone committed murder, and determinism was still the major school of thought, they should not be held accountable for that murder, because something previously triggered them into committing that murder, and something triggered that event, and back until the dawn of time. This is kind of a disturbing idea and I’d like to think that I have free will.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Honestly, I thought all the information on John Locke was probably the least interesting, although it is a major part of the chapter.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I learned about John Locke extensively when I took Humanities II, and so for me, this was all review, and I guess it was just kind of boring to re-read about him, although it was good refresher. We talked extensively about the idea of social contract in that class, and how it paved the way for police officers and the like to begin to exist, and how the government should be for the people, and in turn the people would support the government, which is why we have the system in place that we do now. Some of his other ideas were pretty interesting, and the ideas of primary and secondary qualities was new to me, but in general, I already knew quite a bit about him.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Probably John Locke’s ideas on human interaction and education, as his ideas and theories really paved the way for future research. But I also think that the ideas of Association will really help as well, since it says that this was a central idea to Freud’s theories, and he is considered the father of psychology. I also think that Descartes is definitely a fundamental aspect of understanding psychology’s history, and really any of the sciences dealing with humans.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I thought that this built upon what we learned in chapter one because it was more about the theories of pre-psychology and what people during these time periods thought. Chapter one talked more about why we study history, and this chapter shows us that before psychology was even born, we were thinking about these same things long before we turned it into its own field.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I think I’d like to learn more about determinism.
7b) Why?
I just find the concept extremely interesting and have been thinking about what kinds of ramifications we would have if this was still our train of thought, and if this was a major movement and thought process, or not. I don’t feel like the chapter touched enough on this concept, and so I’d like to learn more about it.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking a lot about determinism, and how in the Bible it says that we have our own free will, but that many people believed that God had a hand in what happened, and I was curious as to how, if at all, the Bible tied into this theory, and how we as a society would deal with this if we truly believed that way. I thought that I needed to definitely try to look into this more, because I find the concept of free will vs. pre-determined destiny interesting. It is fascinating how when something happens, for example, an unexpected baby, people tend to look at it in one of two ways. Either, they should have used birth control, and they knew the risks and yet still decided to engage in sexual intercourse; or that it was destiny that they have a baby right now. Sometimes, it’s easier I feel to think that there was nothing we could do, that it was pre-determined, and we were helpless to stop it, especially when the incident in question is a bad one (i.e. child cancer). But when it is something that impacts others, we tend to look for someone to blame and say that they made a decision to do that, and that it was their fault (i.e. drunk driving).
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Apperception, Perception, Petites Perception, resemblance, contiguity, cause-effect, ideas, impressions, materialism, determinism, Locke, Social contract
LAJ
nice job with your post - thanks.I liked how you answered Q#8.
C.K.M.
1a) The era of the Renaissance
1b) I found this time particularly interesting because of all the problems all of these now famous philosophers faced just because they began to look into a different way of thinking. They were punished and put on trial just for thinking that there is a different way of things being done outside of what the Church is teaching, which in the end ended up being wrong anyways. The fact the Galileo was removed from the Church even though he was a devout Catholic and his daughter who was a Nun was removed just because he questioned because he questioned the heliocentric theory, the view that everything revolved around the earth view. When an actual astronomer, Nicolas Copernicus, had the same view geocentric universe but was too afraid to share his ideas in fear of facing trial the way that Galileo did and therefore didn't even publish his findings until he was close to his death which was also the route that Descartes chose because he was afraid of a horrible fate because of bringing about questions. The whole idea that people were afraid to explain things that went against what the Church was saying,
even though the Church technically had no proof (no telescope to prove the Earth to be center of the universe) they forced everyone to believe what they were teaching and punished those who had a different ideas because they were scared of change. Imagine how much further science could be with understanding people and what surrounds us if it wasn't for the Church getting so involved and harming those who dared to think outside of the box. Which also lead others to not trust what they were being taught, and Descartes leaving school to learn more because he knew that there was more to life than just what the
teachers were telling him. With so many people wanting to know more, wanting to know why, you wonder why there was not more
people who stood up questioning what they were being taught, but then again the threat of losing your family, imprisonment and sometimes even death was a deterrent that would make many people question was it really worth asking. Leading so many of these philosophers to lead secret lives of using science to explain things rather than what the Church was instilling in everyone, questioning everything though is what eventually lead to the establishment of rationalists. Rationalists were the people who chose to question what was happening and Descartes was the first person to challenge the ideas and build on them
the question of proof rather than just belief ridding the idea of "I think, therefore I am" (p.32).
2a) John Locke's idea of how innate ideas are created early in life
2b) I find it interesting how he goes on to explain how ideas are formed, from experiences. How when a person is born they are like a blank piece of paper, they don't know anything but observe what is happening around them. It is through sensations
where they are able to feel and experience a sensation that they begin to learn what they like and what they don't. It is these sensations that help a person to figure out what it is that they want and therefore create the ideas in order to achieve
that sensation. Then there is the reflection side, the reflection side is the part where people are able to reflect on activities that they have participated in and using senses and memory. Reflecting picks up on the initial sensory aspects of the activity then follow by the activity itself creating a memory of something that they once enjoyed. This further leads
into ideas being created, it starts with the small parts of the activity, the part that is mostly sensory. From the sensory part simple ideas are made. Just the basics of interaction, such as the color, shape, size then by reflecting on the small aspects the larger complex ideas begin to form. This is a more in-depth idea of the sensation, such as how the object felt, was it good or bad, and what it was actually like. This is interesting to think about because when you think about a memory of something there is always the small things that you remember and then that leads to the larger parts of the memory such as what actually occurred and everything that surrounded the event. It's interesting to learn about what makes you think about the different things you experienced as was as how you pieced them together in order the have that experience.
3a) David Hume
3b) It was interesting was how he challenged John Locke's ideas completely and opened people's minds a little bit to a more simple way of interpreting experiences and how ideas or memories are created. It is interesting because it is a little bit more relatable to what I would think creates a memory or an idea, the idea of an impression. More times than not when I am remembering an experience and the idea is form it is what I felt and what I thought about the situation that come to mind first. It's the impression that was left with me of the experience that sparks the idea. If I was comfortable, uncomfortable, scared, anxious, happy or excited then it becomes more to me. Then the people that were there with me, what were they doing and why were they doing what they were doing. Picturing the actual event and everything that was involved then follows. I think that the beginning of how an idea is formed that Locke explains about being a black piece of paper is an interesting idea because infants are oblivious to what is going on around them and explains to an extent why people cannot remember
when they were infants but then begin to remember as they get older, creating ideas and memories that can be recalled at any time. I think though that how Hume builds on it though is even more interesting and better explained. Such as how a resemblance in a object to something that you've seen before, that can spark an idea. Such as seeing a airplane and that
sparking the idea of when they rode on an airplane to go on vacation in Las Vegas. It was the impression of the ride and experience that caused the person to have a good memory of the experience. Finally the part about cause and effect, it was interesting when they talked about it was the cause and effect that helps us to associate things together. Such as
the old ideas about I once touched a flame and burnt my hand, so therefore every time I see the fire I remember the pain I got from touching it and I know not to try it again. I like how this goes along with impressions, that is was because of this that caused me to pull that memory and remember what happed and why.
4a) Immanuel Knat
4b) I didn't care for the part from Immanuel Knat because it didn't make much sense to me in the means of contradicting Hume, Hume used basic ideas that were observed in order to create ideas and Knat idn't think that was possible. The face that he basically said there was no way that mental phenomena would never be a science because it cannot be measured. I think that is the best part about studying mental issues and phenomenon's. Studying why things are happening, such as exposure to one thing will cause the brain to react one way, while exposure to something else will cause the brain to react a different way. How PET scans came along and these phenomena was able to be seen when the neurons in the brain fire. Just the whole thing kind of putting down the science of the mentality of humans was not interesting to me because of how interesting the science is to me.
5) I think the parts about the struggles in the beginning for all of those philosophers when they originally began questioning what they were being taught is something of great importance. The fact that is the Church hadn't punished people the way
that they did where we would be today in understanding humans and the brain. How so many people were afraid of the unknown they put down anyone who chose to think outside the box. How after more and more people were becoming interested in knowing the truth things began to change. Then how it lead to the growth of starting to examine what the truth really is, looking for facts and using Science rather than just listening to others. Which then lead to the understanding of how things work and people moving forward with studying individuals and why they do what they do. Why they can remember what they do, why certain things leave an impression and something else is lost without a memory. I think that all plays together on what lead to psychology being what it is today.
6) I believe that is built on to Chapter 1 in the means of why studying Psychology is important but Chapter 2 goes into depth of what Psychology had to go through in order to get to where it is. How the science grew and to where it is though many people believing that there is something more than people just being possessed or different and being locked away rather than helped. How Psychology became such an important science for many people.
7. I would like to learn more about the difference in why you can only remember so far back, at what point do you really
start to create memories and ideas. During those years you don't remember why is it that you don't remember; is it because your long term memory is not developed enough to actually take in and retain what is happening or is it because you are so oblivious to what is happening around you that there are no impressions being made on you that retain what is happening. Such as a child begins talking around 1 and a half or 2, they can tell you what they want what they feel, they cry when hurt and remember not to do something again because of the results they received the first time, but why cant they recall actual events. Such as a 2 year old falls down the stairs and has to get stiches, there is a scar left behind and from that point on the child avoids the stairs because of that incident. When the child is around 5 they ask their parent what happened for me to
get this scar. The child learned a lesson and learned in during a time when they were most impressionable in learning such as learning language but why is that that they cannot remember actual events that occurred during this time but can remember the basics such as words, how to walk, colors and count?
8) Things that came to mind when reading this mostly when talking about ideas what just my son, he is young and learning. Seeing how some of the ideas of learning are done came to mind in little things that I have seen him do as he has grown. Along with the movie inception as well as shutter island, how both of those movies are based off of idea and xperiences.
Without having seen or experienced the event of their lives they would not have been able to build upon them the realities that they created in their minds. "Inception", the mazes and layers of their unconsciousness that they built. In "Shutter Island"
the reality that he created for himself based off of the life he had and the feelings he repressed in order to remain happy, it was the impressions and experiences from the day his family died that drew him into this world where he could ignore the
ill fate that fell upon his family by creating his own reality.
Terms: Galileo, heliocentric theory, geocentric, Descartes, rationalists, sensation, innate ideas, simple ideas, complex
ideas, reflection, impression, resemblance,
Great job with your post. You clearly put a lot of effort into this!
1a) What did you find interesting?
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was mainly his thoughts about perceptions, thresholds, and apperception that sparked my interest. Seeing the distinctions being made between different levels of focus is new, and its also something that I was aware of but have never truly gave conscious thought - kind of like the petite perceptions! I would like to learn more on how to achieve the level of apperception consistently and any pre-existing studies on it.
2a) What did you find interesting?
David Hume's Rules of Association
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The thought of simply "dissecting the human experience" is something that has always been intriguing to me, as I feel that learning how to become the best version of yourself is one of the most important things that you can do in a lifetime, and that examining and re-examining your efforts and actions in life is the best way to achieve that goal.
I enjoyed Hume's breakdown on the acquisition of knowledge, starting with impressions, ideas, contiguity, and then causes and effects. Hume's perspectives seem to go together sequentially, becoming more complex with each successive idea, but at the same time creating clarity about the journey of knowledge.
3a) What did you find interesting?
David Hartley's Physiological Associationism
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was particularly Hartley's views on parallelism, his hypothesis that physical and mental/psychological processes and events had occurred separately yet in relation to each other. While the book goes off to clarify his idea in terms of spatial and temporal contiguities, it seems his attempts from building from Hume's past contributions to the science have created a deeper understanding of knowledge acquisition through the means of association.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Learning about John Stuart Mill
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
While I can see the importance of Mill's work, it seemed very basic relative to modern time. I definitely did not enjoy learning about his life, his wife, and their troubles and contributions to women's right -- not a misogynist but these are very fine details that I could have lived without ever knowing and cant see how they are important to the history and systems of psychology.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Personally, the distinctions between the different intensities of focus, such as apperception and petite perception will come in handy for me the most, and I hope to learn more about them. As I read through these long(?) chapters, I know it is inevitable to run through long paragraphs about boring facts and stories about peoples' live - because I am more interested in learning about their contributions to psychology - and I hope that I can learn a way to achieve apperception consistently in order for me to maintain alertness while reading.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The previous chapter discussed the importance of learning history. It touched base on the arguments and counterarguments of history as an academic topic, and then gave an overview of how history is learned, taught, and digested. This chapter is the first real look at the very beginning of Psychology as a social science. While it doesn't address any specific psychological advancements, it gives an outline on the philosophical contributions that were necessary in order for psychology to come into creation. The chapter discusses the importance and connection between philosophy and psychology and gives insight into the acquisition of knowledge.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Apperception
7b) Why?
I have stated a little about it already, but I want to know more about apperception with the sole means to apply it into my schoolwork and afterwards, my life. I feel like having a majority of my "focusing" time being petite perceptions is a waste, and while I understand the usefulness and necessity of that petite perceptions, I am sure that I can achieve more by being able to achieve apperception consistently.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading through the chapter, I came across a few names that I was familiar with, but had not had any knowledge as to what their contributions to psychology were - or any contributions to be frank. I thought about how much time I had been wasting "attempting" to read the chapter at low levels of focus when I came across the Leibniz section and became curious as to why there is little research on the pineal gland and whether or not it had any importance.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Leibniz, Hume, Mill, Hartley, associationism, pineal gland, apperception, perception, petite perception, impression, ideas, resemblance, contiguity, cause and effect
Q.N.
Nice job with your post. In Q8 you said, I came across a few names that I was familiar with,.." My question would be like which names, and what did you learn from them?
Thanks,
--Dr. M
Testing
http://www.psychologicalscience.com
http://www.psychologicalscience.com/history/2013/08/reading-activity-week-3-due-tuesday-3.html
1a) What did you find interesting?
Descartes’ diagram for the human nervous system (or rather simply reflex action), one that is, while very inaccurate, is relatively close to how our nervous system works. That being how a signal goes from the interaction point, to the brain, and back to the point. It is interesting how he distinguished humans and animals from one another, being that he said that animals are like ‘pure machines’ and humans, while also machines, have a rational mind/soul to help them with their actions.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It’s an interesting find because it’s cool to see that Descartes had an idea of the nervous system, before it was actually called the nervous system, and applied not just only a spiritual explanation, but combined a scientific—being that the ‘animal spirits’ were alluding to some sort of chemical reaction in the brain and between the reaction point.
2a) What did you find interesting?
How John Locke’s beliefs of the brain’s workings would lead him to a parenting style based on praising a child, while young, and having an active role in their education rather than utilizing punishment as a circumstance.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I find this interesting because this seems to be a pre-operant behavior training due to Locke’s proposal of reinforcing good behavior so as to continue the good behavior.
3a) What did you find interesting?
The idea that philosophy and psychology is very closely linked
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It’s interesting because everyone seems to have a different philosophy to live by, and when introduced to a new one, people may interpret it differently—thus different behavior patterns. The question is why they would act differently from one person to another, or more specifically, how one interpretation could heavily affect one’s moral system as opposed to another’s. An example of this would be how Religion can have a multitude of different responses, from radicalistic ideas to more peaceful and encompassing.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The chapter in general. Everyone seems to have been overlapped in some way by a predecessor making them seem unnecessary, or rather stupid for lack of a better word by today’s standards. While it is important to learn where we’ve come from, it still makes for dry reading to already know that most of these concepts are very outdated.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I do feel as though learning of the important figures within psychology’s history is very useful, which is probably why so much of it was included in this chapter and every chapter to come next. This will help us understand the history because it gives us a timeline to understand where we’ve come from and how we’ve grown and improved from it.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Our previous chapter introduced us into the importance of why learning the history of Psychology is important, which bridges us into some of our true founding fathers, or at least some significant ideas that have stayed with us so as to reflect back on. We can now appreciate their work given that we now we know of the importance to do so.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Descartes. His philosophies and proposals on how the body/mind works were interesting. Or rather, Greek philosophy on the topic of psychology in general.
7b) Why?
It’s interesting, and while it is not a concrete science, it is still something that can be applied to psychology and should be acknowledged.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I remember learning something in a previous class about Descartes, more specifically how he would operate on animals and have ‘less empathy’ for their feelings because he imagined them as fake, or rather that they were ‘mechanically’ programed to display emotions. A human however could show genuine emotions due to him/her having a soul.
Good job answering the WHY? part of the questions. In 7b you say it is still something that can be applied to psychology and should be acknowledged." My question to you is how can it be applied?
In #8 You say, "A human however could show genuine emotions due to him/her having a soul." Can other animals that show genuine emotions have a soul too? If I create a machine that displays genuine emotions can we attribute it to have a soul?
Thanks,
PS - You might want to list the terms you used (see Q#9)
Blog: Reading Activity week #3
Nick Cole
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Descartes philosophy vary interesting because mind and soul and body is one of my favorite subjects to learn about and question. I can somewhat agree with his dualist argument. I still question it though, mind cannot function without the body, but sometimes people have questionable perceived experiences where they felt their spirit or the minds interpretation of an out of body spiritual experience. We do not have the technology to make a scientific method to find whether it is ones imagination reacting to such an experience that put them there are they are literally having an out of body experience. I can see why we humans would accept the Cartesian dichotomy but to us other animals are simple just because we do not understand or have the direct ability to communicate with animals. We have no way of understanding an animal’s mind fully, and even if they are simple they can evolve just like us humans have to some degree.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found John Locke interesting because based on most of his ideas is what started the civil war to “found” America. His social contract in Two Treatises on Government, I think is what really stated it because before this the king would not let anyone have the ability to let people do anything about not liking his rules and regulations. Locke put it as the government would agree to govern wisely and protect the common good of its citizens and the citizens would agree to support the government and participate in it.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found John Stuart Mill interesting because I learned about him in philosophy class for his theory of utilitarianism, which the idea of it makes sense to me where good is our pleasure and bad is our pain and the variations of low and high pleasures. His view on our minds was an empiricist view where our knowledge of the world is made from our experiences. He thought our mind was passively accumulating experiences as the elements combine mechanically to form larger wholes. It is our ability to synthesize experiences and see the big picture of our experiences and compare and contrast which experience is similar to each other.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn’t find one topic not interesting. I would say the least interesting one would be geocentric view where the earth is in the center of the universe, which may came from our lack of ability to perceive far places in a different fashion than what we can see or initial perceived gravity from earth. Heliocentric Theory the sun was the center of the universe. I do find it funny that religion in a sense fueled geocentricism with their egocentric mind set.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think innate ideas and derived ideas are most useful because people in the past have innated ideas, like ideas about god and science. Most of our scientist and religious leaders have most of derived ideas from the people in the past that possessed the innate ideas.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter was related to chapter 1 because in chapter 1 it focused on how to look into the past and find truth of what really happened and why it happened in the past. Chapter 2 was about philosophers that usually start by knowing why we think in these fashions in the first place and most of the time in order to do that accurately you have to be knowledgeable about the past.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz views of perceptions. I am learning more about perceptions in my philosophy classes so with Leibniz views of Apperception highest perception and his Petites perceptions below the level of awareness. Thresholds is what I would like to focus mostly one because awareness of our perception fluctuates consistently. I would like to see how one can be more consciously aware of the perceptions.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I would like to learn more about Descartes and his pineal gland experiments. Modern day has learned a lot about the pineal gland. It has the function to produce melatonin which makes us sleepy when the sun is down and lets us have the ability to sleep and produce REM dreams with questionable chemicals like DMTs interaction of serotonin. If these experiments come up true then it gives us the ability to dream and there are a lot of religions that are based upon visions in their dreams, which creates spiritual enlightenment.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Apperception
Petites perceptions
Thresholds
Social contract
Pineal Gland
Geocentric
Heliocentric
Empiricist
Cartesian dichotomy
Innate ideas
Derived ideas
1a) the beginnings of modern philosophy and science
1b) I found this interesting because the whole concept of geocentric and heliocentric really amaze me. Thinking that the earth was in the center of the universe rather than the sun is something people take for granted. Nicolas Copernicus theory was shut down before he passed away. And once he made it public this is when modern science was born.
2a) Locke on Education
2b) I found Locke's four main parts on education very interesting because it is so important to follow. He believes that good outcomes require some degree of suffering. His example with the bed is one that sticks with me through life. He talks about the importance of discipline. "Children learn such habits by doing things repeatedly, not by learning rules.", he states. Locke then goes in to detail about punishment and rewards which are also very important to a child's education.
3a) Descartes argument for a clear separation between mind and body.
3b) This topic interested me for the arguments in which she stated. One that the additional property of movement and extension is in fact that the bodies take up space and move through it. Secondly the mind possesses neither extension nor movement. Separation between the soul and body is something that has always fascinated me.
4a) David Hume
4b) As I was reading along nothing stuck out to me that he did. I didn't find him interesting because nothing grabbed my attention.
5) Throughout this chapter I found that theories are still changing to this day. This will be useful to understand the history of psychology because it is still being challenged and growing. Psychology took a long period of time to get to where it is today.
6) Chapter one mainly described the history of psychology and chapter two really digs deeper in detail about what psychology went through to get to where it is today. It shows to keep challenging and evaluating things to help them grow.
7a) Descartes argument for a clear separation between mind and body.
7b) This is a fascinating topic that I would love to get more information on because her statement about the unextended mind is the human ability to reason, while the body is in essence a machine is unreal. I would also find it interesting to know more about the humans and animals of all this.
8) As I read through this chapter I could relate to many names and vocab from the past. I could really relate to the geocentric and heliocentric from my astronomy class last semester. I thought a lot about how theories are still evolving and changing to this day.
9) locke, hume, descartes, geocentric and heliocentric
1) What did you find interesting?Why was it interesting to you?
David Hume. I have heard of many philosophers in my history and humanities classes, but I have never heard about him till reading this. Particularly, his theory of ideas vs. impressions. It is kind of a complicated idea, but it does make sense. Impressions would be similar to perceiving and object or sensation and an idea is associating meaning to that impression.
2) What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?
John Stuart Mill’s method of agreement and method of difference. I have learned about John Stuart Mill in a philosophy class before (he is one of my favorite philosophers of all time) but I have never heard of these “methods” before. I’ve reread this several times, but my understanding is that it is a very lengthy, complicated way of explaining that correlation does prove causation. But at the end of the paragraph, the author states that in reality, this is not necessarily so and to remember that correlation does not always prove causation.
3) What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?
Descartes ideas on animal spirits. As most of Descartes ideas are, this is incredibly abstract and far-fetched. But without proper medical science during the time, I can see why he could come up with an idea like this. I guess I have to see this as a historicist rather than a presentist.
4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Frankly, I disliked the majority of this chapter. It consisted entirely of content I already knew, or content that was incredibly hard to understand just by reading it. If I had to pick one thing, I would probably pick John Locke’s social contract theory. I have heard of this theory time and time again in history classes, so this wasn’t very interesting to read.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Probably George Berkley’s studies on vision. Many of these philosophers had ideas that would end up eventually being proven false. They formulated ideas about abstract concepts, but Berkley went on to make concrete discoveries about vision. Berkley actually had scientific discovery to back up his ideas, and we still use his findings on convergence and accommodation today.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
As I stated previously, I needed to have the mindset of a historicist and not a presentist, which is discussed in chapter 1.
7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about John Stuart Mill. Frankly, because he is my favorite philosopher and I would love to study him more indepth. I think his ideas on utilitarianism and how the government should be run are facisnating. I thought I had learned about all of his ideas until I read even more of his ideas in this chapter.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
As I said before, I disliked most of this chapter. But I guess even though some of these philosophers ideas were proven to be false, like Descartes weird concept of animal spirits, it is important to learn about their ideas to fully understand that time period. I had never associated philosophy and psychology together before I read this chapter. I can somewhat see why there is a relationship between the two because many of these philosophers had ideas about human thought, and this was all that was known about human thought for many years. However, I still wouldn’t categorize them together myself and don’t feel like I learned anything about “psychology” from reading this chapter.
Descartes. Animal spirits. Ideas. Impressions. John stuart mill. David Hume. John Locke. Social Contract.
The first topic that I found interesting was the section devoted to John Locke. Reading his background was a great read I had no idea he had gone through so many historical events from the English Civil War, execution of one king, the overthrow of another king, fundamental changes within the religious realm, and the Great Fire of London. One of his most well-known contributions was his political philosophy social contract that is between a government and the people. This contact discusses that a government should protect and support its people and in turn the citizens support and participate in it. If the government fails on its end it should expect to be overthrown by their people and replaced with a new one. If the citizens fail they should expect the government to throw them in jail for not paying taxes for example. Locke focused a lot on the study of human knowledge and how it is acquired. He rejected Descartes theory that knowledge and ideas are innate. Locke believed that ideas and knowledge came from experiences or the environment around us and the simple ability to think is what is innate.
The second topic I came across that was interesting was the close up on James Mill raising his son John Mill. The close-up was pretty fascinating to read because at the outset James wanted his son to know as much information as possible. He never let John go to school, and instead taught him at home. The age of some of John’s milestones were amazing, he was learning Greek vocabulary at 3 years old, Latin at 8, and by 10 read a large portion of Greek and Roman classic texts. It was crazy how much control his father had on what John did each day the routine was very strict and left no room for emotions it sounded like. I got the impression that his dad was pretty cold and not nurturing yet he did create a child prodigy. John Stuart Mill became another important contributor to psychology yet he saw himself as a political and economic philosopher. He believed that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. He created a few different methods to apply inductive logic to try to determine causality in science. The Method of Agreement looks for a common element in several instances of an event where as The Method of Difference looks for evidence that the absence of an effect is also in conjunction with the absence of a proposed cause. These two methods of logic underlie the current experimental method used in psychology today. He also came up with the idea of what we know today as the correlational method which attempts to find if changes in X can be associated to predictable changes in Y.
Gottfried Leibniz was the third topic that I found interesting to read about. I was surprised to learn that he was best known as the co-inventor along with Newton of calculus. He was an admirer of Locke but disagreed with Locke on the thought that the mind at birth was a white paper (blank slate). Leibniz instead chose to go with a different metaphor to describe the mind at birth as a block of veined marble. The block of marble can be shaped in many ways but is limited to the number of possible shapes because the marble is veined. The veins symbolize the innate properties that help determine and shape the effects of experience. Gottfried saw the mind and body working parallel to each other. He proposed that awareness was a continuum that incorporates both unconscious and conscious. First he divided awareness into 3 levels, apperception is the highest level of focus on information and fully apprehend it, perception is awareness of something but less sharp than apperception, and petite perceptions are below the level of awareness. The second part of awareness is that of thresholds, which are the points on the continuum of consciousness where one goes from unawareness to awareness.
The least interesting topic in this chapter was the section about George Berkeley and empiricism applied to vision. This topic was pretty dry and boring because it dealt with perception which I find to be an extremely dull topic itself and have a tough time reading about it. I did learn that convergence is when objects move closer to our eyes forcing us to alter the distance between the pupils, and accommodation where changes in the shape of the lens to keep objects focused on the retina.
The most useful part of the chapter in helping to understand the history of psychology would be the debate on whether knowledge and ideas are innate or produced by experiences. Which essentially is another form of the nature versus nurture debate. This topic has been one of the main topics of psychology and in fact is still a major topic of study today with clear empirical evidence on both sides of the plate.
This chapter built upon the previous chapter which talked about the importance of studying history and more specifically why we study the history of psychology. This chapter begins to dive into the history of psychology by first talking about the beginnings of modern philosophy and science with Descartes.
The topic that I would like to learn more about would be John Locke and his political philosophy theories as well as his belief that ideas and knowledge come from experiences and are not innate. I find this very interesting because the debate about nature and nurture is such a prominent and major topic of discussion over the past few hundred years and I would like to see John Locke’s argument and evidence in more detail. I also like politics and would like to read more about his political theories.
While reading this chapter I thought about the major figures in philosophy that this chapter mentions briefly like Plato and Aristotle and what I had remembered about them in my early education. When I read about John Locke I immediately went back to my history courses in middle and high school where his political theories were talked about a lot and I had no idea he was a contributor to psychology as well.
Key Terms: John Locke, Descartes, Innate, Social Contract, James Mill, John Mill, Method of Agreement, Method of Difference, Correlational Method, Awareness Continuum, Gottfried Leibniz, Apperception, Perception, Petite Perceptions, Threshold, George Berkeley, Convergence, Accommodation.
1) I found the British Empiricists Argument and Associations to be interesting. I find that I share a similar thought process with the British Empiricists. I too believe that the knowledge of the world is constructed from our experiences. I think that we are little explorers of our world and in order to gain knowledge, we must experience our world. To further go into the empiricist argument, I found the ideas of sensation and reflection to be very important as well. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to coin these terms as the “originating” factors of all ideas, but since Locke coined them, I think they make sense.
2) John Locke was interesting to me because he was so diverse in his studies. He wasn’t exactly huge into psychology, but he did have two major contributions: his two books. Locke was not in accordance with Descartes (I am not either for the most part). Instead of thinking we have “innate” abilities, Locke believed that without our experiences we would not arrive at conclusions and have knowledge. I agree with this and find it interesting. Descartes said that we have innate ideas; Locke said we are an empty sheet of white paper. Our ideas result from experience and are composed of the sensation and reflection we get from our environment.
3) I think the overall message of this chapter was that psychology has essentially been around for longer than we think. It just wasn’t called psychology, wasn’t done by psychologists, and wasn’t exactly applied in a psychological way. However, it was done in a philosophical way. Philosophy and its famous philosophers were essentially working with the same type of psychology issues, but not from a perspective of a psychologist. This was because psychology was not yet recognized. Philosophers weren’t thinking, researching, or talking about behavior specifically. They were thinking, researching, and talking about knowledge and truths of the world; some of it just so happened to be truths about the human mind and behaviors, which led to their round-about contributions to psychology. Overall, the thinking about what humans are about has been around for much longer than the psychology field and its established psychologist. It’s just been around in a philosophical way. We must give recognition to those philosophers! This is a bit interesting to me because I never thought of psychology being around for so long, but at the same time I do not enjoy philosophy. It was a little tough finding this interesting because philosophy ideas and perceptions are confusing to me.
4) I found one part of the chapter especially useful when trying to understand the history of psychology and it was a quote from Hermann Ebbinghaus. The quotes was is famous line “long past, short history.” This is especially useful when trying to understand the history of psychology because it reminds readers that even though psychology as its own field is a relatively young study, the questions that psychologists wonder about have been asked for years. They just haven’t been asked in the context or established field of “psychology,” per se.
5) Prior to this class I had taken a class on philosophy. I did this ask part of my freshman search on what I want to do with my life. All in one semester, I took a philosophy class, a sociology class, and a different psychology class. I found that these fields are related and similar in ways. Some of the people discussed had contributed to each field and were recognized in each field. This chapter helped tie together the exact tie of psychology and philosophy. I recognized some of the names and concepts, but I now understand how it fits into psychology and philosophy separately and both as one.
6) I would like to learn more about Immanuel Kant because it said that he did not think psychology could ever become a science like all the other physical sciences. He believed that since you couldn’t measure mental phenomena, you couldn’t make it a science. I am just a bit more interested in his ideals and his thoughts. I’m not sure why exactly he made it in this chapter. I understand that he had the same ideals as other philosophers, but from what I read in this chapter, Immanuel Kant didn’t contribute anything.
7) While reading this chapter, I was questioning Rene Descartes. I didn’t quite understand how he dipped into so many beliefs. I didn’t understand some of his thought processes. For example, I didn’t get his rationalist side. If he were a philosopher, how could be also be a rationalist? Don’t philosophers question everything about life and then question it some more? Descartes explained that he would only accept as truth only what could not be doubted. To me, there isn’t many things that cannot be doubted. I assume Descartes didn’t believe much to be true.
8) Rationalist, Rene Descartes, Hermann Ebbinghaus, Empiricist, John Locke, Sensation, Reflection, White Paper, Innate Ideas, Immanuel Kant
1) I thought that John Locke’s ideas were interesting. He rejected Descartes’ theory of innate ideas, which are things that we believe in but haven’t experienced. Locke didn’t think that ideas that are derived from reason could be the same as Descartes’ definition of innate ideas. He also said that some of these innate ideas, such as a god for example, are universal ideas across the world. Instead of having innate ideas, Locke thought that we all start with a blank mind and our thoughts are then shaped by the experiences we have. I thought that all of his ideas about how our mind works were very interesting.
2) I thought that Rene Descartes was very interesting. I thought it was cool that the school he went to thought that he was so smart that he needed special treatment. I also thought it was cool that he was only thirteen at the time that this happened. He wanted to find things out for himself, rather than relying on what other people had found out. I found it interesting that he wanted to learn as much information as he could. I also like how he was around when all of the greatest discoveries were being made by people like Bacon, Galileo, and Newton. I thought it was great that he did a lot of work in science as well as in philosophy. He even tutored the Queen of Sweden at one point in his life.
3) I think that the overall goal of this chapter was to tell us about some of the earliest things that happened in psychology. This chapter told us about the people who had some of the earliest ideas about our minds and how we think. I thought that this chapter was very interesting. I really enjoyed learning about all of the people in the chapter and all of their different ideas. I thought it was interesting that so many people could have different ideas on the same topic.
4) I thought that learning about the beginnings of psychology was very useful in this chapter. Learning about the people who basically started science is a good starting point and will be good to build off of.
5) In the beginning of the chapter, they talked a lot about many of the famous discoveries that were made in early science. I’ve learned about a lot of them before, but it was nice to refresh my memory. The chapter also gave a lot of information about Descartes and his theories, who I didn’t know much about before reading the chapter. I also didn’t know much about John Locke, who was another person that this chapter emphasized. I liked learning about the philosophy parts of the chapter, as I haven’t gone over it much in any other classes.
6) I would like to learn more about other views on where our ideas come from. I thought that the views mentioned in the book were very interesting, and I think it would be good to see some of the more current views on this topic.
7) I didn’t really have any questions.
8) John Locke, innate ideas, white paper, ideas, Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Newton, philosophy
EXTRA CREDIT SUBMISSION.
Chapter 2.
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
What I found the most interesting in chapter two was the opening quote, “Psychology has a long past, yet its history is short”. At first this confused me and I did not fully understand it’s meaning so I read on. This particular quote was spoke by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1908. He pointed out that psychology hasn’t always been around but it has deep, deep root into philosophy. It was around way back when Aristotle and Plato were alive and the renaissance. Psychology as we know it has a shorter history than philosophy which started it all.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Rene Descartes proved to be very interesting. He stood firm in many beliefs. He believed in dualism, that there is a clear distinction between body and mind. He believed in Cartesian dichotomy, which divides animals and humans. He believed animals were incapable of language and reason thus making them lower than humans. For the most part, many people would agree with his beliefs. When I read about the animal spirits and the pineal gland, things got real interesting. He believed that animal spirits came from the heat of blood and were the force behind movement.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I think the overall message of this chapter was to help us recognize where psychology was derived from and how closely it was connected to philosophy for so long. Just like Hermann Ebbinghaus said, “Psychology has a long past, yet its history is short.” I did find this interesting. I did not realize philosophy and psychology were so close together. It’s important to recognize that in the last section of the 19th century, we have studied our human behaviors and processes using the scientific method rather than just philosophical analysis. Philosophy and psychology are not the same!
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
After reading this chapter, I think understanding how close philosophy and psychology are related is key to understanding the history of psychology. These two field are very similar but still have their differences. Psychology differs in the fact it is scientifically and empirically studied.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
In previous classes, we were taught about many of the same people (Rene Descartes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant). But I was never introduced to how it evolved into psychology as we know it today. It was interesting to learn about the transition of philosophy to psychology.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?
Honestly, I find philosophy as a whole very interesting. I took an introduction level philosophy class a couple years ago and it was extremely intriguing. I would love to get the chance to learn more of the philosophical aspects and the important figures that shaped psychology as we know it today.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
After reading the section of Immanuel Kant, it said that Kant believed that psychology could not reach the level of being called a true science because psychological events could not be objectively observed. Was this just true in his time? With all the technology, ideas, and scientific methods we have in this day, would he still think psychology could not be observed objectively?
8) Terminology: Hermann Ebbinghaus, philosophy, Rene Descartes, dualism, Cartesian dichotomy, animal spirits, pineal gland, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Immanuel Kant.
1a)The topic I found most interesting in chapter two were both the empiricist argument and the associationists.
1b)This topic was interesting to me because there were so many different ideas about association and how we learn from is. I also agreed with the empiricist argument that our knowledge of things are constructed by our experiences.
2a)The person I found most interesting was John Stuart Mill.
2b)He has so many contributions to not only psychology but also the other sciences and philosophy. His logic is very interesting in relation to association. He has many different methods explaining how we learn from association.
3a) I think the overall message this chapter was trying to get across was that there are many thoughts, ideas, and sensations that help us learn. The many contributors to these ideas are also very important.
3b) Yes, this was very interesting to me specifically Mill's logic. Each method he has is different, yet they are all ways to learn by association.
4)The thing I read in this chapter that I think will be most useful for me in order to understand the history of psychology was learning about all the British associationists and their empiricist argument. I think that each and every one of these people (John Locke, George Berkeley, John Stuart Mill, and others) have done an excellent job in explaining how we learn by association. I also agree with their empiricist argument that we learn from past experiences. Some say that we study history in order to understand the past, and this is directly related to the empiricist argument.
5)The material in this chapter helped me better understand ways of learning. From taking psychology courses I have learned about how people think, why they think this way, but after reading this chapter and learning how people can learn has opened my eyes to a new subject in psychology.
6a)The topic I would like to learn a lot more about is Descartes and his theories.
6b)He has a lot of great ideas and has contributed to many things. He has helped in psychology, philosophy, and other sciences, and has a great mind. Descartes is one of the greatest thinkers ever known and I would like to learn more about him and his contributions to psychology.
7)If we are studying psychology, why do we need to study about philosophers? Do they really have that great of an impact on psychology specifically? I enjoyed reading about the philosophers though. I am not complaining.
8) John Stuart Mill, George Berkeley, John Locke, Empiricist Argument, Associationism.
1a) I found the topic of psychology having a long past but short history to be interesting.
1b) This was interesting because it revisited the topic from Chapter 1 about psychology's development from philosophy. Psychology has a long past within philosophy, but it has a very short history on its own.
2a) I found John Locke to be interesting.
2b) His thinking on education was interesting. Most of his advice I agreed with to today's standard. For example, he states that children must begin learning at a young age. I agree with this, especially in relationship to learning musical instruments.
3a) The overall message of the chapter was an introduction to concepts of importance in the past and present in psychology.
3b) Parts of this chapter were more interesting to me than others. Some of the sections about specific psychologists became long, dull, and uninteresting.
4) I think the most useful concept in this chapter to the history of psychology is, again, the separation of psychology from philosophy and the newness of the psychology field.
5)This chapter related to the content of Chapter 1 in many aspects. I already mentioned the separation of psychology from philosophy. Another relation is the continued support in Chapter 2 of opposing ideas. When different ideas about a concept exist, it is typically two ideas that are nearly opposites, such as geocentric and heliocentric theories.
6a) I would like to learn more about Descartes' theory of mind-body distinction and the reference to the animal spirits.
6b) I mostly want to know more about this because the way it was explained in the book was hard to follow, and I want to have a better understanding of it.
7) How are impressions and ideas different?
What were Descartes' animal spirits?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
animal spirits, impressions, ideas, Rene Descartes, geocentric, heliocentric, John Locke
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the body and mind distinction to be interesting and the different ways that these early individuals saw the actions of humans.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Knowing a little bit about innate functions of humans from birth, like reflexes from babies to suck or grip things made me wonder why the innate ideas of a nativist and rationalist were attacked by empiricists. The empiricist view of derived ideas and association makes a lot of sense, but I believe in a good blend between the two. I liked reading about Cartesian dichotomy, because it's a question that we still struggle with today. Dualists particularly interested me, but interactionist mechanists who believed in a central point of the brain for activity had me confused until I realized that that would have been advanced for their time. I still thought it was pretty cool that they kept the name of the pineal gland though.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found John Locke to be an interesting character.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
John Locke was one of the first empiricists mentioned, and he had a lot of interesting ideas that helped him shape his perceptions. I thought atomism was a good attempt at understanding problems in the time. It is what we to this day use to help our children understand the world, and it works pretty well fundamentally. I get why it is critiqued but I am confused as to why people throw out ideas instead of building upon them. I like his ideas of primary and secondary qualities even though they were later attacked in the reading. I liked the theory of the attack as well, that perception belonged to the beholder, but I wonder if that truly makes more sense than standard qualities.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The message of the chapter really sought to inform us of the trials that went into early understandings of the mind while still allowing us to realize the difficulties of their specific time period that hindered their ability to come to conclusions that we have had.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I am interested in the older ways of understanding the mind, because they came to intelligent conclusions that were able to be improved upon. They had genuine desire to understand the mind and body connection, and even if they didn't want to be wrong or receive criticism, it still lead to the ability of others to make further connections that added to the understanding. The works of some of these philosophers intrigued others who would then go on to further their work. It's really inspiring.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Reading about materialism of the day helped me to realize what barriers they had to leap over to come to the conclusions that they had or to even begin thinking the way these philosophers did.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
I have learned that theories from the past weren't as accurate as other classes made them out to be. This holds a sort of humbling effect for me.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about materialism and determinism.
6b) Why?
These two structures affected society at the times of these philosophers probably to similar effects of today's society. However today's society excepts science and reason more aptly. I would still like to know what drives materialism and determinism and how that affects progress of psychologists and society in general back then and today so that I can get a feel for how to prevent it in myself and others.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
Why can't psychologists be happy to improve their ideas and to have others improve on their ideas, instead of attacking and banishing others ideas.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Nativist, dualist, reflex, interactionist, mechanist, empiricist, derived ideas, innate ideas, association, Cartesian dichotomy, pineal gland, atomism, primary qualities, secondary qualities, materialism, determinism
1a) I found the topic of Epistemology to be interesting.
1b) I found this interesting because I did not realize that this field of research had a name. Figuring out how we acquire knowledge is just something that is very fascinating to me and that’s why I found this topic to be interesting.
2a) I personally found John Locke to be the most interesting person in this chapter.
2b) I found him to be interesting because of his theories and beliefs about education. Many of his beliefs on how we obtain knowledge and how we learn best are still considered to be valid and are used today still. He really emphasized the study of empiricism and how we obtain knowledge.
3a) I thought the overall message of this chapter was that there are many philosophical issues that have been around for a very long time and are still talked about a lot today.
3b) Yes it was interesting to me because it was good to understand how some of these issues came around and that they aren’t just issues that people nowadays are thinking about. They are philosophical issues that people have been debating for a long time.
4) The thing I read about that I think will be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology will be Rene Descartes and when modern philosophy and science began. It’s helpful to know when modern philosophy and science concepts started being used so that we know the circumstances of the time when they started. Because that’s one of the most important things about understanding history.
5) The way that this chapter builds upon material I've learned in other classes is that it gives me a good understanding of the general fields of philosophy, psychology and science. There weren't really specific topics in this chapter that I had learned about before, but it gave me a good base to build upon in the future.
6a) Leibniz and his views on innate properties of the mind, is one topic from this chapter that I would like to learn more about. As well as his “monadology” theory.
6b) I understood his theory behind the innate properties of the mind and I just want a better explanation of how he came to the conclusion that he did. His “monadology” theory on the other, I found to be very interesting I just found it to be very confusing. I tend to understand things better if an actual person is explaining it to me Trying to figure it out by only reading just made it hard for me to completely comprehend.
7) How did Leibniz come up with idea of Monads, and how did he get the name? Why is the difference between method of agreement and method of difference important?
8) Terminology: Descartes, Locke, empiricism , monadology.
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic that I found most interesting was the whole premise of Cartesian system. Descartes was a rationalist according to his time, he believed that there were four basic rules to arrive at the truth. Descartes believed that that when we can arrive at an extension or an innate idea. He believed that these innate ideas included the idea of god, the self and some basic mathematical beliefs. When a concept comes from our experiences, he called this derived ideas. Because of his beliefs about innate ideas people argue that he was not only a rationalist but a nativist. Desecrates also argued for a separation of mind and body, which would make him a dualist.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The reason this is interesting is because it talks about these concepts that were ahead of its time, that this Cartesian dichotomy divides humans and animals. That people believed in the separation between mind and body. Yet, in todays world we know that humans are mammals and the mind controls a lot of the body.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
The person I found most interesting of course was Descartes, he had such an influence impact on so many genres, he is known in philosophy, psychology, phisogoloy. He was a rationalist, dualist, nativist he was not focused on just one concept. He knew what he believed in and pursued it.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
The reason being is because, this is not the first time I have heard of him. He has been mentioned in other classes outside of psychology, I would say that he has definitely come full circle.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The overall meaning of the chapter, is discussing on how most ideas came about. How eventually science would not be a lot philosophy, it would become its own field. Same with this ideology of the mind, how psychology originally came to be.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
It was interesting in the since, to understand how people back then thought about themselves and how they perceived the world around them.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful, information is knowing were psychology was based out of. How eventually people started doing research and over time it became more systematic. It really shows the roots of the huge field.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
Most classes have talked a little about Descartes and how he was very beneficial but nothing too in depth. This chapter pretty much filled in all the gaps, about him and other known philosophers.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to know about Descartes last publications , “The passions of the soul”. Has it been saved through out time, is it sold in stores?
6b) Why?
The reason being is that is was his last publication before his death in it he talks about, how we respond to stimuli, how we came to this idea of reflex.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter, I was wondering how so many people throughout time, can make all these predictions but in most cases don’t truly see them come into life after their dead. How desecrates was such an influence person ahead of his time.
8) Terminology: Descartes, rationalist, innate idea, derived ideas, nativist, dualist, Cartesian dichotomy, mechanist, interactionist, reflex, Cartesian system
1a) I found reflex and mind body interaction interesting to read about
1b) This was interesting to me because I have always enjoyed reflexes and reading why they happen. Having different glands, like the pineal gland, on our body make us do different things and feel different things when certain glands are put into action. Descartes ideas seem to be right on then and most of his ideas still hold true today.
2a) I found Rene Descartes interesting while reading this chapter
2b) I thought he was interesting because his scholastic education helped him come up with many different contributions to psychology. He was into the body and mind and I really liked how he could come up with so many different reasonings to why we do what we do with innate and derived ideas.
3a) I think the overall message of this chapter is to tell us how certain ideas and contributions have helped in the way we see modern psychology.
3b) I did find this interesting. I like how the chapter had a major topic but had many different ideas to back it up. It was not about one main person or idea but many different things that made it up.
4) I think reading about the different people and ideas that were developed during this time is going to help me learn more about the history of psychology. Reading about their hardships and challenges they faced has helped me realize that if psychologists know this information then they can avoid the same challenges other’s had in the past which will make them get to their desired finding faster.
5) This chapter has helped me learn more about Rene Descartes. Descartes has always been an important name when learning about psychology but I never really caught on to what he did. This chapter helped me realize he did a lot of things and contributed a lot of ideas to the world of psychology.
6a) I would like to learn more about David Hartley
6b) I’d like to learn more about him because of his idea of contiguity. I want to know more about how his idea has impacted the world and why it is important enough for people to acknowledge.
7) While reading this chapter I kept asking myself how people come up with ideas to answer their questions. It is really cool to me how people can answer all these questions as one person because they are curious.
8) Terms: Rene Descartes, David Hartley, contiguity, psychology, innate ideas, derived ideas, reflex and mind body interaction, pineal gland, scholastic education, reflexes