Renaissance (1300’s-1600’s) Begins 1350

• Church adopts some Aristotelian principles• Begins in Florence under the Medici family• Rebirth of European art, science, literature,

music• Power of the church challenged• 1450’s – Guttenberg printing press invented

A Prototypical “Renaissance Man” Da Vinci (b. 1452)

• Painter, scientist, inventor• Machine gun• Adjustable monkey wrench• Machine for cutting screws• Studies of motion and weight• Magnetism and acoustics• Art• Studies of anatomy

Renaissance Science

• Copernicus (b. 1473)– (his book remained on the “index” for 200 years)

• Bruno (b. 1548)– (burned at stake)

• Galileo (b. 1564)– (house arrest)

Galileo and Psychology

• Mechanical world inhabited by mechanical people obeying mechanical laws

• “Secondary qualities” (colors, sounds, tastes) exist only within the consciousness of the perceiving person

• Kepler (b. 1571)– Proposed "critical hypotheses" as a means for

testing assumptions

• Newton (b. 1642)• Arguments between Newton and Leibniz

about who discovered calculus

Sir Francis Bacon (b. 1561)

• Goal was to reorganize the approach to scientific study

• Emphasized observation through experience

Novum Organum (A New Instrument, 1620)

• Scientists should eliminate preconceived notions of the world

• Study people and environment by using detailed and controlled observation

• Science should be primarily inductive

• If enough scientists repeat an observation, this represents a compelling argument for the validity of the finding

• Observations have no value if made carelessly and casually

• "Idols" - preconceived notions (biases) that contaminate reasoning

Rene Descartes (b. 1596)

• Formulated analytic geometry & Cartesian coordinate spaces

• "Cogito, ergo, sum"• Emphasized reasoning,

rationalistic, intuitive, deductive process

Cartesian Dualism

• There are mechanical and spiritual levels of the universe, and they interact in the pineal gland

• Study of bodily processes belonged to physiology; study of mind belonged to psychology

Contributions to Psychology

• Ideas are innate (nature position)• "Derived ideas" may come about through experience• “Memory trace" of animal spirits• Studied lens of eye and ocular reflexes; described

reflexes• Learned reactions are those where the response

becomes associated with the stimulus• Animals cannot feel pain, because they have no mind

Von Leibniz (b. 1646)

• Differential calculus• Everything can be

divided up into smaller parts called monads

• Different levels of "monads" at different levels of consciousness

• Developed computing machines

POST-RENAISSANCE

Mental Passivity Movement

• Beginning of transition from philosophy to psychology– British Empiricism– British Associationism – French Empiricism

British Empiricists (late 1500's to mid 1700's)

• Emphasized knowledge through experience• Used everyday experiences to obtain

principles from which rationally deduced systems were derived

Thomas Hobbes (b. 1588)

• "The Leviathan" (1651)• Said the Church should

submit to the monarchs• Critics said he caused

the Great Fire of London and the Plague because he was a HERETIC!

Hobbes on Psychology

• All knowledge derived through sensation• Knowledge can be deduced from experience• Thought is an epiphenomenon• "Imagination" is a "decaying sense"• Imagination and memory are names for the

same thing• An "association" of sensations formed an

“idea”

John Locke (b. 1632)

• "There is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses"

• Individual abilities determined by the environment, not heredity

• The mind at birth is a "tabula rasa," a blank slate

• The mind is passive

Two Operations of the Mind

• Association • Reflection

• Described principles behind conditioned taste aversion

• Systematic desensitization used for a frog phobia?

• Locke's Psychology is empiricism

George Berkeley (b. 1685)

• "Essay towards a new theory of vision"

• Perceptions of distance and objects are mental constructs

• 3 cues to distance perception:– Interposition– Relative size– Convergence

• "Esse est percipi" - "To be is to be perceived"• An objects' reality depends on the mind that

perceives it• e.g., The tree in the forest makes no sound

without a mind to hear it• Empirical approach to obtaining knowledge

David Hume (b. 1711)

• Mind defined as the sensations, perceptions, ideas, emotions, and desires of a person at any one time

• 3 principles that guide the association of ideas:• 1. Resemblance• 2. Contiguity in time or place• 3. Causality• A “habit” is formed when objects or events are

conjoined over a long period of time• Habit determines how inferences are drawn from

experiences

British Associationists

• Emphasis on the physiological processes underlying the mind

David Hartley (b. 1705)

• ALL human activity was a result of mechanisms of association

• Associations formed by the contiguity of events strengthened through repetition

Established a Physiological Basis for Psychology

• Fiber connections of the brain comprise all mental operations

• 1. Nerves are solid tubes set into motion by external stimuli

• 2. Nerves transmit vibrations throughout the body• 3. Vibrations stimulate the brain to produce

vibratiuncles• 4. Vibratiuncles are the physical basis of thought• Some say Hartley was the first physiological

psychologist

John Stuart Mill (b. 1806)

• Contiguity and similarity produce associations

• Intensity of an association is determined by the frequency of its presentation

• Mill said that psychology would never be able to evolve laws to predict human activity (!)

• “On The Subjection of Women”• “A Crisis in my Mental History: One Stage

Onward”

Alexander Bain (b. 1818)

• Emphasized correlation of physiological processes with psychological

• HOWEVER, said that spontaneous activity may arise in the nervous system

• First philosophical journal devoted to psychology (Mind, 1876)

• Some say HE’s the first psychologist or the first physiological psychologist

• Coined the term “Trial and Error Learning”• Wrote 1st Psych textbook in English (1855)

French Empiricists

de Condillac (b. 1715)

• Mind is a receptor for sensory experience and a receptacle for memories

• Mind = Senses• This is mechanistic

empiricism• Study of animals useful

in understanding humans

La Mettrie (b. 1709)

• Psychology is ultimately physiology

• The overriding motivational principle for human behavior was the seeking of pleasure

• No moral good, no free will, no rational soul

3 Themes in "Man, a Machine"

• Direct relationship between physiology and mental states

• Animals have varying capacities to learn• (Thought that training could convert an ape into "a

perfect little person“)• Man and animals both subject to laws of morality

Cabanis (b. 1757)

• A central "ego" of the brain acts as the integrator and synthesizer of sensory input

• Varying levels of consciousness, including unconscious and semiconscious processes

• Mental events ARE brain processes• Interesting research on

guillotines……………………….

de Biran (b. 1766)

• "I will, therefore I am."• Psychology is the

science of the immediate data of consciousness

• Objective observation of the self through individual experience