History of Psychology Workgroup Notes - Psychology Bachelor 1, University of Leiden 2018/19

English

Week 1

Introductory excersises

1. Take the statement “I am my brain”. Would Descartes agree with this statement and why (not)?
2. How do the views of empiricism and rationalism relate to thoe nature/nurture problem?
3. Describe the fundamental difference between the medieval and the mechanicist outlook on knowledge.
4. Consider the statement “true knowledge comes from introspection”. Would Francis Bacon agree with this stament? Why (not)?
5. Consider the relationship between biology and psychology. Describe how a greedy reductionist and a sensible reductionist see this relationship differently.
6. Describe how Descartes’ view on knowledge relates to that of Plato.
7. Consider the research program of Buikhuisen and the protests against it. Do these fit into the cognition/emotion, mind/body, or the nature/nurture problem. Describe how.
8. Consider materialism and dualism. Do these provide different perspectives on the cognition/emotion, mind/body, or the nature/nurture problem? Describe these different perspectives.
9. Consider Damasio’s work (inspired by the tragic case study of Phineas Gage). Does this work inform the cognition/emotion, mind/body, or nature/nurture problem? Describe how.
10. Describe the two things Hobbes’ considered to be the source of our behaviors.

Answers (keep in mind, these answers can be formulated differently and still be correct)

1. Descartes would disagree with the statement “I am my brain” due to his dualism. He argued that a human being is divided into two entities: the material body and the immaterial soul. While he ascribes even complex behavior to the body, he says thought is only due to the soul. Therefore, his popular statement “I think, therefore I am” shows that he reckons a human exists due to his thoughts/ his soul and not his brain as it's part of the material body.
2. Empiricists believe that knowledge is gained through the outside world and sensory input. Everything we know, we have learned from the world around us. This means that they are on the nurture spectrum of the debate and believe that we are raised into certain behaviour. Rationalists stand on the nature side. They believe that there is innate knowledge that we have from the moment we are born, and that some behaviour is simply in our nature.
3. The medieval outlook on knowledge was on giving answers why things in earth and heaven move and happen. It was based on the belief that everything is about the earth and the earth is the centre.The mechanistic was in contrast with that belief, and they explained not why but how things happen, and they proved that the sun is the centre and not earth.
4. Bacon would disagree, because otherwise he would be a rationalist. Conversely, Bacon is an empiricist. He thinks that certain knowledge can only come from experience. According to him, observations result in knowledge only if they were done with the method of induction - systematically, and presented in an organized fashion. Introspection would mean looking into one's self and thus would imply he would believe there was innate knowledge. Therefore, he would disagree.
5. Reductionism is the belief that every complex mechanism is built up out of many simpler systems. A greedy reductionist might say that psychology is simply a whole lot of biology and thus is an inferior practice, while a more sensible reductionist might say that in order to understand psychology, one must also understand a lot of biology.
6. As a rationalist Descartes believed that our knowledge came from our ability to reason, from the mind and not from experiences which derives from what Plato believed, that knowledge was innate because our souls dwelled in the realm of ideas before being casted into our bodies. Therefore, our experiences in life remind us of ideas that we already have in our minds. Which makes his view an example of rationalism.
7. The nature/ nurture problem. The Buikhuisen program wanted to study the biological basis (hormones etc) of criminal behavior which would imply that criminal behavior is innate/ hereditary (nature) whereas the protests felt that criminal behavior was due to societal factors or lack of education (nurture).
8. These are different perspectives for the mind/body problem. Dualism believes mind and body are separate substances but cannot provide a proper answer as to how the mind controls the body. Materialism says that both mind and body are made of matter and stand in cooperation with each other.
9. This work mostly informas the cognition/emotion problem. Because of the study, it was proven that certain areas in the brain influence parts that make us human, such as empathy, kindness and love, all characteristics that make as unique as a person. Because of this, the conclusion was gained that emotions are what make humans different from other animals.
10. Pain and pleasure, or rather, aversion/appetite. We tend to do what we like and avoid our dislikes.

Thought experiments week 1

These situations are given to provide food for thought. The best way to go about these is to collect a group of at least two or more people and discuss the problem that is posed. What is the text implying? What philisophical/psychological problem is related to it or what problem can you form? Have debate about definitions and conclusions. If you were to change something, what result would that have?

1.  Mary lives her entire life in a room devoid of colour—she has never directly experienced colour in her entire life, though she is capable of it. Through black-and-white books and other media, she is educated on neuroscience to the point where she becomes an expert on the subject. Mary learns everything there is to know about the perception of colour in the brain, as well as the physical facts about how light works in order to create the different colour wavelengths. It can be said that Mary is aware of all physical facts about colour and colour perception. After Mary’s studies on colour perception in the brain are complete, she exits the room and experiences, for the very first time, direct colour perception. She sees the colour red for the very first time, and learns something new about it — namely, what red looks like. - Frank Jackson (1982)
2. The accident left David with a very unusual form of brain damage. If you scratched, pricked, or kicked him, he felt no pain. But if he saw a lot of yellow, tasted oak, heard an opera singer hit a high C, made an unintentional pun, or had one of several other apparently random experiences, then he would feel pain, sometimes quite acutely. Not only that, but he did not find the sensation of this pain at all unpleasant. He didn't deliberately seek out pain, but he did not make any efforts to avoid it either. This meant that he did not manifest his pain in the usual ways, such as crying out or writhing. The only physical signs of David being in pain were all forms of involuntary spasm: his shoulders would shrug, eyebrows lower and rise in quick succession, or his elbows flap out, making him look like a chicken. David's neurologist, however, was deeply sceptical. He could see that David no longer felt pain as he had before, but whatever David was now feeling when he saw "too much yellow," it couldn't be pain. Pain was by definition an unpleasant thing that people tried to avoid. Perhaps his brain damage had made him forget what the sensation of real pain felt like. - David Lewis (1980)

Week 2

Introductory exercises

1. “There are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”. Does this fit more with romanticism, or with the enlightenment? Why?
2. Explain how “a mind in the Matrix” is similar to “a mind according to Berkeley”.
3. When we first observe a new kind of object, and by seeing this or other objects like it, we learn to recognize it by its features. Which of the primary association laws is most important here? 
4. Provide two examples of Hume’s scepticism.
5. Provide a short example of each of the three secondary association laws in action.

Answers

1. The statement fits more with romanticism. In romanticism, knowledge comes through imagination and intuition and it has a mysterious and spirited worldview. It tries to offer people what they're missing in the world through art and religion, but not with the purpose to reason everything and concentrate on what we logically know such as in enlightenment, but rather with the goal of focusing on using your imagination to create your ideal and subjective world.
2. The mind in the Matrix is like virtual reality in which computers can make the mind perceive something as real by providing the proper stimulations/ electrical impulses to the brain. It is similar to Berkeley's idea because the mind is not perceiving these things on it’s own but through the help of someone/ something else, which in Berkley’s case is God.
3. The law of similarity because ideas/objects that are similar in shape, size, etc will be easily associated with each other.
4. Hume believed that the  idea of substance wasn’t real. We don’t actually know anything, we just know based off of what we perceive. In addition, everything that we think we know are just effects of custom. We know that lightning comes after thunder because we have experienced that, and thus we assume that thunder causes lightning, but we do not actually know that. Thus, there isn’t a true causality that determines an event, we only have a perception of an event we called the cause and one we call the effect.
5. The three secondary association laws are association by recency, frequency and intensity and determinate the strength of an association. A person's association is influenced by how recent or long ago an event happened (recency). If, for example, you burned your hands on the oven  yesterday, you will be wary today, but if it happened a month ago, this association has weakened. Two things that happen together often are associated more strongly than if they do so seldomly (Frequency). If you get sore muscles after every workout, you will associate the soreness with exercising. If it happens just once, you may not associate it at all.The strength of an association is also influenced by the intensity of either one or both of the entities associated. A big fire is more intense than a small candle and therefore will lead to a stronger association with heat and brightness and you'll remember it better and longer.

Thought experiment

1. Otto and Inga are both travelling to a museum simultaneously. Otto has Alzheimer's disease, and has written all of his directions down in a notebook to serve the function of his memory. Inga is able to recall the internal directions within her memory. In a traditional sense, Inga can be thought to have had a belief as to the location of the museum before consulting her memory. In the same manner, Otto can be said to have held a belief of the location of the museum before consulting his notebook. Can this notebook be considered equal to Inga's mind?

Week 3

This week consisted of writing an essay on this particular topic:

Descartes argued that some ideas are innate, which means that they are independent of specific sensory experiences, and that knowledge can only derive from the thinking soul itself. Locke concluded that everything we come to know arises through our experience and that the human mind at birth may be likened to a blank slate (tabula rasa). Write an essay detailing your own perspective on this question, tying your essay into the perspectives and arguments of Descartes and Locke.

This essay should not be any ordinary essay, but sometihng called a 'short essay'. In other words, you should be able to fit it only a single a4 page in handwriting. This essay should not contain more than 500 words. Here are some tips for writing a short essay:

1​st paragraph: Your introduction.

Formulate briefly ​what you are going to argue and how you want to do so. State your main point clearly in the very first sentence. After that, state exactly what you are going to argue and in which order. “In this essay I will... First, I will outline ... Next, I will show that ... Finally, I will argue that...”

2​nd paragraph: Your statement.

Explain the point  you will either be critiquing or defending. Explain it ​in ​your own words, don't copy! “... argument proceeds as follows...” This paragraph can be your shortest

3​rd paragraph: Make your argument.

Don't skip any steps in your line of argument, make it clear to follow without any loopholes or gaps. If you argue something, always provide explanation. “However, I think that... Because... And that is why...”

4​th paragraph: Negation.

Think of a possible counterargument and refute it. ​You must always give the reader a reason why this particular objection against your argument is wrong. Remember: a simple negation of a position is not an objection to it.

Week 4

The final week of the History of Psychology workgroup consisted of a debate on one of the following topics.

1. The human mind is not merely a physical entity
2. An idea can only be true if it is proven empirically
3. Words are inadequate to describe all of human experience

Although you might not have a group present to debate with, think for each topic of three pro and con arguments and try to refute them. Even though for certain topics, one side may be easier than the other, try to broaden your mind and attempt to come up with arguments.

GOOD LUCK ON THE EXAMS