Thought Human Behavior Could Be Explained the Same Way

British Empiricism

Thomas Hobbes – (1588 – 1679) Influenced by Galileo and thought matter and motion was all the universe was composed of so it might be true for people as well.

---mechanistic view

---thought human behavior could be explained the same way.

---Hobbes’s materialism – no ideas ..there is only matter and motion. ….no world of ideas…no nonmaterial mind…..physical monist

--Empiricist – Sensation is the only source of knowledge

--Determinist – believed all behavior is the result of outside forces acting on a person.

Psychological phenomena

– Attention – as long as sense organs retain the motion caused by external objects they cannot respond to others.

--Imagination – explained by the fact that sense impressions decay over time…..when sense impression has decayed over a long period of time it is called memory

--Motivation – sensations affect not only our sense organs, but also vital functions of the body…those that help vital functions are pleasurable and those that hinder vital functions are painful…..we seek pleasure to enhance vital functions and avoid pain that hinder vital functions……hedonism

Complex Thought – events that are experienced together are remembered together….foundation of British Empiricism

Empiricist – believed that all knowledge was derived from sensory experience

John Locke (1632-1704)

---interested in examining our ability to understand ourselves as a basis for understanding other fields of science

---looking into the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge

No Innate Ideas ---Locke attacked rationalism….if there were innate ideas why don’t retarded or derelicts have ideas.

Primary and Secondary Qualities – thought ideas come from sense impressions……..empiricism

--sensations are simple ideas….what senses tell you

--Solidity, substance, figure, mobility are primary sense qualities…….color, sound and taste are examples of secondary sense qualities

….secondary qualities don’t really exist in the objects themselves.

….he established that the objective nature of the cause (stimulus) and the subjective character of the effect in consciousness (experience) are separate.

Simple and Complex Ideas

Ideas arising from sensations are supplemented by reflections (operation of the mind)

Ideas of sensations and ideas of reflections make up all mental activity.

….simple ideas are received passively from senses, but mind can actively make ideas by putting them together in combinations

…..complex ideas are derived from combinations of simple ideas of sensation and simple ideas of reflections.

Feelings – pain and pleasure are simple ideas accompanying both sensation and reflection…..pleasure and pain, are defined by the ideas one has….

Association of Ideas – Locke looked at the nature of habit and association…..abstract ideas come about through the repetition of joining simple ideas.

Habits can be changed through reflection, practice, and application ……can change the agreeableness or disagreeableness of things.

Influence—profound – organized the higher mental processes into a field of psychology that was broader than anything before

……set the limits of psychology that was still speculative, subjective, and dualistic, but that could be separated more completely from philosophy

…denied existence of innate ideas but said simple ideas arise form experience and complex ideas are composed of simple ideas (this is what convinced many others of the validity and worth of empiricism….separated senses from the final deduction made from the senses!)

….Important to Act psychology because they separate mental acts or functions and mental content.

George Berkeley (1685-1753) –took Locke’s arguments farther. Said we only experience secondary qualities not primary. Said all we perceive is based on subjective experience

…….cannot know reality b/c knowledge is based on an interpretation

……shouldn’t try to study reality….impossible….put a halt to science

---only secondary qualities exist……there is no objective reality, and we only live in a world of ideas …no interaction with the empirical world as Locke said, but instead, Berkely said all things come into existence when they are perceived and therefore reality consists of perceptions and nothing more.