Download
1 / 29
290 likes | 308 Views
Explore the societal shifts and intellectual debates in 5th Century BC Athens leading to relativism, skepticism, and idealism in psychology and philosophy.
E N D
History of Psychology 2007 Lecture 3 Professor Gerald C. Cupchik Office:S634 Email: cupchik@utsc.utoronto.ca Office Hours: Wednesdays 1-2 pm Thursdays 12-1 pm T.A: Michelle Hilscher Office: S150 Email: hilscher@utsc.utoronto.ca Office Hours: Thursdays 11-12; 3-4 pm Course Website: www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~cupchik Textbook: Benjafield, J. History of Psychology. Oxford University Press Midterm: October 25, 2007
Origins of Relativism Mid 5th Century BC people wearied of conflicting metaphysical systems seeking to explain the origin and nature of the universe. Skepticism about the human ability to obtain such knowledge was reinforced by doubts about the reliability of sense perception. Athens - major disasters 1. Plague of 430 BC killed off 1/3 of the population 2. Destruction of navy & large army at Syracuse in 413 BC 3. Final defeat in 404 BC in a war with Sparta The Athenian empire was lost and farm lands were laid to waste. Recovery involved a new capitalist class, bank loans, usury, mortgage, slavery for debt, factories manned by slave labour. Ensuing 4th Century was an era of political chaos: Sparta, Thebes and Macedonia struggled for supremacy in Greece.
The self-made wealthy person, lacking in civic intelligence and virtues became the typical figure who was active in politics. There was a revolt against science by practically oriented men. They asked: How do you know that things are true? Even if they are, what does it matter to us? Application of skepticism to religion and moral teaching of youth aroused hostility among the older generation, leading to book burning, imprisonment and exile of philosophers and artists.
Intellectuals turned to morals and ethics seeking grounds for the authority of customs and laws. Note that colonial expansion led to contact with foreign peoples and the realization that there were many kinds of institutions, religions, customs and so on in the surrounding world. This led to the development of a relativist attitude towards social forms and moral laws and this replaced the view that laws were “natural” and divinely inspired. Philosophers became interested in social questions concerning the relationship between individuals and society, origins of institutions, relative potency of nature and nurture. We have a developing philosophy of civilization with man (probably literally) as the main focus of interest instead of the philosophy of nature.
Sophists did not seek knowledge for its own sake but for practical reasons. Their concern was how to make good citizens who were happy, successful and efficient. This is like Dewey’s notion of “psychology of adjustment”. It can also be related to Piaget and Kohlberg with their ideas about moral development and the construction of social values. Sophists restore the individual and assert his rights. The diminishing interest in religion makes possible the view of man as a self-determining agent. They were critical of unbridled speculation and addressed two questions: How do you know? AND What do you mean? Cease to speculate when statements cannot be checked by experience.
For Socrates: Say what you have to say clearly and produce supporting reasons. So they stressed verifiability and clarity. SCIENCE WITHOUT SPECULATION IS STERILE. SPECULATION WITHOUT METHODOLOGICAL SOPHISTICATION IS ABORTIVE. PREOCCUPATION WITH METHODOLOGY DRIES UP THE IMAGINATION.
Protagoras (500-410 BC) - Founder of sensationalism & relativism - Relates to the distinction between appearance and reality. - While appearances are familiar, they may be deceptive. We are never certain of the truth. Relativism concerns the contingency of knowledge, experience and values. Basic Propositions: 1. For every subject, opposing statements are possible. 2. Man is the measure of all things. Of things that are and of things that are not. 3. Man causes the good.
Perception is an interaction of two constantly changing systems involving people and the external world. An individual’s perception will vary with his level of organization (a process theory of mind). Social behaviour is not inborn but must be acquired by instruction from the social environment, parents, teachers, fellow citizens (like learning one’s own language). The social environment administers punishment for errors, not by way of vengeance but as a training device. This is a novel idea compared with the traditional religious doctrine of expiation.
Plato and the Doctrine of Idealism Plato (427-347 BC) He offered a combination of mysticism and absolutism to counter the Sophists and to furnish a theoretical justification for a totalitarian political organization which would cure the social ills of the 4th century BC. He was born a well-to-do aristocrat in times when political disaster and social corruption would be attributed to democratic government. He was a student of Socrates and later of Pythagoras. His school…the Academy… was founded in 387 BC in a garden near Athens and lasted for 9 centuries until the death of the Emperor Justinian in 529 AD.
Plato opposed the Ionian views and was closer to an Orphic-Pythagorian viewpoint. 1. The individual soul has three parts.. i. Cognition/thinking - Rational or thinking soul is in the head, is immortal and divine. ii. Volition/motivation - Located in the chest and is related to courage (mortal) iii. Affection/drive - Located in the belly and relates to sensuous desires (mortal) Different kinds of individual characters and political states result from the predominance of one or the other. In the ideal case, “justice” (moira) keeps them in balance.
2. Plato’s “theory of ideas”… the concept idea means model, ideal form, archetype. Source of the doctrine was the mystical Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine of a body as the “prison” from which the soul may escape at death and return to its divine home in heaven. It was also affected by the Parmenidean-Heraclitean dilemma: REALITY IS ETERNAL UNCHANGING VERSUS REALITY IS CEASELESS CHANGE The world of matter and sensory experience (Heraclitus says) is in perpetual flux. Plato felt it therefore could not be a source of true knowledge. So the real and permanent world is the world of thought in which resides the only realities, the forms which are accessible only to the soul. The bodily sense is a hindrance to the acquisition of true wisdom.
Forms are all possible abstractions and verbal generalizations. An idea exists when we give the same name to many separate things. Every noun designates an idea. This idea comes from Pythagoras… there are many circles but the form of a circle exists apart from all particular circles. He applied this model both to aesthetics and ethics: ideal beauty and good… So the world of forms is changeless, eternal and perfect. The world of sense impression - the particularities of individual experience is imperfect, an evanescent copy of the ideal world which can be comprehended only by thought. For Plato, the soul brings with it from the realm of pure being where it existed before incarnation, an innate knowledge of the forms. Reason, the immediate apprehension of these a priori ideas, is the only source of true knowledge.
The copies of the forms furnished by sensation, though imperfect and unreliable, may arouse memories of the forms which are in the soul. Education is therefore the process of recovering latent memories. This is the origin of the notion of innate ideas (associated with Descartes) and rejected by British philosophers in the Empiricist tradition (Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume). The forms play a role in his teleology. They are ideal patterns, the ends or aims towards which all cosmic and human processes tend. They are “final causes” which determine the “becoming” or development of things. The universe was created after the pattern of the world of forms by an anthropocentric being in a rational manner like a wise man with good reasons for his actions. Those who are wise enough can figure out the reasons and arrive at a “rational” explanation of the world.
Plato rejected the approach of the Ionian physicists and described the creation of the universe in terms of mathematical proportions and geometric figures. The Naturalists were disliked (1) due to the absence of teleological explanation and (2) no value judgments. This is a real issue for scientists who analyze but might lose sight of “true” causes and implications. In a sense, he rejected natural science - True knowledge can only be attained through rational thought aided by divine inspiration and intuition. Sense perception gives only opinions and probabilities.
Summary: Plato’s Major Contributions Distinction between “particulars” and “universals” has become in modern times the distinction between “proper names” or “nouns” and “character” or “property” words. What began as mysticism ended up as linguistic analysis. The interior world of concepts is independent of and more permanent and “real” than the world of sense experience. There are ethical implications as well which have a transcendental quality. Life on earth and corporeal things are evil and worthless… evil as a disease of the soul that can be cured by punishment. He saw the rule of supermen…philosopher kings… So a totalitarian government of elite rules over the lower classes (4/5th of the population). The lower class majority is naturally inferior and motivated by gross appetites, whereas the elite ruling class is “rational” and “courageous”. Problems for Science: 1. He could not understand the “scientific method” that did not start as a postulate. 2. He burdened science with teleology and speculation.
Plato and Idealistic Doctrine - Idealism emphasizes reason and the mental. - By clear thinking man can discern reality behind appearances. - Science is thus a discovery of forms or ideas that are part of the essential structure of reality. - They stress consistency of thinking. - Reason may be disorganized by irrational forces. - Related to doctrine of the faculties: rational-irrational, higher-lower - For the idealist, the test of truth is not the brute fact of observation but the subtle distinction that survives the scrutiny of reason. - Nature can be revealed only when it is thought about. - The particular event can illustrate a principle which reason can grasp without observation.
Main Points of Idealism 1. Man is to be understood as in essence nonmaterial. He has commerce with the material world, but he is not part of it. The reductive procedure of the materialist is rejected. 2. Man possesses certain unique faculties that differentiate him from all non-living things, possibly from animals… he is a rational being. 3. Understanding must be based on the logical analysis of his experience. Idealistic psychology - rigorously deductive system using tests of logical consistency rather than that of correspondence with observation.
Aristotle Born in Asia Minor - 384 BC to 322 BC. Father was a physician to the grandfather of Alexander the Great. He was a student of Plato’s from age 17 for 20 years at the Academy in Athens until Plato’s death. Aristotle, one of the great philosophers, is important to psychology because of (1) his theories and (2) his acute observations of general facts. For his teacher, Plato, soul was a distinct entity and comes into the body at birth. For Aristotle, mind was a way of responding, a function rather than a thing. He distinguishes 3 levels of complexity in human functioning, each with a different soul. 1. The lowest involves nutritive functions - plant soul 2. Appetitive functions - animal soul 3. Rational/thinking functions - human or rational soul
The rational soul is one with the body organically but can determine the course of thought or action. Soul was the form. Body was the matter and they need each other. He emphasized induction as a method. Aristotle believed in the virtues of observation, classification and definition. He objected to Plato’s notion of a world of essences existing apart from the world as it appears to us. Essences were inseparable from the material in which they were embodied. Essence - the completed form that a thing will attain. It is part of a discovery process. You cannot simply sit down and discover it. You have to observe the thing and sort out the essential from the accidental qualities. For example, we can distinguish between man’s rationality and the colour of his hair.
So each class of event has its characteristic way of behaving. For example: “Why do objects fall or smoke rise?” Because it is part of their essence to seek their place in the earth or in heaven. “Why do men make laws?” Because it is part of their essence to be rational. There is a logical problem here because this is the paradigm for circular reasoning. Qualitative distinctions were for him irreducible. He wanted to substitute the logic of classification from Pythagorean mathematics. Quality not quantity was the basic category of reality. But classification explanation lacks causal assumptions. What produced the quality and why is the quality there?
The problem emerges from Aristotle’s view of the universe as a collection of natural kinds all unwinding toward their appointed ends. This was later replaced by Galileo with functional dependencies of variables. Knowledge for Plato was only the reawakening of ideas contained in the soul before birth. For Aristotle, sensation forms the real material of knowledge. Sensations are aroused by something in the object, which acts upon a medium and this communicates information to the sense organs. There is a metaphysical aspect here. Each object, like man, has both form and matter. The “form” or “essence” can leave the matter of the object in an immaterial way and come through the senses to the pure form of this body and be perceived. So a pure essence in the object appeals to a pure form of our body, which is the mind.
There is an intermediate stage of knowing between the single sense and the soul– it is the common sense. Its seat is in the heart and its function is to coordinate the contribution of the different senses. If a gap is present in the material offered to the senses or there is a contradiction between the senses....the common sense fills in the gap and it also perceives properties that can be supplied by no single sense: motion, rest, form, number, magnitude. Then active reason completes the interpretation.
Aristotle assigned more important function to sensation and the body in general than did Plato. Aristotle knew more about physiology but he assigned the soul to the wrong organ (the heart) and Plato assigned it to the brain. Aristotle thought the brain was a gland for the secretion of tears and its only function in connection with the mind was to cool the animal spirits when they became too warm in strong emotion. Animal spirits are derived from the blood. They circulate through the arteries and are a source of sensation and means of directing movement. The animal spirits or “pneuma” are a medium of communication between the senses and the heart, the centre of consciousness and a medium through which the soul in the heart transmits impulses to the muscles and tendons to produce movement.
Aristotle also had something to say about emotion… emphasizing pleasure and pain in connection with sensation. Pleasure comes from free activity and pain when this activity is checked. Emotion results from a mixture of these two qualities. Desire comes from a felt lacking of something or pain since this awakens at once the thought of the satisfaction of the deficiency or removal of the pain. This leads to action. Emotion and action are under the control of the intellect but some emotions arise from a disturbance of the body and cannot be controlled by the intellect. Dreams also reflect the same absence of control. So reason sets goals and also controls specific directions of the animal spirits as they pass through the heart and muscles. Finally, it bears noting that Aristotle paved the way for a theory of memory based on principles of similarity, opposition, and contiguity.
While both Plato and Aristotle see knowledge as an interaction of reason and sensation: Plato saw sensation as arousing innate ideas already in the soul (mind). Aristotle saw real knowledge as coming from the sense - experience was more important for Aristotle but not to the exclusion of reason. Plato encouraged the rational-deductive method. Aristotle paved the way with his emphasis on observation for induction as the basis for knowledge. This is essentially Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage.
Note on Aristotle’s Doctrine of Teleology: The Teleological Principle holds that the understanding of man is to be sought in the implicit purpose which gradually reveals itself in his development. We must discover the inherent purpose of each structure. These principles reveal themselves through the observation of particulars. These principles can be formulated only through reason. Consider this in relation to Darwin’s theory of evolution and humanist ideas about the unfolding of implicit talents and understanding in the person.
Note on Aristotle’s Doctrine of Teleology: The Teleological Principle holds that the understanding of man is to be sought in the implicit purpose which gradually reveals itself in his development. We must discover the inherent purpose of each structure. These principles reveal themselves through the observation of particulars. These principles can be formulated only through reason. Consider this in relation to Darwin’s theory of evolution and humanist ideas about the unfolding of implicit talents and understanding in the person.
After Aristotle, naturalistic psychology gradually disappeared from the scene. The centre of learning shifted from Athens to Alexandria but psychology was not pursued. It gave way to a kind of practical and ethical anthropology and later to a form of spiritistic theology. There were cultural and social reasons for this. In Alexandria, a doctrine of inwardness and subjectivity prevailed over an objective appreciation of psychological activities. The intellectual systematization of the 4th century BC reflected the unified Periclean Age. The cultural conditions which supported Plato and Aristotle gave way to a new human condition - Hellenism. The intellectual achievements of the Greeks were changed, diluted and eventually transformed by the campaigns, conquests and political manoeuvring of Alexander and his successors.
With one war after another, conditions discouraged an independent and unbiased search for scientific meaning, and turned thinkers toward mythology and superstition. The decline of Hellenistic culture took place over a period of three centuries. The ensuing period is deeply involved in the search for religious meaning. Some Christian thinkers, like St. Paul, were affected by Platonic ideas. But these ages of physical turmoil left little room for an intellectual interest of any kind.
