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TAMU PSYC 340 - Philosophical Precedents
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PSYC 340 1st Edition Lecture 3 Historical Precedents What you missed last class… (01.27.15)I. Learning is the acquisition of information through “experience” II. Learning and memory go hand-in-hand III. Both learning and memory do not have to be conscious IV. Learning is a kind of neural plasticity changeV. Common criteria for learning A. Depends on a form of neural plasticity B. Depends on the organism’s experiences C. Has a lasting effect on performance VI. Forms of explanation A. Efficient – environmental conditions B. Formal – creating a modelC. Material – neurobiological processes D. Final – why?VII. HistoryA. Plato – nativism B. Aristotle – empiricismC. Descartes – dualism Philosophical Histories of Learning (cont.) These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.I. Descartes (1588-1679)A. DualismB. Sometimes credited with discovering the reflex 1. In a world dominated by Church doctrine (all of your behavior is willed) 2. Descartes realized some of what we do is machine-like and is reflexive in nature 3. Patella reflex (hitting the knee) – doesn’t require a brain C. Implication of his dualistic position 1. Governed by two kinds of entitiesa. The physical world/matter and body - extended substances i. Physical in nature; body abides by physical laws b. Soul – unextended substance c. Free and nonphysical; not governed by physical laws; can’t predict what it does d. Good thing he said this! Otherwise the Church would not have been very happy with him! 2. Gave rise to reflexology a. Studied by people like Sechenov, and then later Pavlov II. Materialists (e.g., Julien de la Mattrrie, 1748)A. They began to argue that the mind is also an extended substance 1. Able to predict – isn’t this the point of psychology? a. Psychology assumes the mind is physical in nature2. Argued that our mind may also be a machineB. Suggests we can derive the [mathematical] laws of the mind in the same way that we can govern the body with laws 1. Why is this good? a. Verbal theories are loose, while mathematical rules are testable b. The predictions will become unambiguous; science! C. From Descartes to Materialism, we took away free will D. Lloyd Morgan’s canon 1. “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise ofa higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.”a. Always go for the simpler b. Reflex when touching a stove – is it that you smelled the burning, felt the pain, thought about it, or pulled away? Or is there a reflex in your spinal cord that makes you pull away automatically? III. British Empiricism A. John Locke (1632-1704/0 1. All knowledge is acquired – extreme empiricist2. “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: - How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and Knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it derives itself.”3. Built up through the association of ideas 4. Assumed that basic sensations and a way to glue them together [associative learning] were innate B. Associationists 1. Associative learning is considered the most influential concept in psychology2. Principles of association a. David Hartley (1705-1757) i. Contiguitya.Closeness in space and timeii. Repetition a.The more times you experience the events together, the stronger the bond b. James Mill (1773-1836) i. Vividness (salience) a.How noticeable the stimulus isc. James Stuart Mill (1806-1873)i. Mental chemistrya.Emergent properties – not readily predicted based on the elements themselves; only seen when elements are compounded together From Philosophy to Psychology I. Problems with the armchair approach II. Structuralism A. Edward Titchener (1867-1927) 1. Schooled by the British Empiricists/Associationists a. Believed that associative learning was the underlying portion of the mind b. Believed he could create a science for how the mind is put together: systematic introspectionB. Systematic introspection1. Take apart the mind and figure out how the parts are put together – would derive the wiring of the mind 2. Ask people to describe a tomato…III. Problems with systematic introspection A. Did not work; why did it die? – consciously impossible B. “What you are trying to study is not publically verifiable” – not a science C. What is presented from the conscious is the whole, but since we do not have conscious access with that, we cannot consciously deconstruct the


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TAMU PSYC 340 - Philosophical Precedents

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