Summary History of psychology/Summary History of Psychology at the University of Groningen
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Course
Geschiedenis van de psychologie (PSBA126)
Institution
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen (RuG)
Book
Pioneers of Psychology
An extensive summary of all the key terms with their description/explanation of book chapters 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,15,16 of the book Pioneers of psychology. This was the required literature for the course History of Psychology / Geschiedenis van de psychologie at the RUG.
Summary history of psychology (tilburg university)
Samenvatting Pioneers of Psychology - Geschiedenis van de Psychologie
Book and lecture summary for Intro to Psychology and History of Psychology
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Geschiedenis van de psychologie
Chapter 2
Pioneering Philosophers of Mind: Descartes, Locke, and Leibniz
René Descartes and the mind-body distinction
René Descartes (1596-1650):
a French philosopher and mathematician who promoted an interactive dualism between the material
body and the immaterial mind or soul. Going beyond Aristotle, he proposed mechanistic explanations
for most bodily functions, but insisted that the highest functions of rationality, consciousness, free will,
and self awareness were nonmechanistic attributes of a rational soul, with a store of innate ideas.
Laying the foundation for the modern distinction between body and mind led to the question of the
extent to which mechanistic analysis can explain higher psychological processes.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642):
an Italian astronomer, natural philosopher, and physicist who discovered the moons of Jupiter,
analyzed living bodies in terms of their physical characteristics, and promoted a theory of primary and
secondary qualities similar to Descartes’s theory of simple natures, around the same time.
analytic geometry:
a mathematical discipline pioneered by Descartes combining algebra with geometry, in which shapes
and the positions of moving objects are represented numerically by their relationships to coordinates
on a graph.
simple natures:
according to Descartes, the only two properties of physical phenomena that cannot be analyzed or
doubted: extension (the space occupied by a physical particle or body) and motion (the movement of
an extended particle or body throughout space); similar to primary qualities.
primary qualities:
1) for Galileo, the primary qualities residing inherently in matter were shape, quantity, and motion.
2) for Locke, they were solidity, extension, figure, and mobility, which constitute the fundamental units
for constructing a true picture of the world.
secondary qualities:
as formulated by Galileo and Locke, the conscious sensations (such as light, sound, and touch) that
occur after the primary qualities of an external object impact on the sensory organs.
animal spirits:
Descartes’s term for the clear yellowish liquid that fills the brain’s ventricles; known today as
cerebrospinal fluid.
reflex:
a sequence in which a specific stimulus from the external world (heat from the fire) automatically
elicits a specific (involuntary neurophysiological) response (pulling away).
Discourse on Method:
Descartes’s autobiographical account of the origins of his philosophy.
innate ideas:
Descartes’s conception of a group of ideas (such as perfection, infinity, and unity) that exists in the
rational human mind or soul prior to any empirical experience.
interactive dualism:
Descartes’s idea that the body and mind not only are different and separate, but they interact with
each other, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes antagonistically.
Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (1618-1680)
,pineal gland:
a small cone-shaped structure near the center of the brain that Descartes believed was the main
location of mind-body interactions.
passions:
Descartes’s term for the conscious awareness of emotions.
John Locke and the empiricist tradition
John Locke (1632-1704):
an English philosopher and contemporary of Leibniz who theorized that the human mind was like a
tabula rasa (blank slate) at birth and that the vast majority of human knowledge comes through
experience, a position known as empiricism. He was a founder of the movement known as British
associationism.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:
Locke’s major work outlining his empiricist theory of how knowledge is acquired.
New Essays on Human Understanding:
Leibniz’s most extensive response to Locke, arguing for greater appreciation of innate capacities of
the mind.
Robert Boyle (1627-1691):
a seventeenth-century advocate of the new experimental approach to science who strongly influenced
Locke, established the Royal Society of London, and conducted a famous experiment demonstrating
what came to be known as Boyle’s law (=the volume of a gas varies inversely with the pressure upon
it).
Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621-1683):
a powerful English politician who became the patron, friend, and chief supporter of Locke; in later life
he was named the first Earl of Shaftesbury.
Locke proposed there were just two kinds of experiences the mind has: sensations of objects in the
external world, and reflections of the mind’s own operations.
simple ideas:
Locke’s term for the most basic ideas established in early life, recording the most basic sensations
and reflections.
complex ideas:
Locke’s term for ideas produced when simple ideas are combined by the mind.
William Molyneux (1656-1696):
an Irish scientist whose question whether a congenitally blind person, suddenly granted vision, would
immediately be able to distinguish a cube from a sphere only by sight, stimulated Locke.
intuitive knowledge:
Locke’s term for knowledge that is immediately and obviously true, such as that black is different from
white.
demonstrative knowledge:
Locke’s term for certainly true but not immediately obvious knowledge obtained by stepwise logical
deduction based on more obvious but also certainly true fundamentals, such as geometric axioms.
sensitive knowledge:
Locke’s term for knowledge based on the associations of ideas from sensations of the empirical world;
it is the least certain kind of knowledge because it depends on the particular patterns of sensory
experiences a person happens to have, which may be random or misleading.
association of ideas:
Locke’s term for the linking together, or combining, of ideas such that the thought of one tends
automatically to bring another to mind.
,law of association by contiguity:
the notion that ideas that are experienced either simultaneously or closely together in time will
become associatively linked.
law of association by similarity:
the notion that ideas having similar properties will become associatively linked.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):
an English philosopher who promoted the notion of the social contract and the idea that human
reasoning is a form of mathematical-like calculation.
social contract:
a theory proposed by Hobbes and modified by Locke and others, to the effect that human society was
created when individuals voluntarily came together in groups and submitted to a centralized authority
for purposes of mutual protection.
Lady Damaris Cuudworth Masham (1659-1708):
an accomplished philosophical and theological scholar who was a friend of Locke’s and hosted him as
a paying guest at the estate in England during his last years. She also corresponded with other
leading philosophers, including Leibniz.
Gottfried Leibniz and continental nativism
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716):
a German philosopher and contemporary of Locke who proposed a system for understanding the
world as being composed of dynamic entities called monads. He differed from Locke in likening the
human mind not to a blank slate at birth, but rather a veined slab of marble predisposed to be
sculpted into some shapes more than others. His invention of binary arithmetic and promotion of the
idea that logical processes can be performed by a calculating machine were both formative influences
on the development of computers.
binary arithmetic:
the representation of all numbers by ones and zeroes only; first proposed by Leibniz, it later became
the basis of modern digital computing.
infinitesimal calculus:
a form of mathematics created by Leibniz and Newton that works by conceptualizing any continuously
varying quantity as an infinite series of imperceptibly changing instants or infinitesimals.
Benedict Spinoza (1632-1677):
a Dutch philosopher who promoted a view known today as pantheism, the idea that God is not an
independent being that controls the universe, but rather that God is the entire universe; he had an
unacknowledged influence on Leibniz.
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723):
a Dutch lens grinder who developed the modern microscope and influenced Leibniz’s theory of the
cosmos by showing him microorganisms swimming in pond water.
Sophie the Countess Palatine (1630-1714):
Sophie Charlotte (1668-1705):
monads:
Leibniz’s concept of the ultimate units making up the universe; dynamic entities characterized by
purposiveness and the ability to perceive and register impressions of their environments; classified
hierarchically according to their qualities and functions as:
- bare monads: the lowest and most numerous class of monads, with minimal capacity for
awareness; when clustered together, they form the bodies of all matter.
, - sentient monads: entities higher than bare monads but lower than rational monads, and
comprising the souls of living organisms with the capacity for ordinary perception.
- rational monads: entities higher than bare or sentient monads, having the capacity for
apperception and self-awareness, corresponding to the conscious souls or minds of human
beings.
- supreme monad: the highest and ultimately unknowable supreme entity equated with God,
whose purposes, perceptions, and awareness controlled and contained everything in the
universe.
apperception:
1) for Leibniz, a process higher than simple perception and made possible by necessary truths in the
mind, in which an idea is subject to focused attention and rational analysis accompanied by self-
awareness.
necessary truths:
Leibniz’s term for innate human mental capacities, such as the ability to appreciate geometric axioms
and the rules of logic as well as to engage in self-reflection and apperception.
minute perceptions:
the lowest level of awareness in Leibniz’s continuum of consciousness, characteristic of bare monads;
the basis of his early postulation of unconscious mental processes.
British associationism:
a school of mental philosophy based in Great Britain that built upon Locke’s empiricism and
emphasized the associations among empirically originating ideas.
George Berkeley (1685-1753):
an Irish bishop who applied Locke’s associationistic principles to the systematic analysis of visual
depth perception, arguing that it is a learned capability.
David Hartley (1705-1757):
a British physician who attempted to integrate associationism with neurophysiology by arguing that
specific “ideas” are caused by minute vibrations in specific locations of the brain and nerves.
James Mill (1773-1836):
a British philosopher who was a proponent of empiricism and associationism.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873):
the son of James Mill; a British philosopher and political theorist who claimed that the most important
individual differences among people arise from associationistic and empiricist principles, rather than
from innate factors.
Chapter 3
Physiologists of Mind: Brain Scientists from Gall to Penfield
Franz Josef Gall: brain anatomist and phrenologist
Franz Josef Gall (1758-1828):
a German physician who demonstrated the general importance of the brain for all higher human
functions, while also originating the popular nineteenth-century movement known as phrenology.
Thomas Willis (1621-1675):
a British scientist who studied brain anatomy in unprecedented detail and made the fundamental
differentiation between gray matter and white matter; published the first accurate Anatomy of the
Brain in 1664. -> Willis observed that brain tissue was not undifferentiated, as Aristotle had thought; it
consisted of two kinds of substances: a pulpy gray matter occupying the outer surface of the brain,
the inner part of the spinal cord, and several discrete centers within the brain; and a fibrous white
matter in the interior regions of the brain.
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