This is a summary of 2.3 History and Methods of Psychology. Some of the literature might differ as this is based on literature used during covid and online tutorials. I added a few tables to summarise the main points which really helped me for the exam, I hope this helps you too!
- Who are these philosophers & what are their theories? -> how they define knowledge/truth
- What do they say about knowledge & the mind?
- What are the differences between the different views?
Reading 1: Leahey (2017):
-> PLATO (p. 51-62) – (Rationalist + Idealist + Nativist + Dualist + metaphysical realist)
• Student of Socrates (focussed on idea of the “good”)
o Plato => pursuit of justice (in the state & in the individual) -> his view later makes its
way into Christianity
• WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?
o He created the field of epistemology (= study of knowledge)
Later gave rise to cognitive psychology
o Points out that what seems true today may be overturned tomorrow
o Truth = permanent & knowable with certainty
• Wrestling with scepticism:
o A belief is True only IF it is true in all times/places
(Wanted to know what justice or beauty is other than acts/beautiful things)
o Knowledge has to be rationally justifiable
Need to be bale to explain your judgement & convince others they are correct
through arguments
o -> Sense perception doesn’t lead to knowledge (≠ empiricism)
How people perceive the world is personal
• Mathematics & the theory of the Forms:
o Belief transcendental (= supernatural/religious) Truth exists
o Math with Pythagoreans:
Truth = inward path of logical reasoning about ideas (> perception)
-> Pythagorean Theorem => provable – logical argument in support
o Forms = general term encompassing many things in that theme
E.g. every courageous act resembles the Form of Courage
≠ What you would typically think of beauty
• You -> individual differences on what we find pretty (culture)
• Plato -> things are pretty if they resemble the Form of beauty
o Beauty is a property one possesses
o If cultures differ on opinions of this -> 1 has to be wrong
Greek word used similar to “idea” (!!! Did not mean idea but Form)
-> Truth is not physical (consists of Forms)
• Imagining the Forms:
o Used metaphors to describe Forms (“child of Goodness”)
The Sun, the Line, the Cave (in the Republic) + the Ladder of Love (Symposium)
o The Simile of the SUN: Illumination by the good: (sun = form of good)
The Form of Good (in intelligible world) = Sun (in physical world)
1
, Reason has power to grasp the Form (need Form of Good to reason)
• Like eye has the power to see (need light from sun to see – ‘3rd thing’)
o The Metaphor of the LINE: The Hierarchy of Opinion & Knowledge:
Bottom = world of appearance ->
perception/beliefs without truth
Top = Forms -> world of knowledge
• Bottom to top = lowest to highest forms
of knowledge
Math = rests on assumptions that cannot be
Object
proven (= imperfect) s
• Not all knowledge concerns math
Form of the Good = greatest Form
o The Allegory of the CAVE: The Prison of Culture:
People chained can only look at back wall of cave
Messengers carry statues/objects in front of fire so prisoners can see the
reflection on the walls
• Shadows = prisoner’s only reality
When one is released he would feel distress at first – then joy
• No one would believe him if he came back to explain his journey
=> Cave represents the human body/culture (beliefs)
• Each soul is imprisoned in an imperfect body
• Like prisoner did with looking over the shadows, we need to look over
our ordinary world into the world of Forms
= Learning the truth (through philosophy/education) will free us
= Difficulty/dangers of this path
• ‘Most people don’t want to be free’
-> Link to Christ & Christianity
o The LADDER OF LOVE: Being Drawn to the Good: (type of learning)
The love of beauty -> easiest path to the Forms
Athenian men had sexist view of women – only ones allowed in the
symposium were the most expensive prostitutes
• Diotima
• Homosexual relations surfaced from separation of men & women
(platonic – only sexual)
• Teacher-student sexual relations
st
1 step – but must be abandoned for love of wisdom
• (1) Intellectual (soul) > (2) physical (body)
• “Truth is beauty & beauty is truth”
In the Republic => focus on education (regulate music, texts)
• Only elite are selected for higher academic achievement
• Learning as remembering: knowledge is within us:
o Idea of reincarnation (souls have seen the Forms in heaven)
Some spend more time in heaven = see Forms for longer (higher)
Others less time (e.g. come back as farmers)
o Knowledge is in us – need right stimuli to recollect it
-> Living = process of recollecting to consciousness what we already know
2
,• MOTIVATION: WHY WE ACT AS WE DO?
o Believed happiness = virtue BUT wrong deeds ≠ ignorance alone
o Citizens divided into 3 classes + each have 3 forms of soul:
Class membership is determined by which soul rules each member
1. The rational soul = highest + immortal
• In the head
• (The chariot driver)
2. The spirited soul = can feel shame & guilt (≠ 3)
• In the chest – quest for glory
• (The White controlled horse – soldiers)
3. The desiring soul = irrational wants
• In the belly & genitals – desire of hunger, lust, money (like animals)
• Mainly think of self
• (The ugly horse that needs demands – slaves)
-> Probably based off of Hinduism (had 4 rulers similarly separated)
• (2 + 3) = want stuff irrationally
o Said this was the productive class (e.g. merchant) but they do
know how to calculate/make stuff
o They must have some measure of reasoning
Metaphor of two horses (pretty one is 1 & ugly one that needs commands is 2)
o Bad behaviour ≠ only ignorance
-> Insufficient mastery of the rational soul
o Reason ≠ irrational passion
= More than a calculator -> motive of it’s own (= justice)
(a) Reason – (b) motivation & emotion
• Most favour (like Plato) a > b
• ≠ Hume (reason is slave to passion/emotion)
Freud -> rational ego – struggling to master the horse of the id
o Homunculus (“little man”) problem -> who is the rational soul within the charioteer
(chariot driver)
The charioteer = a little man of reason in our head
• Does he have a little man in his head too?
-> Unexplained (Plato’s mistake)
• CONCLUSION: PLATO’S SPIRITUAL VISION:
o Link to religion
Christianity -> Forms (heaven)
Hinduism + Buddhism -> Ladder of Love
o (Socrates -> enjoy current life – don’t focus on afterlife)
o Elitist => reserved education for wise ruling class (Guardians)
Study of philosophy only for mature (over 30 years)
o For long time after -> philosophical thought = abstract – no active experimental
inquiry
o “Life was something to escape, not embrace and improve”
Don’t apply Truth directly to it
o Republic = his ideal state
3
, -> ARISTOTLE (p. 62-71) – (Empiricist + Rationalist + Nativist + Determinist + perceptual realist) (!!!
NOT a dualist)
• Student of Plato – more scientific/empirical approach
o Biologist + 1st truly systematic philosopher
o Tutored Alexander (king’s son)
o ≠ Plato (shared his thoughts in an unorganized manner)
A = practical/down to earth – clear scientific writing
“Nature philosopher” (old term for scientist) -> looks into physical world >
idealistic view of Plato
• PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE:
• The four fashions of explanation:
o Focus on understanding what a thing is
o Form vs matter
Matter has to me joined/mixed to be knowable (e.g. object)
• ≠ Today’s view of separate particles
Form of Plato -> without heavenly feature = form
• What makes a thing what it is – what we recognize it by
E.g. of a statue:
• Matter = what it is made of (bronze)
• Form = makes the statue what it is in its essence (represent a goddess)
• -> In perception = the mind sees form of object (not matter)
(≠ Plato) A -> there is no 1 perfect Form of a Cat
o 3 causes of form:
Essential cause = form defines what something is
Efficient cause = how things are made
Final cause = purpose for which a thing exists
o Science ≠ modern science
Experimentation = unnatural (distort natural setting > revealing them)
Conception of causation ->
• Causes = natural behaviour of things given their essence
o (Not one thing leading to another – it’s just natural)
o E.g. heavy object fall cause it’s in its’ nature – not gravity
• Every event has a natural purpose behind it
• Potentiality & actuality:
o Everything in the universe has potentiality (ability to become anything) + actuality (it
is what it is – can’t change) – (creative replacement of DNA?)
o EXCEPT =>
Pure matter (= pure potentiality ≠ actuality) (e.g. atoms)
Unmoved mover (God in Christianity) – (pure actuality)
• Moves by being desired ≠ actuality of its own
Hierarchy of natural scale/Great Chain of Being:
• Actualization is the goal – the more something is actualized, the closer
it is to the unmoved mover
o Saw purpose everywhere in nature (e.g. tomato seed grows into tomato – it will
never turn into an apple tree) – predetermined
4
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